Showing results for "The History Wars" in Sports & Outdoors

The 1989 Ironman World Championship was the greatest race ever in endurance sports. In a spectacular duel that became known as the Iron War, the world's two strongest athletes raced side by side at world-record pace for a grueling 139 miles. Driven by one of the fiercest rivalries in triathlon, Dave Scott and Mark Allen raced shoulder to shoulder through Ironman’s 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike race, and 26.2-mile marathon. After 8 punishing hours, both men would demolish the previous record - and cross the finish line a mere 58 seconds apart.

A "marvelous" (Sports Illustrated) portrait of the three men whose lives were forever changed by WWI-era Boston and the Spanish flu: baseball star Babe Ruth, symphony conductor Karl Muck, and Harvard law student Charles Whittlesey. In the fall of 1918, a fever gripped Boston. The streets emptied...

The only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA, Moe Berg has the singular distinction of having both a 15-year career as a catcher for such teams as the New York Robins and the Chicago White Sox and that of a spy for the OSS during World War II. Here, Dawidoff provides "a careful and sympathetic biography" ( Chicago Sun-Times) of this enigmatic man.

From the acclaimed author of The Pattons and Patriot Pirates: a book that celebrates America’s forgotten war correspondents, men who were legends in their time; who, between 1860 and 1910, between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War - when empires fell and dynasties flourished - led romantic, thrilling lives on the edgiest frontiers of time and place: seeing the world, breaking the stories, making news themselves during the time when newspapers made the most foreign of landscapes available, and the circulation wars were revolutionizing contemporary life, shaping global events, and making history.

'A revealing account of the tricky reality behind TV's glamorous image' Daily Mail In the summer of 1992, Jason Salkey was cast in a role that would change his life forever. Sharpe’s Rifles, a Napoleonic war drama, was to be shot in the Crimean Peninsula. Little did the producers know that...

From the bestselling author of The Great Escape, discover the inspiring story of Britain's most courageous flyer: the Second World War hero Sir Douglas Bader. In 1931, at the age of 21, Douglas Bader was the golden boy of the RAF. Excelling in everything he did, he represented the RAF in...

Brought to you by Penguin. The remarkable conservation story of one of the world’s most iconic animals Deep in the snowy forests of Northeast Asia roams the majestic and revered Amur tigers, more popularly known as ‘The Siberian Tiger’. But in the final years of the Cold War, only a few...

1944: Heavy footfalls thud on the road on a rainy May night. A band of gunmen scour a hilltop farm, acting on rumors that it harbors a Jewish family. For 18 months, the Rozeneks have been hiding safely, but their luck is about to run out. Only one from the family of six will live to see the sunrise. Sixteen-year-old Hena Rozenek shelters in the woods until morning . . . and then she runs.

The fascinating, true origin story of baseball - how America’s first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation.

In 2012 retired South African general Johan Jooste was parachuted into the seemingly unwinnable war against rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park. With poaching spiralling out of control, Jooste was given the mandate to 'go military', to convert Kruger's ranger corps into a para-military force capable of taking the fight to poachers. Aged 60, white, and a veteran of 35 years of military service, Jooste's controversial appointment was immediately met with resentment and hostility by elements of South African National Parks, the police, and even the military he had served with.

Czechoslovakia, October 1937. Vast crowds have gathered to watch the threatened nation's most prestigious sporting contest: the Grand Pardubice steeplechase. Notoriously dangerous, the race is considered the ultimate test of manhood and fighting spirit. The Nazis have sent their paramilitary elite-SS officers on a mission to crush the 'subhuman Slavs'. The local cavalry officers have no hope of stopping them. But there is one other contestant: a countess riding a little golden mare.

This intimate true account of Americans at war follows theepic drama of an unlikely group of men forced to work together in the face of an increasingly desperate enemy during the final year of World War II. Sprawling across the Pacific, this untold story follows the crew of the newly-built...

Brought to you by Penguin. The riveting account of SAS action in the Falklands war After passing the world's toughest Special Forces selection and joining the elite ranks of D Squadron, 22 SAS in 1979, Mark 'Splash' Aston thought the hard part was over. Then on April 2 1982 Argentina invaded the...

On September 1, 1894 two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire in the first and only book on to chronicle the dramatic story that unfolded. Whereas Oregon's famous "Biscuit" fire in 2002...

Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, originally from Ohio, was best known as one of the commanders of the 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron, a crack unit of World War I pilots that included many former members of the famed Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron.

Brought to you by Penguin. Franci's War by Franci Epstein is read by Suzanne Toren, with an afterword, editorial notes and acknowledgements read by Helen Epstein. What are you willing to do to survive? What are you willing to endure if it means you might live? In the summer of 1942...

A Nigerian native who emigrated to the United States at age 11, Alex Owumi's exploits on the basketball court earned him a college scholarship to Georgetown University. Undrafted by the NBA, Owumi pursued his basketball dream overseas, eventually signing with Al-Nasr of Libya, a state-run athletic club privately funded by the family of Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi.

Bloomsbury presents The Football Battalions: The Elite Footballers Who Fought in the Great War by Christopher Evans, read by Oliver Hembrough 'A brilliant book' - Kevin Day 'An extraordinary story' - David Williamson, Chief Political Commentator at the Daily Express THE POIGNANT STORY OF HOW...

By creating WrestleMania, jumping into the pay-per-view field, and expanding across North America, Vince McMahon changed professional wrestling forever. 

Each November, about a hundred people with paper poppies pinned to their coats gather around a memorial in Edinburgh. They're there to commemorate the more than a dozen members of the local football team, Heart of Midlothian - almost every member of its starting lineup and many of its backup players - who went to war. A Bigger Field Awaits Us tells the little-known but poignant story of a group of Scottish athletes and their fans who went to war together - and the stories of the few who made it home.