From the moment colonists at Popham launched the first ship constructed in the New World in 1608, Maine has been a shipbuilding powerhouse. Celebrating the bicentennial of Maine, historian Nathan Lipfert, in cooperation with the Maine Maritime Museum explores the rich history of Maine shipbuilding. Though concentrating primarily on shipbuilding activity in the two centuries since statehood, the book begins with pre-1820 activity, including native canoe-making (the oldest known birchbark canoe is in a Maine museum) and colonial-period shipbuilding. Covering the entire coast, this rich visual history focuses on the industry and the vessels produced, highlighting Maine’s national and international importance in shipbuilding over the past two centuries, and its continuing relevance to national security, the fisheries, yachting and harbor craft.
Excerpt: "Presently the evenness of his breathing told her he was asleep. For a long time she lay on her back just as he had left her, mulling over her situation. In those brief minutes everything had supposedly righted itself. She had officially left her girlhood behind forever and become a woman. The days of wearing her hair down her back in a long braid were gone, although she was not yet entitled to wear a married woman's kerchief. Nor did she any longer belong to the group of young housemaids who had been her friends, nor to a group of married women whom she hardly knew. All at once she felt very alone, not knowing what was expected of her. The only thing she knew for sure was that her life had taken a false turn, and she didn't know how to set it right again." ========================= Nineteenth century Swedish peasant life was not always the dance around the Midsummer pole portrayed by the artists of the time. Those same peasants lived daily lives in the shadow of the all-powerful village church, controlled by the countless rules, customs, and traditions that governed every aspect of their existence, leaving no room for individual deviations. When it became known that Augusta Torsdotter's daughter Elsa-Carolina was illegitimate, the course of both of their lives irrevokably changed. As an adult, Elsa-Carolina immigrated to America, turning her back on the past. It wasn't until three-quarters of a century later, at the age of 94, that she returned to Sweden, to come to terms with her girlhood. "The harshness of Swedish peasant life and landscape is beautifully chronicled in Judit Martin's novel. Her knowledge of the culture, customs, work, superstitions, and attitudes of the day opens up that world for those of us seeking to know our Swedish ancestors." -Joan Morrison Granddaughter of Swedish immigrants Charleston, Maine ===================== "Wonderful and evocative! A captivating and enlightening read!" -Mr. Jan Smedh Bookseller The English Bookshop Upsala & Stockholm, Sweden This book is intended for mature audiences.
A brutal siege. A forgotten heroine. A war-torn romance. And a historian determined to uncover the truth. Untold millions who saw and read Band of Brothers can finally know the whole story of what happened to American soldiers and civilians in Bastogne during that arduous Winter of 1944/45. In the television version of Band of Brothers, a passing reference is made to an African nurse assisting in an aid station in Bastogne. When military historian Martin King watched the episode, he had to know who that woman was; thus began a multi-year odyssey that revealed the horror of a town under siege as well as an improbable love story between a white Army medic, Jack Prior, and his black nurse, Augusta Chiwy, as they saved countless lives while under constant bombardment. Based on the recent discovery of Prior's diary as well as an exhaustive and occasionally futile search for Augusta herself, King was at last able to bring belated recognition of Augusta's incredible story by both the U.S. Army and Belgian government shortly before she died. This is not only a little-known story of the Battle of the Bulge, but also the author's own relentless mission to locate Augusta and bestow upon her the honors she so richly deserved.
The “enormously entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) account of a shocking 1897 murder mystery that “artfully re-create[s] the era, the crime, and the newspaper wars it touched off” (The New York Times) AN EDGAR NOMINEE FOR BEST FACT CRIME • “Fascinating . . . won’t disappoint readers in search of a book like Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City.”—The Washington Post On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. The police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era’s most perplexing murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus, as their rival newspapers the World and the Journal raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale—a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that forever changed newspaper journalism.
This book about Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great, deals with the historical facts of Helena's life and investigates the origin and function of the legends concerning the discovery of the True Cross by Helena, which were developed in the 4th and 5th centuries.
One of the most controversial of all works to survive from ancient Rome, the Augustan History is our main source of information about the Roman emperors from 117 to 284 AD. Written in the late fourth century by an anonymous author, it is an enigmatic combination of truth, invention and humour. This volume contains the first half of the History, and includes biographies of every emperor from Hadrian to Heliogabalus - among them the godlike Marcus Antonius and his grotesquely corrupt son Commodus. The History contains many fictitious (but highly entertaining) anecdotes about the depravity of the emperors, as the author blends historical fact and faked documents to present our most complete - albeit unreliable - account of the later Roman Caesars.
An indelible portrait of a woman who through great toughness of character blazes her own trail Novelist William Haywod Henderson has won acclaim for his depictions of land and nature and his ability to bring the American West to vivid life. Of his most recent novel, The Rest of the Earth, Annie Proulx remarked that Henderson “writes some of the most evocative and transcendently beautiful prose in contemporary American literature.” Redolent with myth, humor, strange landscapes, and stark reality, Henderson’s new novel tells the story of Augusta Locke, a troubled yet spirited woman, as she raises her daughter in the deserts of Wyoming. Spanning the twentieth century, Augusta’s extraordinary challenges play out themes of love and loss, home and family, redemption and reconciliation.
This classic work of scholarship scrutinizes all aspects of Roman military forces throughout the Roman Empire, in Europe, North Africa, and the Near and Middle East. Graham Webster describes the Roman army’s composition, frontier systems, camps and forts, activities in the field (including battle tactics, signaling, and medical services), and peacetime duties, as well as the army’s overall influence in the Empire. First published in 1969, the work is corrected and expanded in this third edition, which includes new information from excavations and the finding of contemporary scholars. Hugh Elton provides an introduction surveying scholarship on the Roman army since the last edition of 1985.
