biography

"Hillary Clinton has accumulated a lifelong record of public service as a lawyer and children's advocate, First Lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State. Her tenacious personality has created both loyal supporters and harsh critics. Clinton's bid for the presidency of the United States in 2008 failed, but after launching another run in 2015, she could become the first woman to attain the highest office in the land"--From the publisher's web site.

Biography that describes the life of Tomas de Torquemada, the fifteenth-century monk who became the fanatical leader of the Spanish Inquisition.

Profiles each of the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence, giving historical information about the colonies they represented. Includes the text of the Declaration and its history.

Profiles the life and accomplishments of Clara Barton, a teacher who organized efforts to bring nursing care to wounded soldiers during the Civil War and who went on to become the founder of the American Red Cross.

"Level Zero Heroes, Michael Golembesky's bestselling account of Marine Special Operations Team 8222 in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan, was just the beginning for these now battle-hardened special operations warriors. The unforgiving Afghan winter has settled upon the 22 men of Marine Special Operations Team 8222, callsign Dagger 22, in the remote and hostile river valley of Bala Murghab, Afghanistan. The Taliban fighters in the region would have liked nothing more than to once again go dormant and rest until the new spring fighting season began. No chance of that--this winter would be different. Along with Afghan and International Security Forces (NATO), the Marines of Dagger 22 continued their fight throughout the harsh winter to shape the battlefield before the Afghan ground began to thaw. From one firefight to the next, the noose began to tighten around the village of Daneh Pasab and the Taliban command cell operating there. On April 6, 2010, a ground force consisting of U.S. Army Special Forces, Afghan Commandos and Marine Corps special operations conducted a night assault to destroy the heavily entrenched Taliban force, breaking their grip on the valley and stopping the spring offensive before it even began. But nothing in Bala Murghab comes easily as combat operations wear on the operators of Dagger 22 as they lean on each other once again in order to complete their mission in one of the most brutal environments on earth."--Provided by publisher.

"This little-known WWII story introduces a renegade pilot whose personal mission to rescue his family from a POW camp changed modern air warfare forever. December 1941: Manila is invaded, and US citizen and Philippine Airlines manager, Pappy Gunn, is ordered to fly key military command out of the country, leaving his family at home. So Gunn was miles away when the Japanese captured his wife and children, placing them in an internment camp where they faced disease, abuse, and starvation. Gunn spent three years trying to rescue them. His exploits became legend as he revolutionized the art of air warfare, devising his own weaponry, missions, and combat strategies. By the end of the war, Pappy's ingenuity and flair for innovation helped transform MacArthur's air force into the scourge of the Pacific"--.

History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy?s enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure.

On the surface, Arce's story reads like a how-to manual for achieving the American dream: growing up in an apartment on the outskirts of San Antonio, she worked tirelessly, achieved academic excellence, and landed a coveted job on Wall Street, complete with a six-figure salary. The level of professional and financial success that she achieved was the very definition of the American dream. But in this brave new memoir, Arce digs deep to reveal the physical, financial, and emotional costs of the stunning secret that she, like many other high-achieving, successful individuals in the United States, had been forced to keep not only from her bosses, but even from her closest friends.

In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer?s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer?s historical caricature, revealing a capable yet insecure man, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (court-martialed twice in six years) and the new corporate economy, a wartime emancipator who rejected racial equality. Stiles argues that, although Custer was justly noted for his exploits on the western frontier, he also played a central role as both a wide-ranging participant and polarizing public figure in his extraordinary, transformational time?a time of civil war, emancipation, brutality toward Native Americans, and, finally, the Industrial Revolution?even as he became one of its casualties. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation. It casts surprising new light on one of the best-known figures of American history, a subject of seemingly endless fascination.

The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York -- the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America. Meagher's rebirth in America included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade from New York in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War -- Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg. Twice shot from his horse while leading charges, left for dead in the Virginia mud, Meagher's dream was that Irish-American troops, seasoned by war, would return to Ireland and liberate their homeland from British rule. The hero's last chapter, as territorial governor of Montana, was a romantic quest for a true home in the far frontier. His death has long been a mystery to which Egan brings haunting, colorful new evidence.