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This is the first book-length biography of Ned Hanlon, a Hall of Famer but yet an underappreciated figure in baseball history. As a first generation Irish-American, Ned Hanlon left behind a childhood in the cotton mills to become a star player in the major leagues and the famous manager of the colorful 1890s Baltimore Orioles. He traveled the world on an all-star team and was a key member of the first attempt by baseball players to unionize, which led to the creation of the upstart Players' League. Hanlon was an innovative and shrewd tactician whose strategies and ideas helped baseball transition from its rough infancy into the modern game we know today. As one of the premier baseball minds of his time, "Foxy Ned" also exerted a profound influence on the sport through the managerial tree he established, which includes Hall of Fame managers such as John McGraw, Miller Huggins, and Connie Mack.

The hunger strike of 1981 is regarded as one of the most tragic events in Irish history. Ten men died over a period of 217 days in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh (Maze) prison while exercising the most extreme form of civil disobedience available to them. The Troubles that gave rise to the hunger strike had roots in the centuries of socio-economic subjugation and religious persecution in Ireland. In 1971, the British government began internment without trial for persons suspected of belonging to paramilitary organizations. Eventually, the British government granted Special Category Status to these prisoners before later stripping it from the prisons by 1976, leading to a five-year prisoner protest that culminated in the 1981 hunger strike. This book critically examines declassified British government documents that detail how the government's policies led to the 1981 hunger strike, how Margaret Thatcher exacerbated the strike by refusing steps to end it, and how the hunger strike eventually led to peace in the north. Analysis also illustrates how the 1981 hunger strike, and the ten men who died on it, forced a revolutionary change in the political and governmental structure of the north and paved a road to peace that concluded with the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

History paints war out to be a man's business, but there is an army of women warriors who stand between the lines of history books, waiting to be seen. This biographical dictionary tells the story of the females who armed themselves against threats to self, family, home and country. Spanning 17 periods of world history, it compiles the daring deeds of 1,622 female fighters, from Bronze Age archers and Viking raiders, to helicopter pilots and commanders of aircraft carriers. Entries summarize heroes such as the Old Testament judge Deborah, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Aisha, Mary Spencer-Churchill, Calamity Jane, Cleopatra VII, Molly Pitcher, Aung San Suu Kyi and-- surprisingly-- Julia Child. Included are the famous stands the unheralded scrappers and risk-takers took up in fierce crises.

This is a critical history of spy fiction, film and television in the United States, with a particular focus on the American fictional spies that rivaled (and were often influenced by) Ian Fleming's James Bond. James Fenimore Cooper's Harvey Birch, based on a real-life counterpart, appeared in his novel The Spy in 1821. While Harvey Birch's British rivals dominated spy fiction from the late 1800s until the mid-1930s, American spy fiction came of age shortly thereafter. The spy boom in novels and films during the 1960s, spearheaded by Bond, heavily influenced the espionage genre in the United States for years to come, including series like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Matt Helm. The author demonstrates that, while American authors currently dominate the international spy fiction market, James Bond has cast a very long shadow, for a very long time.

Theaters worldwide have exhibited a bewildering array of form, style, tone and subject in the late 20th- and the early 21st centuries, and this range of work has been determined largely by its directors. This book documents this procession of theatre in interviews with 28 directors who've been most recognized and influential on the global stage. Their ideas are varied, even dissonant, indicating the protean nature of theatre and the rich weave of work that's made our theater so rewarding. Interviewees include Judith Malina, Ping Chong, Julie Taymor and Robert Icke, among others who have defined modern theater.

What makes a kaiju a kaiju? What makes an ape a large ape, and why do we sympathize with some, such as King Kong, and not with others, such as Konga? And what makes a giant person become a "monster"? This book provides a new perspective on kaiju and reveals that our boundaries for the genre are perhaps not so solid. This work focuses primarily on newer kaiju works, ranging from Colossal to Shin Godzilla to Godzilla vs. Kong, but also touches on classics such as King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Godzilla Raids Again, and lesser-known works such as What to Do With the Dead Kaiju? and Agon. Like our ancestors we have collectively adopted giant monsters into our culture, especially our pop culture. Within the domains where giant monsters walk, we experience the rigidity of our moral structures, and the fleeting borders of our definitions of humanity. Within the kaiju film genre rest our own assumptions about what makes a monster a monster, and, more importantly, what makes a human a human.

In 1911, a legally deaf, beginner pilot with limited training and only 90 minutes of solo flying experience took on newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst's $50,000 challenge to be the first aviator to fly across America in 30 days or less. The transcontinental flight was considered by most to be an extremely dangerous and nearly impossible feat, considering roughly half of all pilots perished in the early years of aviation. Less than a decade since the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, a time when less than two percent of the country had even seen an airplane, Calbraith "Cal" Perry Rodgers drew tens of thousands of people to watch him fly. He survived a grueling journey, making history by becoming the first person to complete an east-to-west transcontinental flight. In a flimsy aircraft prone to mechanical failure, Rodgers crashed an astonishing 16 times, narrowly avoiding death on numerous occasions. By the time he had reached California and the coast where he would land, on the sand at Long Beach, his story of courage and determination had captured the imagination of an entire nation. This book chronicles the life of Cal Rodgers and depicts the world of aviation during its adventurous, if dangerous, beginnings.

A sequel to the author's autobiographical trilogy--Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin, In the Jaws of the Crocodile, and Farewell, Mama Odessa--this book is part memoir and part cultural study about the challenges of immigration and American accculturation. With self-deprecating humor, the author, a former Soviet satirist who was punished for trespassing the boundaries of public criticism, recollects his growing pains as he overcame his indoctrinated upbringing in a totalitarian society to embrace America's defining values.

This work traces the history of a remarkable troop of Hoosier horsemen--the East Wing of the Third Indiana Cavalry--during the Civil War. From the backwaters of the war in eastern Maryland to the epicenter of cavalry action in the eastern theater, they fought at Antietam, Brandy Station, Gettysburg and around Petersburg, and helped subdue Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley. Along the way they served as spies and fought in dozens of vicious skirmishes and battles. At Appomattox, they escorted one of the most famous generals to come out of the war.

World War II was over and the U.S. was still using the captured Japanese island of Okinawa as a major naval base. Hundreds of vessels dotted the numerous bays and inlets, and thousands of military personnel occupied the island. In October 1945, Typhoon Louise tore into Okinawa, slamming ships together and tossing them onto reefs and beaches. Terrible winds tore up tent cities and disintegrated corrugated tin Quonset huts. One hundred people died and 383 ships of all sizes were sunk or damaged. This book tells the full story of the typhoon historian Samuel Eliot Morison called "the most furious and lethal storm ever encountered by the United States Navy."

From their first pairing in Hamlet (1948) to House of the Long Shadows (1983), British film stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing forged perhaps the most successful collaboration in horror film history. In its revised and expanded second edition, this volume examines their 22 movie team-ups, with critical commentary, complete cast and credits, production information, details on cinematography and make-up, exhibition history and box-office figures. A wealth of background about Hammer, Amicus and other production companies is provided, along with more than 100 illustrations. Lee and Cushing describe particulars of their partnership in original interviews. Exclusive interviews with Robert Bloch, Hazel Court and nearly fifty other actors, directors and others who worked on the Lee-Cushing films are included.

General Braxton Bragg is often described as a despicable, friendless man, the most hated general of the Confederacy. Historians have denigrated Bragg by accepting without challenge the self-serving accusations of prominent, disgruntled subordinates, each of whom sought to explain their own failures by assigning them to Bragg. This biography, without dodging Bragg's deficiencies, refutes much of this false testimony. The result is a balanced view of this controversial general, from his early rise to power in the Western theater to his subsequent fall from grace in the latter years of the Civil War.

This work offers a critical examination of 130 commercially-released film comedies of the 1970s. It considers the socio-political circumstances of each year of the decade, then critiques each film released that year with a focus on its effect on the film industry and the art of big screen comedy, as well as the emergence of talents whose work influenced (or was influenced by) the zeitgeist of the decade. Covering popular titles like M*A*S*H, Blazing Saddles, American Graffiti, The Bad News Bears, Smokey and the Bandit and many more, it argues that the 1970s may rightly be considered the last golden age of film comedy.

Has John Adams been forgotten? He is the only Founding Father without a major memorial in the nation's capital. When he lamented that "monuments will never be erected to me," he predicted as much. His pessimism was understandable, but it was unjustified: Adams has since been portrayed in numerous biographies, plays, musicals, poems, novels, and television shows. This is the first comprehensive overview of John Adams as he appears in scholarship and in popular culture. The second president is one-dimensional at times, and perhaps best known to the public as "obnoxious and disliked," but he is always fascinating. The varied ways in which biographers and artists represented Adams provide a glimpse into his character. These portrayals also provide insight into the various ways in which people continue to find meaning in the American Revolution and its aftermath.

How did Friday the 13th begin as a movie about a grieving mother killing camp counselors and spawn a movie in which a nanobot enhanced, hockey masked man destroys a space station? Similarly, how did A Nightmare on Elm Street evolve from a film by Wes Craven about Freddy Krueger into a film about Wes Craven making a Freddy Krueger movie? Film series are destined to change with time, but horror film series are often unrecognizable after multiple sequels and reboots. This work examines horror films and their sequels to determine the glue that holds individual franchises together, which films matter to a series' continuity, which should be considered as canon, and what goes into the process of continuing--or, in some cases, abandoning--the overarching storyline. Series covered include Friday the 13th, Halloween, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Leprechaun, and Scream.

This book examines translations of Icelandic sagas and the Victorian and Edwardian children's literature they inspired, some of which are canonical while others are forgotten. It covers authors like William Morris, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Thomas Gray, Walter Scott, H. Rider Haggard, W.H. Auden, John Greenleef Whittier and more. In lavish volumes and modest schoolbooks, British and American writers claimed Nordic heritage and explored Nordic traditions. The sagas offered a rich and wide-ranging source for these authors: Volsunga saga's Sigurd the dragon slayer; King Olaf's saga of opposing Nordic Gods and Christianity; Frithiof's model of headstrong youth beset with unfair opposition and lost love. Grettir and Njal tell of men who accepted fate and met conflict and enemies unflinchingly; Aslaug, Gudrida, Hallberga and Hervar exerted remarkable influence; and Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky provided Americans with a Nordic heritage of discovery.

The Revolutionary War was nearing its end in early 1783. In his Hudson Highlands stronghold, General Washington kept a wary eye on the British force in New York City, 60 miles away. His army, owed months of back pay, and his officers frustrated by the negotiations over their promised pension, chafed under martial authority. A nationalist faction in Congress seized upon this discontent to instigate the Newburgh Conspiracy, a plot by Continental Army officers to menace civil officials who opposed the Impost, a 5% tax on imports to be collected by the central government, to satisfy the nation's debts. The army--by this time a formidable force of seasoned veterans--was provoked into threatening the very liberties it had fought to defend. This book examines this last major crisis of the Revolution, when Washington stood between his men and the American people.

Examining humor in depictions of the Civil War from the war years to the present, this review covers a wide range of literature, film and television in historical context. Wartime humor served as a form of propaganda to render the enemy and their cause laughable, but also to help people cope with the human costs of the conflict. After the war many authors and, later, movie and television producers employed humor to shape its legacy, perpetuating myths and stereotypes that became ingrained in American memory. Giving attention to the stories behind the stories, the author focuses on what people laughed at, who they laughed with and what it reveals about their view of events.

Science fiction cinema has had a dramatic effect on how science is perceived by the general population. At first, science fiction and science may seem diametrically opposed, and in some cases they certainly are, but after a closer analysis, many elements are in common, primarily creativity and imagination. Even though "fiction" is the key word in science fiction, there are many examples of yesterday's science fiction becoming today's science. This book explores the creative and imaginative elements of biology seen in 20th century science fiction films. Written by a professional scientist and science fiction lover, this second edition includes recent updates of biomedical science and science fiction cinema. It covers different categories of biology, biochemistry (or molecular biology), and medicine, each subcategorized into chapters such as cell biology, hematology, and dermatology. Within each chapter are several science fiction cinema examples explaining the biological sciences principles involved, what is right and what is wrong with the science, and what changes could be made for the science of the film to become a reality.

This is a book about composite materials, written from the perspective of someone who has been in the industry for more than four decades and had to learn about them the hard way. Aimed at the curious citizen scientist or maker, it is written in an accessible, entertaining, and jargon-free style, introducing and explaining the how and why of composite materials. Following a history of composites, the book discusses the periodic table of elements and why getting to know this table is so important. It then introduces strings (fibers) and glues (matrices or resins) and explains how they're put together, how to design with them, and how to analyze what you've designed. The work also describes the composites business and includes a list of good schools and their involvement with industry.

Dwight Little's Hollywood career includes directing and producing major motion pictures for multiple studios, acclaimed television series and even video games. In this memoir, he takes readers along on a movie-making adventure that is by turns funny and brutally honest. There are many on-set interactions with well-known producers and stars along with detailed descriptions of film shoots from the wilds of India to the banks of the River Kwai. Included are tales from the jails of Madrid to the jungles of Fiji and the cold war streets of Budapest. The work seamlessly connects the Golden Age of Hollywood to the highly successful premium television of today. Make or break creative battles, Hollywood intrigues, unpredictable studio executives, and temperamental actors are all documented in colorful detail. Whether the reader is an aspiring filmmaker or just a movie lover, this book has it all, including a unique insight into television directing in the new streaming age and 41 photos, many on-set.

Designed to locate and sink German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic, the escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9) became the most successful Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) carrier of World War II. This book covers the construction and commissioning of the Bogue, as well as the deployment of Naval Aviation composite squadrons that launched missions from the flight deck. Day-to-day operations are chronicled in comprehensive detail, along with developments in ASW tactics and the breaking of Germany's Enigma Naval Code, which enabled U.S. Navy forces in the Atlantic to take the offensive.

The 1940s saw the birth of many enduring superheroes like Superman, Batman, Captain America and Captain Marvel. Outside of the superhero genre, the golden age of comics also featured a host of lesser-known, evil-fighting action figures, and this book contains a wealth of information about these heroes without capes. Covered here are jungle heroines like Sheena, Rulah and Princess Pantha; science fiction stalwarts including Spacehawk, Hunt Bowman and Futura; adventurers such as Kayo Kirby, Werewolf Hunter and Senorita Rio; and Western heroes ranging from Tom Mix to the Ghost Rider.

America's entrance into the wars in Vietnam came as a result of several factors. Among them was the necessity of bolstering French influence in the area in the face of mounting communist expansion. This expansion was intensified by the outbreak of the Korean War, making it necessary for the United States to revamp its Southeast Asian policy. During the French era, control of Vietnam's rivers, streams and canals became necessary. This led various factions to develop specialized military units heavily dependent on new types of river craft that could traverse the myriad waterways in Vietnam. The focal point of this study is a new assessment of the conduct of river warfare. Drawing on little-known French, Vietnamese and American sources and materials, it sheds light on an important aspect of the Vietnam War. Chapters also detail numerous aspects of river warfare not generally covered in other books on the subject.

This portrait of Calvin Coolidge reveals an astute politician and thinker seeking to restrain the unprecedented spending pressures of the 1920s and maintain a limited role for the federal government within his definition of progressivism. He did so without a strong party caucus in Congress. Instead, he used considerable rhetorical skills, a knack for publicity, and the advent of radio and other new forms of mass-circulation media to sway public opinion and keep his priorities at the forefront of national politics throughout his presidency. The book argues that, although Coolidge has been seen as the inspiration for supply-side economics and tax cuts amid growing budget deficits since the 1980s, his policy was to secure budget surpluses and debt reduction before tax cuts. The book examines his approach to the issues that continue to trouble American politics today, including questions about the scale and scope of the federal government.

This Civil War sourcebook organizes the crucial details of the war in an inventive format designed to enhance the reader's knowledge base and big-picture understanding of key events and outcomes. The war's causes, political and economic issues, important personalities, campaigns and battles are examined. Nearly 200 reader challenges stimulate reviews of critical moments, with suggested further reading. Photographs and maps have been carefully selected to supplement the topic being explored.

Thirty years after the Civil War, the 121st New York Volunteers (Upton's Regulars) finally published a history of their regiment. Its stated author was a man who had not served directly with the 121st but had based the book on a memoir written by a survivor who had enlisted at age 15. That boy, Dewitt Clinton Beckwith, published his memoir thirty years after the war in an obscure upstate New York newspaper, The Hekrimer Democrat. For years, the "origin story" lay hidden in plain sight, until editor Salvatore Cilella discovered it while researching for a regimental history. The original 53 weekly installments, edited and annotated here, richly detail the horrors and folly of war. They reveal the slow maturation of a boy thrust into almost four years of war. Beckwith was present at nearly all the historic Eastern Theater engagements from Antietam to Appomattox, including an abortive stint with the 91st New York in Florida in 1861. He describes his various Tom Sawyer-like adventures with the VI Corps of the Army of the Potomac, dealing with death, disease, loss and ultimate elation at Lee's surrender, tempered only by Abraham Lincoln's death.

Between the years of 1886 and 1939, the world saw the first automobiles, rapid urbanization, the decay of empires, vast economic inequality, the first airplanes and the terrifying secrets of the atom. It was a time of cataclysmic cultural and technological transformation, and spawned the rise of the literary genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. This work assembles gems of late nineteenth and early twentieth century genre literature, including stories by such literary giants as H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt and E. M. Forster, as well as smaller authors like Clare Winger Harris, Marie Corelli, William Hope Hodgson and others. An array of incisive nonfiction pieces on cultural and scientific advances of the time period provides a context for the anthology's stories.

This book depicts the life of Conrad Veidt (1893-1943), the defining German actor of Expressionist cinema in the 1920s. His legendary performance in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919/20) earned him the epithet "Demon of the Screen" and made Veidt an international star. To this day, Veidt is considered an icon of early horror film. He showed his acting range in more than a hundred films, among them masterpieces such as The Indian Tomb (1921), Orlac's Hands (1924), The Man Who Laughs (1928), The Thief of Bagdad (1940), and Casablanca (1942). Conrad Veidt used his acting career to become socially and politically involved, starting with the film Anders als die Anderen, the first film to advocate homosexual rights, in 1919. After the Nazis came to power, he left Germany to protest anti-Semitism and Nazi rule. Along with his biography, this book provides insights into the development of filmmaking from its beginnings through the 1940s, an epoch of cinematic art marked by technical innovations like sound and color film and by world-shaking events, including two world wars.

Billboard magazine named The Beatles the greatest performing musical act of all time, and their albums continue to chart to this day. This is no surprise to the author, who combed through nearly 60 years of the magazine, week by week, to compile a list of every song and album that charted. The end result is an intriguing look at the band's influence, including their solo efforts. The author assigns points to the positions of songs and albums on the charts in order to create a list ranging from the least successful to the most successful. Each entry includes a picture of the album cover or single sleeve, along with an analysis of the song or album. Also provided are introductory chapters about the Beatles and an explanation of how the Billboard charts have been tabulated and changed over the years.