Category Archives: history

Turbulent Skies

Posted on September 18, 2016 by smellincoffee

Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation© 1995 T. H. Heppenheimer408 pages What a century was the 20th, which turned everyday life into the stuff of yesteryear’s science fiction. Who would believe at its dawning that one day people would … Continue reading →

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How the Scots Invented the Modern World

Posted on September 10, 2016 by smellincoffee

How the Scots Invented the Modern World:The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It © 2001  Arthur Herman400 pages An elderly patron at the library has adopted me as his go-to source for … Continue reading →

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Rescue Warriors

Posted on September 3, 2016 by smellincoffee

Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America’s Forgotten Heroes© 2009 David Helvarg384 pages When Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, the Coast Guard was the first on the scene, with helicopters in the air saving lives long before FEMA … Continue reading →

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When Tigers Fight

Posted on August 31, 2016 by smellincoffee

When Tigers Fight: The Story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945© 1989 Dick Wilson269 pages “We Japanese cannot win here. We are trying to plow the ocean.” Before plunging into the abyss of hubris and attempting to claim the entire Pacific … Continue reading →

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Miracle at Midway

Posted on August 21, 2016 by smellincoffee

Miracle at Midway© 1983 Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein and,Katherine Dillon,512 pages Miracle at Midway is a thorough history of the June 4-7 effort of the Japanese to simultaneously seize the most likely U.S. approaches to the Empire and lure the … Continue reading →

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Stalingrad

Posted on August 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943© 1998 Anthony Beevor494 pages In June 1941, Hitler demonstrated the truism that evil will oft evil mar by launching an invasion of the Soviet Union. Though initiated later in the year than planned, the Wehrmacht’s … Continue reading →

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The Spanish Frontier in North America

Posted on July 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Spanish Frontier in North America© 1992 David J. Weber602 pages Although American history books will generally mention the early exploration of North America by figures like de Soto,  little attention on the whole is given to the Spanish colonial … Continue reading →

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Men from Earth

Posted on July 23, 2016 by smellincoffee

Men from Earth© 1989 Buzz Aldrin and Malcom McConnell314 pages Forty-seven years ago, men from Earth first stepped foot on the moon. There, they left medals commemorating the men of Apollo and Soyuz who perished in this quest for fire … Continue reading →

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Crescent and Star

Posted on July 16, 2016 by smellincoffee

Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds© 2001 Stephen Kinzer288 pages Turkey is an anomaly. For centuries, it was the dreaded foe of Christendom, twice pushing at the very gates of Vienna. After the Great War, when the victorious west … Continue reading →

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Our America

Posted on July 4, 2016 by smellincoffee

Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States© 2014  Felipe Fernández-Armesto416 pages Spain disappears from American history books following the Spanish-American war, in which the tired old empire was given a sound thrashing and retreated from the hemisphere, but Spanish … Continue reading →

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