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Biographies & history

Biography & Memoir
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Mountains on the Market: Industry, the Environment, and the South (New Directions in Southern History)

Manufacturing in the Northeast and the Midwest pushed the United States to the forefront of industrialized nations during the early nineteenth century; the South, however, lacked the large cities and broad consumer demand that catalyzed changes in other parts of the country. Nonetheless, in contrast to older stereotypes, southerners did not shun industrial development when profits were possible.

Bound to the Fire: How Virginia's Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine

In grocery store aisles and kitchens across the country, smiling images of "Aunt Jemima" and other historical and fictional black cooks can be found on various food products and in advertising. Although these images are sanitized and romanticized in American popular culture, they represent the untold stories of enslaved men and women who had a significant impact on the nation's culinary and hospitality traditions even as they were forced to prepare food for their oppressors.

Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods Sented by Shon

“Irresistible…Immensely readable…The authors have laid out a saga that is part myth, part Shakespeare, part Jackie Collins….A whirlwind of a biography that reads honest and true.” —The Wall Street Journal “A confident and substantial book…It has torque and velocity…It makes a sweet sound, like a well-struck golf ball. I found it exhilarating, depressing, tawdry, and moving in almost equal measure. It’s a big American story.” —The New York Times Based on years of reporting and interviews with more than 250 people from every corner of Tiger Woods’s life—many of whom have never spoken about him on the record before—a sweeping, revelatory, and defining biography of an American icon.

The Chivalric Biography of Boucicaut, Jean II Le Meingre

Jean le Meingre, Marechal Boucicaut (1364-1421), was the very flower of chivalry. From his earliest years at the royal court in Paris, he distinguished himself in knightly pursuits: sorties against seditious French nobles, ceremonial jousts against the English enemy, crusading in Tunisia and Prussia, the composition of courtly verses, and the establishment of a chivalric order for the defence of ladies, the Order of the Enterprise of the White Lady of the Green Shield. He was named Marshal of France at the age of only 27. His chivalric biography, finished in 1409, is one of the most important accounts of the life of a knight from the Middle Ages. Whilst full of praise, it is also highly partisan and carefully selective; it glosses over the darker, much less successful, side of his career - in particular his participation in the catastrophic Nicopolis crusade (1396) and his governorship of Genoa, which came to an end shortly after the completion of the biography, when a rebellionforced him to leave the city, five years before his capture at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and death in England in 1421. This first English translation makes available to a wider audience a text that sheds light on the history of France, on crusading in Prussia and the Mediterranean, and on the complicated politics of Italy and the papacy during the Great Schism. It is a highly importantcontribution to our understanding of chivalric mentalities and attitudes in late-medieval France. It is presented with an introduction and notes.

Not Always Happy: An Unusual Parenting Journey

A moving memoir about finding and adopting a son from the foster care system with Down syndrome and realizing that life is best lived by expecting the unplanned. As time passes, the author and her husband become less aware they are raising an atypical or adopted child. They are raising their child, no different than any other family.

Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi Sented by Shon

Mahatma Gandhi was a small man, but he helped bring about large-scale change in the world. Through peaceful acts of disobedience, Gandhi helped free India from British rule. See how Gandhi made extraordinary personal sacrifices and be inspired by his passion and peaceful ways. Guided by Time Magazines list of 100 most influential people, the Biographies of the 20th Century series of softcover 64-page biographies focuses on the leaders, scientists, and icons who shaped our world. These people, many from very humble beginnings, changed how the world works. Each biography includes a glossary, timeline, and illustrations. An individual guide for each title provides reproducible activities to extend the text.

Hudson Taylor and China
Hudson Taylor and China Sented by Musa

It is not so much great faith that we need, but faith in a great God. At the age of 21, Hudson Taylor ventured on a dangerous sea voyage to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of China, demonstrating this faith he talked of. Why would a young man give up a promising future to venture into an alien country, let alone one torn apart by war? Would the Chinese accept him and would God bless his vision?

Girls at the Piano
Girls at the Piano Sented by Shon

Virginia Lloyd spent much of her childhood and adolescence learning and playing the piano and thought she would make a career as a pianist. When that didn't happen, she spent a long time wondering about those years of study: had they been wasted? What was their purpose? This intriguing memoir explores those questions and investigates the mystery of the author's very musical and deeply unhappy grandmother Alice, and how their lives-both at and away from the piano-intersected and diverged.

From the Outside: My Journey Through Life and the Game I Love

The record-holding two-time National Basketball Association champion reflects on his work ethic, his on-the-court friendships and rivalries, the great teams he's played for, and what it takes to have a long and successful career in this thoughtful, in-depth memoir.

Fanny Crosby: The Hymn Writer (Heroes of the Faith)

For challenge and encouragement in your Christian life, read the life stories of the Heroes of the Faith. The novelized biographies of this series are inspiring and easy-to-read, ideal for Christians of any age or background. In Fanny Crosby, readers will get to know the disabled woman, blinded as a young child, whose spiritual "eyes" saw great biblical truths-and turned them into thousands of hymns to God. Appropriate for readers from junior high through adult, helpful for believers of any background, these biographies encourage greater Christian commitment through the example of heroes like Fanny Crosby

Doujon's Heart
Doujon's Heart Sented by Musa

When 20-year-old Australian Doujon Zammit was bashed by bouncers on a Greek island in July 2008, his tragic story made headlines in both Australia and Greece. Doujon had sustained terrible head injuries and would not recover. His grief-stricken parents, Oliver and Rosemarie, honoured Doujon's previous wish to be an organ donor, and Oliver became famous overnight in Australia and in Greece when he announced that Doujon's organs would be donated to Greek recipients.

Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story

On a spring day in 1961, over-the-road trucker Jim Harper was en route from Mauston, Wisconsin, to his home in Minneapolis. At 70 miles per hour, with a combined 60,000 pounds of man, machine, and material, he approached a curve along the Great River Road and hit the brakes. The tractor-trailer didn't slow. Harper's brake lines had been cut.

Corporate Yogi: My Journey as a Spiritual Seeker and an Accidental Entrepreneur

'A single bullet took one life and shattered three others. Mine, among them. My brother shot my father. My mother heard the shot. Approximately 1400 kilometers away, in the Armed Forces Medical College at Pune, where I was pursuing a postgraduate course in pathology while serving as assistant warden of the hostel, the telephone rang. It was the night of December 4, 1977, a night that changed me forever.'

Charles Dibdin and Late Georgian Culture

Charles Dibdin (1745-1814) was one of the most popular and influential creative forces in late Georgian Britain, producing a diversity of works that defy simple categorisation. He was an actor, lyricist, composer, singer-songwriter, comedian, theatre-manager, journalist, artist, music tutor, speculator, and author of novels, historical works, polemical pamphlets, and guides to musical education. This collection of essays illuminates the social and cultural conditions that made such a varied career possible, offering fresh insights into previously unexplored aspects of late Georgian culture, society, and politics.

Bridge Burning and Other Hobbies

Kitty Flanagan has been locked in an industrial freezer in Western Australia, insulted about the size of her lady parts in Singapore and borne witness to the world's most successful wife swap in suburban Sydney. It's these valuable lessons from The University of Life that have taught her so many things, including the fact that cliches like 'The University of Life' are reeeally annoying.

Back of Beyond: One woman's remarkable story of love, adventure, disasters and wonderful times in the Gulf Country

Brought up on a comfortable farm in the Riverina, at twenty-two, Jenny Bull fell in love with Rick Old and went to live and work with him on his property, McAllister, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. There, she faced incredible hardship, living in a hut with not even basic necessities. Her only contact with the outside world was a two-way radio. In this vast empty landscape, she battled drought, flood, fire, and cyclones. For eighteen years she and Rick struggled to stay on in the Gulf, eventually triumphantly turning McAllister into a thriving oasis.

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