° Palatka
Publisher or vendor item descriptions are provided when available. Cover images may not match those in the library. PAL = Palatka Campus Library | OPC = Orange Park Campus Library | SAC = St. Augustine Campus Library |
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The compelling story of the system of prisons and work camps where thousands met their deaths was the victim of a determined effort by the British to destroy all official records of their attempts to stop the Mau Mau uprising. Caroline Elkins spent a decade in London, Nairobi, and the Kenyan countryside interviewing hundreds of survivors of the camps and the British and African loyalists who detained them. The result is an unforgettable account of the unraveling of the British colonial empire in Kenya— a pivotal moment in twentieth- century history with chilling parallels to America’ s own imperial project."
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 2005:
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and
Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
- "For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans
were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert
operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies -- invisible
wars that sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and that provide
its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 through the summer of
2001, the CIA, KGB, Pakistan's ISI, and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence
Department all operated directly and secretly in Afghanistan. They
primed Afghan factions with cash and weapons, secretly trained guerrilla
forces, funded propaganda, and manipulated politics. In the midst
of these struggles bin Laden conceived and then built his global organization.
Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Steve Coll tells the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan,
including its covert program against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989,
and examines the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden,
and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture
or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998. Based on extensive firsthand
accounts, Ghost Wars is the inside story that goes well beyond anything
previously published on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It chronicles
the roles of midlevel CIA officers, their Afghan allies, and top spy
masters such as Bill Casey, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al-Faisal,
and George Tenet. And it describes heated debates within the American
government and the often poisonous, mistrustful relations between
the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies.
Ghost Wars answers the questions so many have asked since the horrors of September 11: To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail?"
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 2004:
Gulag: A History - "The Gulag--a vast array
of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and
criminal prisoners--was a system of repression and punishment that
terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet
communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum
offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its
origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin,
to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Applebaum intimately re-creates
what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history
of the Soviet Union. Immediately recognized as a landmark and long-overdue
work of scholarship, Gulag is an essential book for anyone who wishes
to understand the history of the twentieth century."
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 2001:
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan - "In
this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert
P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic
leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern
world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure
been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was
like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the
nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status.
Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition
and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves
into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultranationalist
movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting
attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image
as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly
was: a man of strong will and real authority.
Supported by a vast array of previously untapped primary documents, "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan "is perhaps most illuminating in lifting the veil on the mythology surrounding the emperor's impact on the world stage. Focusing closely on Hirohito's interactions with his advisers and successive Japanese governments, Bix sheds new light on the causes of the China War in 1937 and the start of the Asia-Pacific War in 1941. And while conventional wisdom has had it that the nation's increasing foreign aggression was driven and maintained not by the emperor but by an elite group of Japanese militarists, the reality, as witnessed here, is quite different. Bix documents in detail the strong, decisive role Hirohitoplayed in wartime operations, from the takeover of Manchuria in 1931 through the attack on Pearl Harbor and ultimately the fateful decision in 1945 to accede to an unconditional surrender. In fact, the emperor stubbornly prolonged the war effort and then used the horrifying bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with the Soviet entrance into the war, as his exit strategy from a no-win situation. From the moment of capitulation, we see how American and Japanese leaders moved to justify the retention of Hirohito as emperor by whitewashing his wartime role and reshaping the historical consciousness of the Japanese people. The key to this strategy was Hirohito's alliance with General MacArthur, who helped him maintain his stature and shed his militaristic image, while MacArthur used the emperor as a figurehead to assist him in converting Japan into a peaceful nation. Their partnership ensured that the emperor's image would loom large over the postwar years and later decades, as Japan began to make its way in the modern age and struggled -- as it still does -- to come to terms with its past. Until the very end of a career that embodied the conflicting aims of Japan's development as a nation, Hirohito remained preoccupied with politics and with his place in history. "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" provides the definitive account of his rich life and legacy. Meticulously researched and utterly engaging, this book is proof that the history of twentieth-century Japan cannot be understood apart from the life of its most remarkable and enduring leader."
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 1962:
The Making of the President 1960 - "What is
an American presidential election? "The most awesome transfer
of power in the world—the power to marshal and mobilize, the
power to send men to kill or be killed, the power to tax and destroy,
the power to create and the responsibility to do so, the power to
guide and the responsibility to heal—all committed into the
hands of one man." These words, written by Theodore H. White in the opening chapter of this classic book, are as true today as when they were written nearly a half-century ago. White's unprecedented examination of crucial campaign, in which the young and charismatic John F. Kennedy squared off against the seasoned vice president, Richard M. Nixon, is both a fascinating historical document and a compelling narrative of character and consequence. The distinguished reporter's detailed appreciation of the instinct and experience that shape the political process is a revelation in our current age of sound bites, relentlessly chattering punditry, and the all-consuming influence of television—an influence first felt in the Kennedy-Nixon debates that proved to be a critical factor in the 1960 election. Following seven candidates from the earliest stirrings of aspiration through the rigors of the primaries, the drama of the conventions, and the grueling campaigning that culminated in one of the closest electoral contests in our nation's history, White provides a valuable education in the ways and means of our political life. The Making of the President 1960 is an extraordinary document, a celebration of the genius of American democracy and an anatomy of the ambition, cunning, and courage it demands from those who seek its highest office. For what it can teach us about the forces that determine the destiny of presidential candidates, it remains required reading today."
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| category began in 1962. |
2008:
The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945
by Saul Friedländer - 
Call number:
SAC - D804.3 .F753 2007
2007:
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 -
"A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11,
a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans
and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault
on America. Lawrence Wright’ s remarkable book is based on
five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted
in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France,
Germany, Spain, and the United States.
2006:
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag
in Kenya - "As part of the Allied forces, thousands
of Kenyans fought alongside the British in World War II. But just
a few years after the defeat of Hitler, the British colonial government
detained nearly the entire population of Kenya’ s largest
ethnic minority, the Kikuyu— some one and a half million people.
2003:
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
- "In her award-winning interrogation of the last century of
American history, Samantha Power -- a former Balkan war correspondent
and founding executive director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human
Rights Policy -- asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders
who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide?
Drawing upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policy makers,
access to newly declassified documents, and her own reporting from
the modern killing fields, Power provides the answer in "A
Problem from Hell" -- a groundbreaking work that tells the
stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and
lives in an effort to get the United States to act."
2002:
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle
of the Civil Rights Revolution - ""The Year of
Birmingham," 1963, was a cataclysmic turning point in America's
long civil rights struggle. That spring, child demonstrators faced
down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches for desegregation.
A few months later, Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church and killing four young black girls. Diane
McWhorter, journalist and daughter of a prominent Birmingham family,
weaves together police and FBI documents, interviews with black
activists and former Klansmen, and personal memories into an extraordinary
narrative of the city, the personalities, and the events that brought
about America's second emancipation."
2000:
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II -
"A foremost historian examines Japan in the immediate, shattering
aftermath of World War II, giving readers the rich and turbulent
interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished,
in a way never before attempted. 75 illustrations."
1999:
Annals of the Former World - "The Pulitzer
Prize-winning view of the continent, across the fortieth parallel
and down through 4.6 billion years
1998:
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies -
"Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans,
Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking
book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles
racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental
factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. Here,
at last, is a world history that really is a history of all the
world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life even more intriguing
and important than accounts of dinosaurs and glaciers. A major advance
in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel
chronicles the way that the modern world, and its inequalities,
came to be. It is a work rich in dramatic revelations that will
fascinate readers even as it challenges conventional wisdom."
1997:
Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the
Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris -
"No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes
-- mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most
profitable consumer product -- with such sweep and enlivening detail.
1993:
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America -
"The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling
demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked
to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead he gave the whole nation
"a new birth of freedom"--by tracing its first birth to
the Declaration of Independence (which called all men equal) rather
than to the Constitution (which tolerated slavery). In the space
of a mere 272 words, Lincoln brought to bear the rhetoric of the
Greek Revival, the categories of Transcendentalism, and the imagery
of the "rural cemetery" movement. His entire life and
previous training, his deep political experience, went into this,
his revolutionary masterpiece. As Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
has been restored to its bold colors and forgotten details, Garry
Wills restores the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln at Gettysburg combines
the same extraordinary quality of observation that defines Wills's
previous best-selling portraits of modern presidents, such as Reagan's
America and Nixon Agonistes, with the iconoclastic scholarship of
his studies of our founding documents, such as Inventing America.
By examining both the Address and Lincoln in their historical moment
and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought
we knew and reveals much about a President so mythologized but often
misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world,
to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did
complete the work of the guns. The Civil War is, to most Americans,
what Lincoln wanted it to mean. Now Garry Wills explains how Lincoln
wove a spell that has not, yet, been broken."
1991:
The Ants - "This landmark work, the distillation
of a lifetime of research by the world's leading myrmecologists,
is a thoroughgoing survey of one of the largest and most diverse
groups of animals on the planet. Holldobler and Wilson review in
exhaustive detail virtually all topics in the anatomy, physiology,
social organization, ecology, and natural history of the ants. In
large format, with almost a thousand line drawings, photographs,
and painting, it is one of the most visually rich and all-encompassing
view of any group of organisms on earth. It will be welcomed both
as an introduction to the subject and as an encyclopedia reference
for researchers in entomology, ecology, and sociobiology."
1989:
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
- "Neil Sheehan's monumental bestselling account of
the Vietnam War, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction
and the National Book Award. This tragic biography of John Paul
Vann is also a sweeping history of America's seduction, entrapment,
and disillusionment in Vietnam. 16-page photo insert."
1986:
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three
American Families - "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize,
the National Book Critics Circle Award and the American Book Award,
this book examines school integration in Boston from the vantage
points of three families: one black and two white."
1982:
The Soul of a New Machine - "Computers have changed
since 1981, when Tracy Kidder indelibly recorded the drama, comedy,
and excitement of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer
to market. What has changed little, however, is computer culture:
the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the mystique of programmers,
the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer
companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing
mind-bending technological innovations. By tracing computer culture
to its roots, by exploring the "soul" of the "machine"
that has revolutionized the world, Kidder succeeds as no other writer
has done in capturing the essential spirit of the computer age."
1979:
On Human Nature 
1978:
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human
Intelligence - "Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great
reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into
the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the
function of our most haunting legends--and their amazing links to
recent discoveries.
1977:
Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay
- "William Warner exhibits his skill as a naturalist
and as a writer in this Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the pugnacious
Atlantic blue crab and of its Chesapeake Bay territory."
1976:
Why Survive?: Being Old in America - "Looks at prevailing
attitudes toward aging as well as the economic and medical needs
of elderly citizens."
1975:
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - "An exhilarating
meditation on nature and its seasons-a personal narrative highlighting
one year's exploration on foot in the author's own neighborhood
in Tinker Creek, Virginia. In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats
in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches
a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She
tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under
a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays
-King of the Meadow' with a field of grasshoppers."
1974:
The Denial of Death - "Winner of the Pulitzer
prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, "The Denial
of Death" is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer
to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the
predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem
of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality.
In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues
a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty
years after its writing."
1973:
Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam
- "This landmark work, based on Frances FitzGerald's own research
and travels, takes us inside Vietnam -- into the traditional, ancestor-worshiping
villages and the corrupt crowded cities, into the conflicts between
Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals
and monks -- and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese
eyes. With a clarity and authority unrivaled by any book before
it or since, "Fire in the Lake" shows how America utterly
and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam.
1972:
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 -
"Barbara W. Tuchman uses the life of Joseph Stilwell, the military
attache to China in 1935-39 and commander of United States forces
and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942-44, to explore
the history of China from the revolution of 1911 to the turmoil
of World War II, when China's Nationalist government faced attack
from Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents. Her story is an
account of both American relations with China and the experiences
of one of our men on the ground. In the cantankerous but level-headed
"Vinegar Joe", Tuchman found a subject who allowed her
to perform, in the words of The National Review, "one of the
historian's most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography
of a man with a fascinating epic story"."
1971
- The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire,
1936-1945 - "This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of
World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese
empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, "The
Rising Sun is, in the author's words, "a factual saga of people
caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind,
told as it happened--muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating,
full of paradox."
1969:
So Human an Animal - "Is the human species
becoming dehumanized by the condition of his environment? So Human
an Animal is an attempt to address this broad concern, and explain
why so little is being done to address this issue. The book sounds
both an urgent warning, and offers important policy insights into
how this trend towards dehumanization can be halted and finally
reversed. Dubos asserts that we are as much the product of our total
environment as of our genetic endowment. In fact, the environment
we live in can greatly enhance, or severely limit, the development
of human potential. Yet we are deplorably ignorant of the effects
of our surroundings on human life. We create conditions which can
only thwart human nature. So Human an Animal is a book with hope
no less than alarm. Science can change our suicidal course by learning
to deal analytically with the living experience of human beings,
by supplementing the knowledge of things and of the body machine
with a science of human life. Only then can we give larger scope
to human freedom by providing a rational basis for option and action."
1968:
Rousseau And Revolution, The Tenth And Concluding
Volume Of The Story Of Civilization by Will And Ariel Durant
- "Rousseau and Revolution, Volume 10 of Will and Ariel Durant's
Story of Civilization, ranges over a Europe in ferment, but centers
on the passionate rebel--philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the
great exponent of the romantic impulse toward self-exploration and
social revolt, who contended with the great rationalist, Voltaire,
for the mind of Europe. Rousseau condemned civilization as a disease,
glorified the noble savage, proclaimed to the world with equal intensity
his own love affairs and the natural Rights of Man, and became the
patron Saint of the Revolution and the worldwide social upheavals
of two centuries."
1966:
Wandering Through Winter; A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-mile
Journey Through the North American Winter 
1964:
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life - "A
book which throws light on many features of the American character.
Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in
American life, but to say something about what the intellectual
is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society."
1963:
The Guns of August - " "More dramtatic
than fiction...THE GUNS OF AUGUST is a magnificent narrative--beautifully
organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained....The
product of painstaking and sophisticated research."