Dead Wake

Dead Wake PDF Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0553446754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania “Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly “Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR “Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. Martin On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo

Thunderstruck

Thunderstruck PDF Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307351920
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush.” In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time. Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect murder. With his unparalleled narrative skills, Erik Larson guides us through a relentlessly suspenseful chase over the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.

The Burning Shore

The Burning Shore PDF Author: Ed Offley
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0465029612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen’s successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats’ success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen’s cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode’s survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.

Dead Wake

Dead Wake PDF Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307408876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania “Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly “Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR “Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. Martin On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo

Lethal Passage

Lethal Passage PDF Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679759271
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. "Touches on all aspects of the gun issue in this country. Gives great voice to that feeling...that something real must be done." --San Diego Union-Tribune "One of the most readable anti-gun treatises in years." --Washington Post Book World It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another. In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as "the gun that made the eighties roar." The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.

In the Garden of Beasts

In the Garden of Beasts PDF Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 030740885X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.

Remember the Lusitania

Remember the Lusitania PDF Author: Diana Preston
Publisher: Raincoast Books
ISBN: 9781551926421
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Book Description
Three years after the tragic sinking of the Titanic, another luxury liner went to a watery grave beneath the icy depths of the North Atlantic. The sinking of the Lusitania, torpedoed by a German U-boat in a sneak attack off the coast of Ireland, was one of the most pivotal and universally condemned acts of World War I. Diana Preston chronicles the shipboard experiences of three children who were on that fateful voyage. Eleven-year-old Frank Hook, a third-class passenger, was moving to England with his father and older sister. Twelve-year-old Avis Dolphin, a second-class passenger, was being sent to an English boarding school with a chaperone. And five-month-old Audrey Pearl was traveling in luxurious first class with her parents, three siblings, and two nannies. From different walks of life and varied circumstances, these three children shared a common bond-they all survived one of the most disastrous shipwrecks in history. Their stories, taken from firsthand accounts, personal interviews, and historical documents, provide a riveting look at one of the most tragic and significant events of World War I.

A Summary and Critique of Erik Larson's Dead Wake

A Summary and Critique of Erik Larson's Dead Wake PDF Author: I. K. Mullins
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781511742863
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 50

Book Description
This is not the actual Erik Larson's Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. The primary objective of this book is to bring a review, insightful discussion and critique of Erik Larson's Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania to readers everywhere. RMS Titanic, a British passenger liner, was the largest ship of its day. It wasconsidered to be unsinkable until it struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912. Three years later, on May 1, 1915, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania left Pier 54 on the Hudson River in Manhattan for what was to be her last voyage. Her passengers and crew could not know that they were about to repeat the fate of the Titanic. Only this time it was a man-made tragedy in which 1,198 people, including 123 Americans, lost their lives. It was a German submarine that sank Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland, making an impact on the course of World War I. Erik Larson's book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, masterfully revives and brings to the reader the story of the last days of the Lusitania, her passengers and crew. This book, A Summary and Critique ofErik Larson's Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, includes an unofficial summary and analysis of the key ideas and facts in Larson's book, a critique of the principal messages in the book and additional information related to Lusitania and the political events that involved her so disastrously. Table of Contents Preface Introduction and Overview of Dead Wake Part I. A Summary and Analysis of the Key Ideas and Facts in Dead Wake 1. The Lusitania Analysis and Comments 2. A Tale of Two Captains Analysis and Comments 3. The Politics Behind the Tragedy of the Lusitania Analysis and Comments Part II. A Critique of the Principal Messages in Dead Wake Conclusion References

Dead Wake

Dead Wake PDF Author: Abookaday
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781535281461
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
Warning: This is an independent addition to Dead Wake, meant to enhance your experience of the original book. If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by bestselling author Erik Larson offers a detailed look into the May 7, 1915 sinking of the British passenger ship the Lusitania by a German U-boat near the start of WWI. This review follows along the chronological storyline of the book, and includes special attention to the extensive detail offered by the author. The summary is followed by an analysis of the book's strengths and weaknesses. Larson weaves this story by offering alternating views of the captain of the Lusitania, the commander of the sub that sank it, the passengers aboard the ship, British naval intelligence officers, and President Wilson. The general story line is chronological and the various perspectives alternate throughout the telling. Two central thesis are developed throughout the book. The first is that the author is sympathetic to the captain of the Lusitania who was somewhat maligned after the event by those who sought to blame the sinking of the ship on his incompetence. The second concerns the suggestion that there was deliberate negligence on the part of British intelligence and leadership who recognized strategic advantage in the ship being attacked in terms of its potential to draw Americans into the war as allies. The author uses rich archival detail to support both claims. Larson is both an accomplished journalist and historical novelist. He has written four New York Times bestselling books on subjects ranging from serial killers to hurricanes. He has written for The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine as a staff journalist. He has been a contributing author to The Atlantic, Harper's, and The New Yorker. His academic background includes a bachelors in Russian history, language and culture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in journalism from Columbia University. Download your copy today!Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. (c) 2015 All Rights Reserved

Summary of Dead Wake

Summary of Dead Wake PDF Author: Abookaday
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781539118213
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
Warning: This is an independent addition to Dead Wake, meant to enhance your experience of the original book. If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by bestselling author Erik Larson offers a detailed look into the May 7, 1915 sinking of the British passenger ship the Lusitania by a German U-boat near the start of WWI. This review follows along the chronological storyline of the book, and includes special attention to the extensive detail offered by the author. The summary is followed by an analysis of the book's strengths and weaknesses. Larson weaves this story by offering alternating views of the captain of the Lusitania, the commander of the sub that sank it, the passengers aboard the ship, British naval intelligence officers, and President Wilson. The general story line is chronological and the various perspectives alternate throughout the telling. Two central thesis are developed throughout the book. The first is that the author is sympathetic to the captain of the Lusitania who was somewhat maligned after the event by those who sought to blame the sinking of the ship on his incompetence. The second concerns the suggestion that there was deliberate negligence on the part of British intelligence and leadership who recognized strategic advantage in the ship being attacked in terms of its potential to draw Americans into the war as allies. The author uses rich archival detail to support both claims. Larson is both an accomplished journalist and historical novelist. He has written four New York Times bestselling books on subjects ranging from serial killers to hurricanes. He has written for The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine as a staff journalist. He has been a contributing author to The Atlantic, Harper's, and The New Yorker. His academic background includes a bachelors in Russian history, language and culture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in journalism from Columbia University. Download your copy today! for a limited time discount of only $2.99! Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. (c) 2015 All Rights Reserved
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