Download or read book The Last Ridge written by Mckay Jenkins and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These men endured nearly three years of grueling training in the Colorado Rockies and in the process set new standards for both soldiering and mountaineering. The newly forged 10th Mountain Division finally faced combat in the winter of 1945, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, against the seemingly unbreakable German fortifications north of the Gothic Line. There, they planned and executed what is still regarded as the most daring series of nighttime mountain attacks in U.S. military history, taking Mount Belvedere and the sheer, treacherous face of Riva Ridge to smash the linchpin of the German army’s lines. Drawing on unique cooperation from veterans of the 10th Mountain Division and a vast archive of unpublished letters and documents, The Last Ridge is written with enormous warmth, energy, and honesty. This is one of the most captivating stories of World War II, a blend of Band of Brothers and Into Thin Air. It is a story of young men asked to do the impossible, and succeeding.
Download or read book Climb to Conquer written by Peter Shelton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few stories from the "greatest generation" are as unforgettable -- or as little known -- as that of the 10th Mountain Division. Today a versatile light infantry unit deployed around the world, the 10th began in 1941 as a crew of civilian athletes with a passion for mountains and snow. In this vivid history, adventure writer Peter Shelton follows the unique division from its conception on a Vermont ski hill, through its dramatic World War II coming-of-age, to the ultimate revolution it inspired in American outdoor life. In the late-1930s United States, rock climbing and downhill skiing were relatively new sports. But World War II brought a need for men who could handle extreme mountainous conditions -- and the elite 10th Mountain Division was born. Everything about it was unprecedented: It was the sole U.S. Army division trained on snow and rock, the only division ever to grow out of a sport. It had an un-matched number of professional athletes, college scholars, and potential officer candidates, and as the last U.S. division to enter the war in Europe, it suffered the highest number of casualties per combat day. This is the 10th's surprising, suspenseful, and often touching story. Drawing on years of interviews and research, Shelton re-creates the ski troops' lively, extensive, and sometimes experimental training and their journey from boot camp to the Italian Apennines. There, scaling a 1,500-foot "unclimbable" cliff face in the dead of night, they stunned their enemy and began the eventual rout of the German armies from northern Italy. It was a self-selecting elite, a brotherhood in sport and spirit. And those who survived (including the Sierra Club's David Brower, Aspen Skiing Corporation founder Friedl Pfeifer, and Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman, who developed the waffle-sole running shoe) turned their love of mountains into the thriving outdoor industry that has transformed the way Americans see (and play in) the natural world.
Download or read book Endgame 1945 written by David Stafford and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2007-11-12 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To end a history of World War II at VE Day is to leave the tale half told. Endgame 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Endgame 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Through their ground-level movements, Stafford traces the elaborate web of events that led to the war's real resolution: the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau, and the Allies' race with the Red Army to establish a victors' foothold in Europe, to name a few. From Hitler's April decision never to surrender to the start of the Potsdam Conference, Stafford brings an unprecedented focus to the war's "final chapter." Narrative history at its most compelling, Endgame 1945 is the riveting story of three turbulent months that truly shaped the modern world.
Download or read book The White Death written by Mckay Jenkins and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2001-02-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1969, five young men from Montana set out to accomplish what no one had before: to scale the sheer north face of Mt. Cleveland, Glacier National Park's tallest mountain, in winter. Two days later tragedy struck: they were buried in an avalanche so deep that their bodies would not be discovered until the following June. The White Death is the riveting account of that fated climb and of the breathtakingly heroic rescue attempt that ensued. In the spirit of Peter Matthiessen and John McPhee, McKay Jenkins interweaves a harrowing narrative with an astonishing expanse of relevant knowledge ranging from the history of mountain climbing to the science of snow. Evocative and moving, this fascinating book is a humbling account of man at his most intrepid and nature at its most indomitable.
Download or read book Bloody Falls of the Coppermine written by Mckay Jenkins and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the winter of 1913, high in the Canadian Arctic, two Catholic priests set out on a dangerous mission to do what no white men had ever attempted: reach a group of utterly isolated Eskimos and convert them. Farther and farther north the priests trudged, through a frigid and bleak country known as the Barren Lands, until they reached the place where the Coppermine River dumps into the Arctic Ocean. Their fate, and the fate of the people they hoped to teach about God, was about to take a tragic turn. Three days after reaching their destination, the two priests were murdered, their livers removed and eaten. Suddenly, after having survived some ten thousand years with virtually no contact with people outside their remote and forbidding land, the last hunter-gatherers in North America were about to feel the full force of Western justice. As events unfolded, one of the Arctic’s most tragic stories became one of North America’s strangest and most memorable police investigations and trials. Given the extreme remoteness of the murder site, it took nearly two years for word of the crime to reach civilization. When it did, a remarkable Canadian Mountie named Denny LaNauze led a trio of constables from the Royal Northwest Mounted Police on a three-thousand-mile journey in search of the bodies and the murderers. Simply surviving so long in the Arctic would have given the team a place in history; when they returned to Edmonton with two Eskimos named Sinnisiak and Uluksuk, their work became the stuff of legend. Newspapers trumpeted the arrival of the Eskimos, touting them as two relics of the Stone Age. During the astonishing trial that followed, the Eskimos were acquitted, despite the seating of an all-white jury. So outraged was the judge that he demanded both a retrial and a change of venue, with himself again presiding. The second time around, predictably, the Eskimos were convicted. A near perfect parable of late colonialism, as well as a rich exploration of the differences between European Christianity and Eskimo mysticism, Jenkins’s Bloody Falls of the Coppermine possesses the intensity of true crime and the romance of wilderness adventure. Here is a clear-eyed look at what happens when two utterly alien cultures come into violent conflict.
Download or read book Food Fight written by Mckay Jenkins and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are GMOs really that bad? A prominent environmental journalist takes a fresh look at what they actually mean for our food system and for us. In the past two decades, GMOs have come to dominate the American diet. Advocates hail them as the future of food, an enhanced method of crop breeding that can help feed an ever-increasing global population and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Critics, meanwhile, call for their banishment, insisting GMOs were designed by overeager scientists and greedy corporations to bolster an industrial food system that forces us to rely on cheap, unhealthy, processed food so they can turn an easy profit. In response, health-conscious brands such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods have started boasting that they are “GMO-free,” and companies like Monsanto have become villains in the eyes of average consumers. Where can we turn for the truth? Are GMOs an astounding scientific breakthrough destined to end world hunger? Or are they simply a way for giant companies to control a problematic food system? Environmental writer McKay Jenkins traveled across the country to answer these questions and discovered that the GMO controversy is more complicated than meets the eye. He interviewed dozens of people on all sides of the debate—scientists hoping to engineer new crops that could provide nutrients to people in the developing world, Hawaiian papaya farmers who credit GMOs with saving their livelihoods, and local farmers in Maryland who are redefining what it means to be “sustainable.” The result is a comprehensive, nuanced examination of the state of our food system and a much-needed guide for consumers to help them make more informed choices about what to eat for their next meal.
Download or read book US 10th Mountain Division in World War II written by Gordon L. Rottman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-20 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 10th was the only US mountain division to be raised in World War II, and still has a high profile, being involved in operations from Iraq to Somalia and from Haiti to Afghanistan. It did not arrive in Europe until winter 1944/45, but then fought hard in the harsh mountainous terrain of Northern Italy. The division was special in a number of ways. Its personnel were selected for physical fitness and experience in winter sports, mountaineering, and hunting, unlike the rest of the infantry. It was highly trained in mountain and winter warfare, including the use of skis and snowshoes, while its organization, field clothing, and some personal equipment also differed from that of the usual infantry division. The division made extensive use of pack-mules, and its reconnaissance unit was horse-mounted, conducting the last horse-mounted charge in US history in April 1945. Featuring full-color artwork and rare photographs, this is the gripping story of the US Army's only mountain division in action during the closing months of World War II.
Download or read book None Left Behind written by Charles W. Sasser and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles the 10th Mountain Division and their efforts to pacify "The Triangle of Death," a region of particular terrorist violence south of Baghdad, while sharing the daring 2007 attempt to rescue three kidnapped soldiers.
Download or read book Summary of Mckay Jenkins s The Last Ridge written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-15T22:59:00Z with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Allied campaign in Italy had been a drain on Hitler’s army, a third front. The final German defensive barrier, the Gothic Line, had been unbreakable by the Allies. #2 By late 1944, the American Fifth Army had broken through the Gothic Line and was making its way north along the Adriatic. The Germans were beginning to retreat, but they were taking the last ridge back with them. #3 The one remaining keystone in the Apennines was the heavily fortified Mount Belvedere, which was the southwestern butt of a four-mile ridge that also included Mount Gorgolesco and Mount della Torraccia. Belvedere was the key. # The ridgeline between Mount Belvedere and Rocca Corneta was protected by the 1044th Grenadier Regiment and the 232nd Fusilier Battalion, which were reinforced by hundreds of soldiers from Fanano and Sestola. The flanks were locked up in ice and snow by the coldest winter in recent memory.
Download or read book The Winter Army written by Maurice Isserman and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic story of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, whose elite soldiers broke the last line of German defenses in Italy's mountains in 1945, spearheading the Allied advance to the Alps and final victory.
Download or read book The Book Review Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 1640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Skiing Heritage Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 2003-12 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skiing Heritage is a quarterly Journal of original, entertaining, and informative feature articles on skiing history. Published by the International Skiing History Association, its contents support ISHA's mission "to preserve skiing history and to increase awareness of the sport's heritage."
Download or read book The Last Ridge written by Mckay Jenkins and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2004-11-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These men endured nearly three years of grueling training in the Colorado Rockies and in the process set new standards for both soldiering and mountaineering. The newly forged 10th Mountain Division finally faced combat in the winter of 1945, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, against the seemingly unbreakable German fortifications north of the Gothic Line. There, they planned and executed what is still regarded as the most daring series of nighttime mountain attacks in U.S. military history, taking Mount Belvedere and the sheer, treacherous face of Riva Ridge to smash the linchpin of the German army’s lines. Drawing on unique cooperation from veterans of the 10th Mountain Division and a vast archive of unpublished letters and documents, The Last Ridge is written with enormous warmth, energy, and honesty. This is one of the most captivating stories of World War II, a blend of Band of Brothers and Into Thin Air. It is a story of young men asked to do the impossible, and succeeding.
Download or read book Views from the Road I Traveled written by Henry M. Kissman and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-10-10 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this autobiography, Henry Kissman describes his journey from a boyhood in prewar Austria to life in America, and how he survived the displacements and losses of wartime and built a life devoted to scientific inquiry and public service. As a prosperous Jewish family in the city of Graz, the Kissmans became Nazi targets immediately after the German takeover of Austria in 1938. Henrys parents were both jailed on trumped-up charges, and were stripped of everything they owned, including their successful lumber export business. Henry, age 15 at the time, was able to flee to England; his younger sister followed on a Kindertransport a few months later. After 9 months, his parents were expelled from Austria. Eventually, they also reached England, where they lived and worked throughout the war. In December 1939, Henry was able to emigrate to the U.S. After living with relatives in New York City for a time, he worked at various factory jobs in New Jersey and completed his high school education at night. Through a scholarship he was able to earn a degree at Sterling College in Kansas in 1944. He was then drafted into the Army, where he first served as a combat medic with the 10th Mountain Division in northern Italy, and later as a counter intelligence agent with the U.S. occupation forces in Germany. After discharge from the Army, Henry obtained advanced degrees in organic chemistry with the help of the GI Bill. Eventually, he joined a research group at a pharmaceutical company, where he worked on biologically active substances such as antibiotics and steroids. In 1955, he met Lee Cohn his wife-to-be. They married in January 1956. Beginning in the mid-sixties, Henrys interests changed from laboratory research to developing innovative ways of managing scientific information. He directed such information projects at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and then at the National Library of Medicine until his retirement in 1992.
Download or read book The Boys of Winter written by Charles J. Sanders and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Boys of Winter tells the true story of three young American ski champions and their brutal, heroic, and fateful transformation from athletes to infantrymen with the 10th Mountain Division. Charles J. Sanders's fast-paced narrative draws on dozens of interviews and extensive research to trace these boys' lives from childhood to championships and from training at Mount Rainier and in the Colorado Rockies to battles against the Nazis.
Download or read book Prominent Families of New York written by Lyman Horace Weeks and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book One Billion Americans written by Matthew Yglesias and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER What would actually make America great: more people. If the most challenging crisis in living memory has shown us anything, it’s that America has lost the will and the means to lead. We can’t compete with the huge population clusters of the global marketplace by keeping our population static or letting it diminish, or with our crumbling transit and unaffordable housing. The winner in the future world is going to have more—more ideas, more ambition, more utilization of resources, more people. Exactly how many Americans do we need to win? According to Matthew Yglesias, one billion. From one of our foremost policy writers, One Billion Americans is the provocative yet logical argument that if we aren’t moving forward, we’re losing. Vox founder Yglesias invites us to think bigger, while taking the problems of decline seriously. What really contributes to national prosperity should not be controversial: supporting parents and children, welcoming immigrants and their contributions, and exploring creative policies that support growth—like more housing, better transportation, improved education, revitalized welfare, and climate change mitigation. Drawing on examples and solutions from around the world, Yglesias shows not only that we can do this, but why we must. Making the case for massive population growth with analytic rigor and imagination, One Billion Americans issues a radical but undeniable challenge: Why not do it all, and stay on top forever?
