Author: Kevin Gosner
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816544573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
In the early summer of 1712, a young Maya woman from the village of Cancuc in southern Mexico encountered an apparition of the Virgin Mary while walking in the forest. The miracle soon attracted Indian pilgrims from pueblos throughout the highlands of Chiapas. When alarmed Spanish authorities stepped in to put a stop to the burgeoning cult, they ignited a full-scale rebellion. Declaring "Now there is no God or King," rebel leaders raised an army of some five thousand "soldiers of the Virgin" to defend their new faith and cast off colonial rule.Using the trial records of Mayas imprisoned after the rebellion, as well as the letters of Dominican priests, the local bishop, and Spaniards who led the army of pacification, Kevin Gosner reconstructs the history of the Tzeltal Revolt and examines its causes. He characterizes the rebellion as a defense of the Maya moral economy, and shows how administrative reforms and new economic demands imposed by colonial authorities at the end of the seventeenth century challenged Maya norms about the ritual obligations of community leaders, the need for reciprocity in political affairs, and the supernatural origins of power.The first book-length study of the Tzeltal Revolt, Soldiers of the Virgin goes beyond the conventions of the regional monograph to offer an expansive view of Maya social and cultural history. With an eye to the contributions of archaeologists and ethnographers, Gosner explores many issues that are central to Maya studies, including the origins of the civil-religious hierarchy, the role of shamanism in political culture, the social dynamics of peasant corporate communities, and the fate of the native nobility after the Spanish conquest.
Author: Leslie Thomas
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446439445
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
Bursting with life and bawdy humour, National Serviceman Brigg is now a Regular Army sergeant defending the Empire in the beds and bars of Hong Kong. Peace-time diversions include sensual fireworks with a pair of delicious Chinese twins and a tender, erotic affair with the lonely wife of an American serviceman.
Author: Leslie Thomas
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1407097113
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 546
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Book Description
From Barnardo boy to original virgin soldier; from apprentice journalist in London's Fleet Street to famous novelist... At times funny, at times sad, but always honest and utterly compulsive, Leslie Thomas's story is straight out of fiction. As an orphan, he picked his way through the rubble of post-war Britain and was sent on national service to the Far East. Later he became a Fleet Street reporter, with hilarious experiences to relate, and then became the bestselling author of The Virgin Soldiers - the novel that, although scandalous in its day, is now recognised as a classic of its kind. He is also the creator of Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective, which has been adapted into a popular television series. In 2005, Leslie Thomas was awarded an OBE for services to literature. With a new introduction for this edition, this is an amazing story, and Leslie Thomas's magic touch brings it crackling to life with warmth, wit and humour.
Author: Larissa Juliet Taylor
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300161298
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
“A fresh and provocative biography of La Pucelle . . . her transformation from a naive girl to a strong-willed, bold, and gifted captain of war.”—Frederic J. Baumgartner, author of France in the Sixteenth Century France’s great heroine and England’s great scourge: whether a lunatic, a witch, a religious icon, or a skilled soldier and leader, Joan of Arc’s contemporaries found her as extraordinary and fascinating as the legends that abound about her today. But her life has been so endlessly cast and recast that we have lost sight of the remarkable girl at the heart of it—a teenaged peasant girl who, after claiming to hear voices, convinced the French king to let her lead a disheartened army into battle. In the process she changed the course of European history. In The Virgin Warrior, Larissa Juliet Taylor paints a vivid portrait of Joan as a self-confident, charismatic and supremely determined figure, whose sheer force of will electrified those around her and struck terror into the hearts of the English soldiers and leaders. The drama of Joan’s life is set against a world where visions and witchcraft were real, where saints could appear to peasants, battles and sieges decided the fate of kingdoms and rigged trials could result in burning at the stake. Yet in her short life, Joan emboldened the French soldiers and villagers with her strength and resolve. A difficult, inflexible leader, she defied her accusers and enemies to the end. From her early years to the myths and fantasies that have swelled since her death, Taylor “goes deep into Joan of Arc’s heart and soul and shows us the maiden, the warrior and the heroine” (Kate Williams, New York Times bestselling author)./
Author: Laura Westley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692766934
Category : Iraq War, 2003-2011
Languages : en
Pages : 428
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Book Description
ON MARCH 21, 2003, Army Lieutenant and West Point graduate Laura Westley invaded liberated Iraq (the Army prohibited using the word "invasion") with the full intention of keeping her virginity securely intact. For twenty-four years, she had obeyed the strict teachings of evangelical Christianity and kept her legs closed, vowing to preserve her purity for her future husband. Being at war, however, made her realize that adhering to strict religious principles perhaps wasn't worth it, not when bombs, RPGs and gunfire constantly threaten to cut your life short. WAR VIRGIN is a coming-of-age memoir that chronicles Laura's journey through repression, temptation, and ultimately, liberation. This "war story" describes a woman's battle to discover, protect and own her unique identity. No veteran or West Point graduate has ever offered such a candid, irreverent look at the comically naughty, sexually charged underbelly of the military.
Author: Tracy Kidder
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812976169
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever read before, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age in the controversial war that defined a generation. In an astonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of duty in Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the first time about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to become a classic. Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out of college and expecting a stateside assignment, when his orders arrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, he tried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eight more-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radio locations. He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh and drink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fear of war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radio transmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidder realized that he would spend his time in Vietnam listening in on battle but never actually experiencing it. With remarkable clarity and with great detachment, Kidder looks back at himself from across three and a half decades, confessing how, as a young lieutenant, he sought to borrow from the tragedy around him and to imagine himself a romantic hero. Unrelentingly honest, rueful, and revealing, My Detachment gives us war without heroism, while preserving those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger. The officers and men of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies–they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable.
Author: Theda Skocpol
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674043723
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 737
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Book Description
It is a commonplace that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. During the late nineteenth century, competitive party politics in American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and their families. But such hopes went against the logic of political reform in the Progressive Era. Generous social spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead, the nation nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as the federal government and more than forty states enacted social spending, labor regulations, and health education programs to assist American mothers and children. Remarkably, as Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned from electoral politics, they turned their energies to creating huge, nation-spanning federations of local women's clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules, political parties, and earlier public policies combined to determine both the opportunities and the limits within which social policies were devised and changed by reformers and politically active social groups over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining afresh the institutional, cultural, and organizational forces that have shaped U.S. social policies in the past, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers challenges us to think in new ways about what might be possible in the American future.
Author: Laura Andersen
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0804179417
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
The gripping conclusion to the Tudor Legacy trilogy that brings to life the drama and intrigue of Queen Elizabeth I; her daughter, Anabel, the Princess of Wales; and two countries locked in a battle for the ages. “If you can’t manage with HBO’s Game of Thrones, [then] this Shakespearean-era fantasy may be your cup of tea.”—New York Post As the Spanish Armada approaches Irish shores, Elizabeth I feels the full burden of her royal office. She must not let England fall to her former husband, King Philip of Spain. And Princess Anabel, their daughter, has yet to declare with whom her allegiance—and her support—lie. Exiled Stephen Courtenay is in France with his brother, Kit, who has his own reasons for avoiding England. But rumblings of war, a sinister plot, and their loyalty to the crown call them home. Yet not even Pippa Courtenay, their sister, gifted with divine sight, can foresee the grave danger that awaits them all. As Queen Elizabeth commits her riches, her honor, and her people to the approaching conflict, she will risk everything—even her life—to preserve England’s freedom. Don’t miss any of Laura Andersen’s captivating Tudor Legacy trilogy: THE VIRGIN’S DAUGHTER • THE VIRGIN’S SPY • THE VIRGIN’S WAR
Author: Leslie Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140144253
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
Author: Leslie Thomas
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 144644063X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 658
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Book Description
The war, they said, would be over by Christmas. That was in 1939, and it is now January 1944. An exhausted Britain faces another year of conflict. Meanwhile, small coastal villages in Devon are facing an invasion from an army just as foreign as that of the Germans. The Americans are smart, well-fed and well-equipped, and they have swept the bewildered citizens of South Devon from their homes in deadly earnest rehearsal for D-Day. As the beaches echo to the sound of bullets and the local church to the strains of Glenn Miller, Americans and English are thrown together with sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful and puzzling results.
