Search results for ""grove press""

In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, a strong strain of isolationism existed in Congress and across the country. The U.S. Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men—unprepared to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army led the Allied invasion of North Africa, beginning the campaign that would defeat Germany, and the Navy and Marines were fully engaged with Japan in the Pacific.The story of America’s astounding industrial mobilization during World War II has been told. But what has never been chronicled before Paul Dickson’s The Rise of the G. I. Army, 1940-1941 is the extraordinary transformation of America’s military from a disparate collection of camps with dilapidated equipment into a well-trained and spirited army ten times its prior size in little more than eighteen months. From Franklin Roosevelt’s selection of George C. Marshall to be Army Chief of Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and unprecedented mock battles in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas by which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, and Clark emerged; Dickson narrates America’s urgent mobilization against a backdrop of political and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the increasingly perceived threat of attack from both Germany and Japan.An important addition to American history, The Rise of the G. I. Army, 1940-1941 is essential to our understanding of America’s involvement in World War II.

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In 1741, an enterprising Dutch sea captain transported a young, female Indian rhinoceros from Assam to Europe where she was displayed before everyone from peasants to princes. In an age before railways and modern roads, the three-ton Clara traveled in an enormous coach drawn by eight horses. She journeyed across mainland Europe and Britain for 17 years, becoming a favorite of Frederick the Great and Louis XV. She modeled for scientific portraits and etchings; she inspired poems, songs, and fashions; and she was duly immortalized in everything from tin coins to the finest porcelain. Awarded the prestigious Institute of Historical Research Prize, Glynis Ridley's sparkling history brings Clara's tragicomic story vividly to life. Clara's Grand Tour is also a portrait of an era that saw the rhinoceros as both an object of marvel and a challenge to fundamental philosophical and theological beliefs.

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Neil Azevedo has published poems in The Paris Review, The New Criterion, Prairie Schooner, and Image. His first collection, Ocean, introduces a shadowy world populated with dogs and snakes, suicide and children, sickness and satire, Satan and Christ, yet one doesn't feel soggy with introspection. Instead, wisdom emerges from these often personal and well-articulated lyrics; the reader is moved by the juxtaposition of savagery of subject and delicacy of touch. The verbal and often gothic brilliance of the language is stunning. It's not often that a young poet successfully embraces meter, finding a refined, velvet-toned style, and creates such a stellar debut.

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