Showing results for "War Story" in History & Culture

From award-winning journalist and children’s book author Mary Cronk Farrell comes the inspiring and fascinating story of the woman who gave a human face to the Vietnam War. Close-Up on War tells the story of French-born Catherine Leroy, one of the war’s few woman photographers, who documented some of the fiercest fighting in the 20-year conflict. Although she had no formal photographic training and had never before traveled more than a few hundred miles from Paris, Leroy left home at age 21 to travel to Vietnam and document the faces of war.

In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, follow one GI’s tour of duty as Ryan Smithson brings readers inside a world that few understand. This is no ordinary teenager’s story. Instead of opting for college life, Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was seventeen. Two years later...

At the height of World War I, as battles raged in the trenches and in the air, another struggle for survival was being waged in the most notorious POW camp in all of Germany: Holzminden. A land-locked Alcatraz of sorts, it was home to the most troublesome Allied prisoners - and the most talented at escape. The Grand Escape tells the remarkable tale of a band of pilots who pulled off an ingenious plan and made it out of enemy territory in the biggest breakout of WWI, inspiring their countrymen in the darkest hours of the war.

Since the revolution-turned-civil war in Syria began in 2011, over 500,000 civilians have been killed and more than 12 million Syrians have been displaced. Rania Abouzeid, one of the foremost journalists on the topic, follows two pairs of sisters from opposite sides of the conflict to give listeners a firsthand glimpse of the turmoil and devastation this strife has wrought.

The true story of 19-year-old Jordana Lebowitz’s time at the trial of Oskar Groening, known as the bookkeeper of Auschwitz, a man charged with being complicit in the death of more than 300,000 Jews. A granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Jordana was still not prepared for what she would see and hear.

The stories of the four teenage children of prominent abolitionists before and during the Civil War combine to form a surprisingly familiar tapestry of struggle, disappointment, and ultimately hope. "Impeccable research and incredible details bring the stories of these four young people to life...

An often hilarious and always relevant memoir about one teen boy's battle with brain cancer and his Starlight Children's Foundation wish: to meet Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia and plead for nuclear disarmament and world peace. It's 1986, and Jeff is an average fifteen-year-old: he thinks a lot...

A critical, unflinching cultural history and fierce beacon of hope for a better future, America Redux is a necessary and galvanizing read. What are the stories we tell ourselves about America? How do they shape our sense of history, cloud our perceptions, inspire us? America Redux explores the...

DeMaillie, pilot of a B-17, describes in riveting detail his successful bombing run from England to the industrial center of Germany. But things go very wrong on the return flight when his plane is struck by enemy fire and the crew is forced to parachute into Holland. Although a group of heroic Dutch resistance fighters try to hide him, the Nazis eventually capture DeMaillie and send him to a prisoner of war camp. There, he endures hunger, cold, and brutality until the Allies finally free him.

On a hot day in July 1919, five black youths went swimming in Lake Michigan, unintentionally floating close to the white beach. An angry white man began throwing stones at the boys, striking and killing one. Racial conflict on the beach erupted into days of urban violence that shook the city of Chicago to its foundations. This mesmerizing narrative draws on contemporary accounts as it traces the roots of the explosion that had been building for decades in race relations, politics, business, and clashes of culture.