Böcker utgivna av Forge

How the unprepossessing Ulysses S. Grant, whose military genius ultimately preserved the Union, came to the forefront in the Civil War is a story as surprising as it is compelling. Forced to resign his commission in the peacetime army for drinking, and thereafter reduced to eking out a living for himself and his family with hardscrabble jobs, at the outbreak of hostilities he suddenly found himself a colonel, and then a general, of volunteers. Grant made the most of unexpected commands. What he knew best, it turned out, was how to wage war, relentlessly and with irresistible force.Early in 1862, with the conflict a year old and both sides in the West reluctant to fight, Grant seized the initiative and took Forts Henry and Donelson, capturing an entire rebel army. Later, in Mississippi, he conducted the arduous campaign against Vicksburg, cutting the confederacy in half and capturing a second army. All the time Grant was forced to cope with jealous superiors, like General Henry Halleck, while finding staunch allies in General William Sherman and Admiral David Dixon Porter, and dealing with disloyalty, like that of General John McClernard, who actually came close to replacing him. But for his many victories Grant was named commander in the West, and sent to relieve the siege of Chattanooga, which earned him his promotion to general-in-chief."Whip the Rebellion" were Grant's watchwords every day of the war. This dramatic narrative--peopled with the heroics of hundreds of officers and enlisted men, crammed with first-hand accounts of battles, tactics, and civilian hardships--offers fresh insights into both the public and personal lives of Grant and his immediate circle.

Peter Bruegel's paintings---a peasant wedding in a barn, hunters in the snow, a rollicking street festival, and many others---have long defined our idea of everyday life in sixteenth- century Europe. They are classic icons of a time and place in much the same way as Norman Rockwell's depictions of twentieth-century America. We know relatively little about Bruegel, but after years of research, novelist Rudy Rucker has built upon the what is known and has created for us the life and world of a true master who never got old. In sixteen chapters, each headed by a reproduction of one of the famous works, Rucker brings Bruegel's painter's progress and his colorful world to vibrant life, doing for Bruegel what the best-selling Girl with a Pearl Earring did for Vermeer. We follow the artist from the winding streets of Antwerp and Brussels to the glowing skies and decaying monuments of Rome and back. He and his friends, the cartographer Ortelius and Williblad Cheroo, an American Indian, are as vivid on the page as the multifarious denizens of Bruegel's unforgettable canvases. Here is a world of conflict, change, and discovery, a world where Carnival battles Lent every day, preserved for us in paint by the engaging genius you will meet in the pages of As Above, So Below.

Elizabeth Van Lew, PatriotElizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond, Virginia, a citizen of the United States of America. When Virginia and other southern states seceded, she didn't feel that changed her citizenship. Once the Civil War started, she led a dangerous double life to aid her country. Her neighbors thought her merely an eccentric spinster; in reality she was busy day and night, ferreting out Confederate military secrets and passing them covertly through enemy lines to other members of the Union intelligence underground, all right under the suspicious noses of the Confederate military command in her native Richmond. The Confederate Army constantly harassed her: they raided her house in the middle of the night; they followed as she went about her business through the streets of Richmond; they even searched her grocery bags for possible hidden messages. Throughout the Civil War, Elizabeth Van Lew was but a hair's breadth away from exposure, and a hanging death. This is her heroic true story.Winner of the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction

The critically acclaimed memoirs of one female police officer's sixteen-year odyssey, beginning with day one at the Police Academy and spanning assignments on Chicago's West Side, one of the most dangerous areas in the city.The notorious cops' code of silence is broken as the author recounts incidents in the West Side projects: shoot-outs, ambushes, and what it feels like to kill a man-just four days out of the Academy.The stories told are sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, often poignant, and always provide the reader with an on the scene feel for life behind the badge. Domestic violence, murdered spouses, abused children, and philandering CPD brass are just some of the topics addressed, topics that officer Gallo dealt with everyday.From her work with gangs, narcotics, the gun task force, and acting as a prostitute, Gina Gallo offers a gritty account of the darker side of the city, giving readers an objective side to the cops, crooks, and victims that comprise a the police cops world.

Queen Maeve has declared war upon the province of Ulster in an effort to take possession of the Brown Bull of Cooley. Ultimately, this is an attempt to match the wealth of her husband, King Ailill of Connacht, who owns a magnificent white bull. Only Cuchulainn, a boy warrior, stands between Ulster and certain annihilation. Supported by the Morrigan, the goddess of war, he begins a reign of terror upon the Connacht warriors. In his heroic stand, the reader discovers the genesis of the determination of the Irish people, their will to stand alone against oppression.