The Prisoner in His Palace

The Prisoner in His Palace PDF Author: Will Bardenwerper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501117858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, this haunting, insightful, and surprisingly intimate portrait of Saddam Hussein provides “a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power” (USA TODAY). The “captivating” (Military Times) The Prisoner in His Palace invites us to take a journey with twelve young American soldiers in the summer of 2006. Shortly after being deployed to Iraq, they learn their assignment: guarding Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution. Living alongside, and caring for, their “high value detainee and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions—about the judicial process, Saddam’s character, and the morality of modern war. Although the young soldiers’ increasingly intimate conversations with the once-feared dictator never lead them to doubt his responsibility for unspeakable crimes, the men do discover surprising new layers to his psyche that run counter to the media’s portrayal of him. Woven from firsthand accounts provided by many of the American guards, government officials, interrogators, scholars, spies, lawyers, family members, and victims, The Prisoner in His Palace shows two Saddams coexisting in one person: the defiant tyrant who uses torture and murder as tools, and a shrewd but contemplative prisoner who exhibits surprising affection, dignity, and courage in the face of looming death. In this thought-provoking narrative, Saddam, known as the “man without a conscience,” gets many of those around him to examine theirs. “A singular study exhibiting both military duty and human compassion” (Kirkus Reviews), The Prisoner in His Palace grants us “a behind-the-scenes look at history that’s nearly impossible to put down…a mesmerizing glimpse into the final moments of a brutal tyrant’s life” (BookPage).

The Prisoner in His Palace

The Prisoner in His Palace PDF Author: Will Bardenwerper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501117858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
In the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, this haunting, insightful, and surprisingly intimate portrait of Saddam Hussein provides “a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power” (USA TODAY). The “captivating” (Military Times) The Prisoner in His Palace invites us to take a journey with twelve young American soldiers in the summer of 2006. Shortly after being deployed to Iraq, they learn their assignment: guarding Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution. Living alongside, and caring for, their “high value detainee and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions—about the judicial process, Saddam’s character, and the morality of modern war. Although the young soldiers’ increasingly intimate conversations with the once-feared dictator never lead them to doubt his responsibility for unspeakable crimes, the men do discover surprising new layers to his psyche that run counter to the media’s portrayal of him. Woven from firsthand accounts provided by many of the American guards, government officials, interrogators, scholars, spies, lawyers, family members, and victims, The Prisoner in His Palace shows two Saddams coexisting in one person: the defiant tyrant who uses torture and murder as tools, and a shrewd but contemplative prisoner who exhibits surprising affection, dignity, and courage in the face of looming death. In this thought-provoking narrative, Saddam, known as the “man without a conscience,” gets many of those around him to examine theirs. “A singular study exhibiting both military duty and human compassion” (Kirkus Reviews), The Prisoner in His Palace grants us “a behind-the-scenes look at history that’s nearly impossible to put down…a mesmerizing glimpse into the final moments of a brutal tyrant’s life” (BookPage).

The Prisoner in His Palace

The Prisoner in His Palace PDF Author: Will Bardenwerper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501117831
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Documents the story of twelve young American soldiers deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2006 who were assigned to guard Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution, a responsibility that raised life-changing questions about their beliefs and Hussein's character.

The Prisoner in His Palace

The Prisoner in His Palace PDF Author: Will Bardenwerper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471153851
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The Prisoner in His Palace is an evocative and thought-provoking account of how the lives of twelve young American soldiers deployed to Iraq are upended when they’re asked to guard the most ‘high-value detainee’ of all, the notorious dictator Saddam Hussein. What the self-dubbed ‘Super Twelve’ experience in the autumn of 2006 is cognitive dissonance at its most extreme. Expecting to engage with the enemy ‘outside the wire’, they’re suddenly tasked with guarding and protecting a notorious dictator until he can be hanged. Watching over Saddam in a former palace the soldiers dub ‘The Rock’ and regularly transporting their prisoner to his raucous trial, they gradually begin to question some of their firmest beliefs. Rather than the snarling beast they expect, Saddam proves confoundingly complex – voluble, charming and given to surprising displays of affection. Perhaps most shockingly, in his Spartan stoicism and the courage he shows in facing death he eventually becomes a role model. Employing a timeline that switches between present and past, The Prisoner in His Palace contrasts the man entrusted to the Super Twelve’s care – a grandfatherly figure who proves ‘good company’ – with a younger version of Saddam who is unspeakably ruthless, views murder and torture as legitimate tools and constantly keeps those around him in a blind panic. The magic of this book is that Bardenwerper keeps us on edge even though we know how it will end. We immediately sense that the Super Twelve will be forever changed by their experience, and we wonder if we ourselves will. In this artfully constructed narrative, Saddam, the ‘man without a conscience’, manages to get everyone around him to examine theirs.

Debriefing the President

Debriefing the President PDF Author: John Nixon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399575839
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Debriefing the President presents an astounding, candid portrait of one of our era’s most notorious strongmen. John Nixon, the first man to conduct a prolonged interrogation of Hussein after his capture, offers expert insight into the history and mind of America’s most enigmatic enemy. In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. At the time, John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator. Called upon to make the official ID, Nixon looked for telltale scars and tribal tattoos and asked Hussein a list of questions only he could answer. The man was indeed Saddam Hussein, but as Nixon learned in the ensuing weeks, both he and America had greatly misunderstood just who Saddam Hussein really was. After years of parsing Hussein’s leadership from afar, Nixon faithfully recounts his debriefing sessions and subsequently strips away the mythology surrounding an equally brutal and complex man. His account is not an apology, but a sobering examination of how preconceived ideas led Washington policymakers—and the Bush White House—astray. Unflinching and unprecedented, Debriefing the President exposes a fundamental misreading of one of the modern world’s most central figures and presents a new narrative that boldly counters the received account.

American Prison

American Prison PDF Author: Shane Bauer
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735223580
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
An enraging, necessary look at the private prison system, and a convincing clarion call for prison reform.” —NPR.org New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018 * One of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2018 * Winner of the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * Winner of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism * Winner of the 2019 RFK Book and Journalism Award * A New York Times Notable Book A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course of our country's history. In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real name; there was no meaningful background check. Four months later, his employment came to an abrupt end. But he had seen enough, and in short order he wrote an exposé about his experiences that won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the magazine Mother Jones. Still, there was much more that he needed to say. In American Prison, Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the Civil War. For, as he soon realized, we can't understand the cruelty of our current system and its place in the larger story of mass incarceration without understanding where it came from. Private prisons became entrenched in the South as part of a systemic effort to keep the African-American labor force in place in the aftermath of slavery, and the echoes of these shameful origins are with us still. The private prison system is deliberately unaccountable to public scrutiny. Private prisons are not incentivized to tend to the health of their inmates, or to feed them well, or to attract and retain a highly-trained prison staff. Though Bauer befriends some of his colleagues and sympathizes with their plight, the chronic dysfunction of their lives only adds to the prison's sense of chaos. To his horror, Bauer finds himself becoming crueler and more aggressive the longer he works in the prison, and he is far from alone. A blistering indictment of the private prison system, and the powerful forces that drive it, American Prison is a necessary human document about the true face of justice in America.

Prisoner of the Iron Tower

Prisoner of the Iron Tower PDF Author: Sarah Ash
Publisher: Spectra
ISBN: 0553900587
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
A writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation of her saga, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings. . . . Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all of Gavril’s fearsome powers. No longer possessed, he is instead being driven mad by the Drakhaoul’s absence. Worse, he has betrayed his blood, his people, and put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at risk—and lost.At the mercy of the victorious Eugene of Tielen, Gavril is sentenced to life in an insane asylum. For the power-hungry Eugene longs to possess a Drakhaoul of his own, and his prisoner seems the best way to achieve that goal. Meanwhile, a shattered empire reunites. But peace is as fragile as a rebel’s whisper—and a captive’s wish to be free. . . . Praise for Prisoner of the Iron Tower “A new fantasy series [that] will leave readers drooling to get their hands on the sequel.”—Publishers Weekly “Solid, wonderful fantasy, sparkling and imaginative!”—Booklist “Ash takes her large and colorful cast of characters from horror to pathos, from triumph to betrayal, smoothly and convincingly. a roller-coaster ride of events and emotions in the best modern fantasy manner.”—Kirkus Reviews

Caring for Victor

Caring for Victor PDF Author: Robert Ellis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781933370927
Category : African American nurses
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Robert Ellis, a former Army nurse, makes a legitimate claim that he spent more time with the former strong man of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, than any other American. For 8 months in his deployment at Camp Cropper near Baghdad, Robert was responsible for the health and well-being of the Army s high-value detainees depicted on the infamous deck of cards showing Iraq s Most Wanted. In particular, he was charged with keeping the deposed Iraqi dictator, known by his code name Victor, not only alive but well. Caring for Victor presents the story of the author's experience and complicated relationship with Saddam and how that experience developed and was shaped by events in Robert s own life including two sad journeys he made back to St. Louis to deal with family deaths, first his mother and then his brother. Robert also covers his dealings with some of the other high-value detainees, including Chemical Ali, and presents an exclusive look at the everyday life of a soldier during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The Rainbow Palace

The Rainbow Palace PDF Author: Tenzin Choedrak
Publisher: Bantam Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
In 1980, following more than 20 years of torture and suffering as a political prisoner of the Communist Chinese government, Dr Tenzin Choedrak left Tibet to live in exile in India and returned to his duties as the Dalai Lama's physician. Here, he tells of his disturbing experiences.

Saddam Hussein: A Life from Beginning to End

Saddam Hussein: A Life from Beginning to End PDF Author: Hourly History
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781720027638
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
Saddam Hussein From his humble beginnings as a farmhand working on tribal Iraqi land to becoming the president of Iraq for more than two decades, Saddam Hussein

Prisoners in the Palace

Prisoners in the Palace PDF Author: Michaela MacColl
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452119589
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Sixteen-year-old Liza becomes a lady's maid to Princess Victoria and finds that the gossipy world of the palace servants gives her the chance to determine her own fate and help Victoria become queen.