Download or read book The Victory Season written by Robert Weintraub and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The triumphant story of baseball and America after World War II. In 1945 Major League Baseball had become a ghost of itself. Parks were half empty, the balls were made with fake rubber, and mediocre replacements roamed the fields, as hundreds of players, including the game's biggest stars, were serving abroad, devoted to unconditional Allied victory in World War II. But by the spring of 1946, the country was ready to heal. The war was finally over, and as America's fathers and brothers were coming home, so too were the sport's greats. Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio returned with bats blazing, making the season a true classic that ended in a thrilling seven-game World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. America also witnessed the beginning of a new era in baseball: it was a year of attendance records, the first year Yankee Stadium held night games, the last year the Green Monster wasn't green, and, most significant, Jackie Robinson's first year playing in the Brooklyn Dodgers' system. The Victory Season brings to vivid life these years of baseball and war, including the littleknown "World Series" that servicemen played in a captured Hitler Youth stadium in the fall of 1945. Robert Weintraub's extensive research and vibrant storytelling enliven the legendary season that embodies what we now think of as the game's golden era.
Download or read book The Road to Victory written by David P. Colley and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “important contribution to WWII history” reveals the trucking convoy, manned by unsung black soldiers, who helped defeat the Nazis (Publishers Weekly). After the D-Day landings in Normandy, Allied forces faced a golden opportunity—and a critical challenge. They had broken across enemy lines, but there was no infrastructure to supply troops as they pushed into Germany. The US Army improvised a perilous solution: a convoy of trucks marked with red balls that would carry desperately needed ammunition, rations, and fuel deep into occupied Europe. The so-called Red Ball Express lasted eighty-one days and, at its height, numbered nearly six thousand trucks. The mission risked attacks by the Luftwaffe and German ground forces, making it one of the GIs’ most daring gambits. Without the soldiers who successfully executed this operation, World War II would have dragged on in Europe at a terrible cost of Allied lives. Yet the service of these brave drivers, most of whom were African American, has been largely overlooked by history. The first book-length study of the subject, The Road to Victory chronicles the exploits of these soldiers in vivid detail. It’s a story of a fight not only against the Nazis, but against an enemy closer to home: racism.
Download or read book Nobody Wants to Play with a Ball Hog written by Julie Gassman and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2011 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tyler has a perfect shot on the basketball court. Since he can't miss, he quits passing to his teammates. But will Tyler learn that nobody wants to play with a ball hog?
Download or read book Engineers of Victory written by Paul Kennedy and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Paul Kennedy, award-winning author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers and one of today’s most renowned historians, now provides a new and unique look at how World War II was won. Engineers of Victory is a fascinating nuts-and-bolts account of the strategic factors that led to Allied victory. Kennedy reveals how the leaders’ grand strategy was carried out by the ordinary soldiers, scientists, engineers, and businessmen responsible for realizing their commanders’ visions of success. In January 1943, FDR and Churchill convened in Casablanca and established the Allied objectives for the war: to defeat the Nazi blitzkrieg; to control the Atlantic sea lanes and the air over western and central Europe; to take the fight to the European mainland; and to end Japan’s imperialism. Astonishingly, a little over a year later, these ambitious goals had nearly all been accomplished. With riveting, tactical detail, Engineers of Victory reveals how. Kennedy recounts the inside stories of the invention of the cavity magnetron, a miniature radar “as small as a soup plate,” and the Hedgehog, a multi-headed grenade launcher that allowed the Allies to overcome the threat to their convoys crossing the Atlantic; the critical decision by engineers to install a super-charged Rolls-Royce engine in the P-51 Mustang, creating a fighter plane more powerful than the Luftwaffe’s; and the innovative use of pontoon bridges (made from rafts strung together) to help Russian troops cross rivers and elude the Nazi blitzkrieg. He takes readers behind the scenes, unveiling exactly how thousands of individual Allied planes and fighting ships were choreographed to collectively pull off the invasion of Normandy, and illuminating how crew chiefs perfected the high-flying and inaccessible B-29 Superfortress that would drop the atomic bombs on Japan. The story of World War II is often told as a grand narrative, as if it were fought by supermen or decided by fate. Here Kennedy uncovers the real heroes of the war, highlighting for the first time the creative strategies, tactics, and organizational decisions that made the lofty Allied objectives into a successful reality. In an even more significant way, Engineers of Victory has another claim to our attention, for it restores “the middle level of war” to its rightful place in history. Praise for Engineers of Victory “Superbly written and carefully documented . . . indispensable reading for anyone who seeks to understand how and why the Allies won.”—The Christian Science Monitor “An important contribution to our understanding of World War II . . . Like an engineer who pries open a pocket watch to reveal its inner mechanics, [Paul] Kennedy tells how little-known men and women at lower levels helped win the war.”—Michael Beschloss, The New York Times Book Review “Histories of World War II tend to concentrate on the leaders and generals at the top who make the big strategic decisions and on the lowly grunts at the bottom. . . . [Engineers of Victory] seeks to fill this gap in the historiography of World War II and does so triumphantly. . . . This book is a fine tribute.”—The Wall Street Journal “[Kennedy] colorfully and convincingly illustrates the ingenuity and persistence of a few men who made all the difference.”—The Washington Post “This superb book is Kennedy’s best.”—Foreign Affairs
Download or read book Victory written by Carla Jablonski and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pair of siblings' bucolic French town is almost untouched by the ravages of WWII. When their friend goes into hiding and his Jewish parents disappear, they realize they must take a stand.
Download or read book Anatomy of Victory written by John D. Caldwell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America’s modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi Wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies. Caldwell comprehensively examines these four wars through the lens of a strategic architecture to explain how and why their outcomes were so dramatically different. He defines a strategic architecture as an interlinked set of continually evolving policies, strategies, and operations by which combatant states work toward a desired end. Policy defines the high-level goals a nation seeks to achieve once it initiates a conflict or finds itself drawn into one. Policy makers direct a broad course of action and strive to control the initiative. When they make decisions, they have to respond to unforeseen conditions to guide and determine future decisions. Effective leaders are skilled at organizing constituencies they need to succeed and communicating to them convincingly. Strategy means employing whatever resources are available to achieve policy goals in situations that are dynamic as conflicts change quickly over time. Operations are the actions that occur when politicians, soldiers, and diplomats execute plans. A strategic architecture, Caldwell argues, is thus not a static blueprint but a dynamic vision of how a state can succeed or fail in a conflict.
Download or read book The Victory Machine written by Ethan Sherwood Strauss and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How money, guts, and greed built the Warriors dynasty -- and then took it apart The Golden State Warriors dominated the NBA for the better part of a decade. Since the arrival of owner Joe Lacob, they won more championships and sold more merchandise than any other franchise in the sport. And in 2019, they opened the doors on a lavish new stadium. Yet all this success contained some of the seeds of decline. Ethan Sherwood Strauss's clear-eyed exposé reveals the team's culture, its financial ambitions and struggles, and the price that its players and managers have paid for all their winning. From Lacob's unlikely acquisition of the team to Kevin Durant's controversial departure, Strauss shows how the smallest moments can define success or failure for years. And, looking ahead, Strauss ponders whether this organization can rebuild after its abrupt fall from the top, and how a relentless business wears down its players and executives. The Victory Machine is a defining book on the modern NBA: it not only rewrites the story of the Warriors, but shows how the Darwinian business of pro basketball really works.
Download or read book This Book Has Balls written by Michael Rapaport and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sports world according to Michael Rapaport—actor, Top 50 podcaster, award-winning film maker, and sports fanatic—from the greatest and downright worst athletes, players, teams, and jerseys, but minus statistics, analytics, or anything else that isn’t pure hustle in this “hell of a book” (Shaquille O'Neal). In 1979, nine-year-old Michael Rapaport decided he was going to do whatever it took to be a pro baller. He practiced and practiced, but by the time he was fifteen, he realized there was no place for a slow, white Jewish kid in the NBA. So, he found another way to channel his obsession with sports: talking trash. In the “crazy, passionate, funny and intense” (Colin Cowherd) This Book Has Balls, Rapaport uses his signature smack-talk style and in-your-face humor to discuss everything from why LeBron will never be like Mike, that Tiger needs the ladies to get his golf game back, and how he once thought Mary Lou Retton was his true love. And, of course, why next year will be the year the New York Knicks win the championship. This book is a series of rants—some controversial, some affectionate, but all incredibly hilarious. “Something is wrong with Michael Rapaport but that’s what makes him right,” (Charlamagne tha God).
Download or read book Hometown Victory written by Keanon Lowe and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blindside meets Friday Night Lights in Keanon Lowe's Hometown Victory when an NFL coach returns home after losing a friend to coach a team of struggling high school kids on a 23-game losing streak. Keanon Lowe was working as an offensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers when his childhood friend and former high school teammate suddenly died from an opioid overdose. Keanon dropped everything––including the plum NFL job he had been working towards since childhood––leading him to a position as football coach at a struggling high school back in his hometown. At the time, Parkrose High School was in the middle of a 23-game losing streak--they were the ultimate underdogs. In many ways, the road to Parkrose was paved by Keanon's life-defining experiences––from a childhood spent dodging racist bullies and finding the support and mentorship he craved on the football team, to an NFL season where he worked closely with Colin Kaepernick as he evolved his sideline protest. Keanon was drawn to the young men on the Parkrose team, and to the school itself. After two years, he pushed them to become conference champions, mentoring countless players along the way. But still, there was that nagging sense that his calling wasn't meant to stop there. He was at that school for a reason. In May 2019, he got his answer when a 19-year-old student entered a Parkrose classroom with a trench coat and shotgun. Keanon disarmed him and pulled the boy into a hug, telling him he cared. In the boy, Keanon saw himself, and the young men he grew up with or mentored along the way––and weren't so many of them just looking for acceptance, for comfort, for love? With the heart of favorite football classics––The Blindside, Friday Night Lights, Remember the Titans––Keanon’s journey at Parkrose is the true account of a life spent striving forward, even when faced with the unimaginable. Hometown Victory is a story about gratitude, service, and most of all, hope.
Download or read book Preparing for Victory written by David J Ulbrich and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preparing for Victory explains how and why Commandant Thomas Holcomb successfully supervised the dramatic expansion of the Marine Corps from 18,000 officers and men in 1936 to 385,000 in 1943. Not only did Holcomb leave the Corps much larger, but he also helped establish it as the United States’ premier amphibious assault force and a major contributor to victory over Japan. Despite Holcomb’s successes, he has been ignored or given short shrift in most histories of the Marine Corps. No book-length study of his commandancy exists until now. Drawing on a wide range of printed and archival sources, my book contends that Holcomb expertly guided the Corps’ preparations for war during the last years of the Great Depression and then provided his “Leathernecks” with astute direction during the first harrowing twenty-five months of World War II. When measured with principles of organization theory and leadership studies, Holcomb’s abilities and achievements match those of such outstanding American military managers as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chester W. Nimitz, and George C. Marshall. Like these unassuming yet efficient officers, Holcomb shied away from the limelight and therefore never garnered the attention that “Chesty” Puller or “Howlin’ Mad” Smith have. This book fills a void and tells the story of one of the key leaders in World War II. More than any other marine, Holcomb molded his Corps into the modern force-in-readiness that would eventually help fight the Cold War and the Global War on Terror.
Download or read book Energy Victory written by Robert Zubrin and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-09-09 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this compelling argument for a new direction in U.S. energy policy, a world-renowned engineer and the bestselling author of "The Case for Mars" lays out a bold plan for breaking the economic stranglehold that the OPEC oil cartel has on the world. With a new Preface and Postscript by the author.
Download or read book The Verdict of Battle written by James Q. Whitman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, war is considered a last resort for resolving disagreements. But a day of staged slaughter on the battlefield was once seen as a legitimate means of settling political disputes. James Whitman argues that pitched battle was essentially a trial with a lawful verdict. And when this contained form of battle ceased to exist, the law of victory gave way to the rule of unbridled force. The Verdict of Battle explains why the ritualized violence of the past was more effective than modern warfare in bringing carnage to an end, and why humanitarian laws that cling to a notion of war as evil have led to longer, more barbaric conflicts. Belief that sovereigns could, by rights, wage war for profit made the eighteenth century battle’s golden age. A pitched battle was understood as a kind of legal proceeding in which both sides agreed to be bound by the result. To the victor went the spoils, including the fate of kingdoms. But with the nineteenth-century decline of monarchical legitimacy and the rise of republican sentiment, the public no longer accepted the verdict of pitched battles. Ideology rather than politics became war’s just cause. And because modern humanitarian law provided no means for declaring a victor or dispensing spoils at the end of battle, the violence of war dragged on. The most dangerous wars, Whitman asserts in this iconoclastic tour de force, are the lawless wars we wage today to remake the world in the name of higher moral imperatives.
Download or read book Dilemmas of Victory written by Jeremy Brown and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brown examines the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of the Communist takeover of China. He seeks to understand how the 1949-1953 period was experienced by various groups, including industrialists, filmmakers, ethnic minorities, educators, rural midwives, philanthropists, standup comics, and scientists.
Download or read book The LeMesurier Inheritance written by Agatha Christie and published by MB Cooltura. This book was released on 2023-01-28 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using his gray cells, Poirot will need very little time to discover the mystery behind the Lemesurier curse according to which all the firstborn die before inheriting the family fortune. The mother of the next heir asks Poirot to protect Ronald who has been having accidents that could have been fatal. The Belgian detective and his faithful companion Hasting will discover that the ancient curse could not be true.
Download or read book Steel Victory written by Harry Yeide and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Using the words of the tank soldiers themselves, and the radio logs of their real-time communications, Harry Yeide vividly brings back all the men and machines of this crucial method of combat - one that, in the end, may have won the war. Here are startling revelations of the treacherous fighting, and the challenges and dangers of battling a better-equipped enemy in outmoded, slow-moving "death traps."" "Steel Victory recounts how tank planning, expertise, and accuracy grew as the war roared on - and reveals the inside story of how tank battalions turned the tide in the Battle of the Bulge and other major encounters of the European war. Here is an honest, painstakingly researched history of these man-driven vehicles that, in the words of one soldier, "saved the day, shot the hell out of the Germans, and had the hell shot out of them.""--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book 1943 written by John Grigg and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 6 June 1944, D Day, Allied troops landed in France, opening the way to eventual history. In this controversial reappraisal of the course of World War II, John Grigg suggests that the Allied invasion could have been launched succesfully in 1943. Beginning with America's entry into the war, Grigg explores policy and grand military strategy, especially the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship. Most crucially he explores the politics of the decision to delay invasion until 1944 and its terrible repercussions.
Download or read book Program Notes written by Cleveland Orchestra and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
