Search results for ""Author David Zimmerman""

The Royal Canadian Navy crews that sailed the Atlantic during the early Cold War held a contemptuous view of their West Coast brethren, likening the Pacific fleet to a “yacht club” where sailors enjoyed a life of leisurely service on a tranquil sea. As Maritime Command Pacific demonstrates, nothing could be further from the truth. The first comprehensive history of the Pacific fleet from 1945 to 1965, it begins by exploring how Maritime Command Pacific (MARCAP) weathered postwar downsizing only to face rapid expansion in the wake of the Korean War. As Cold War tensions mounted, the fleet worked closely with the US Navy to defend the west coast of North America from potential threats. Over the course of this twenty-year period, MARCAP’s warships were just as active as their counterparts in the Atlantic; and their crews contended with drifting Japanese mines, joint US-Canadian training exercises, and the threat of Soviet submarines – all while patrolling a rugged coastline known, in part, as the “Graveyard of the Pacific.”

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In the 1930s, hundreds of scientists and scholars fled Hitler’s Germany. Many found safety, but some made the disastrous decision to seek refuge in Stalin’s Soviet Union. The vast majority of these refugee scholars were arrested, murdered, or forced to flee the Soviet Union during the Great Terror. Many of the survivors then found themselves embroiled in the Holocaust. Ensnared between Hitler and Stalin explores the forced migration of these displaced academics from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union. The book follows the lives of thirty-six scholars through some of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. It reveals that not only did they endure the chaos that engulfed central Europe in the decades before Hitler came to power, but they were also caught up in two of the greatest mass murders in history. David Zimmerman examines how those fleeing Hitler in their quests for safe harbour faced hardship and grave danger, including arrest, torture, and execution by the Soviet state. Drawing on German, Russian, and English sources, Ensnared between Hitler and Stalin illustrates the complex paths taken by refugee scholars in flight.

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Discover the unseen assassins that plague humanity. Until recently, most of us went about our daily lives with a false sense of public health security. Epidemics were a thing of the past, the AIDS crisis had diminished, and an annual vaccination kept the flu at bay. Then, in late 2001, all of those illusions of public health safety were suddenly shattered. A litany of terrifying images and events became all to familiar, from federal agents surreally swathed in biohazard suits to the daily evacuation of major government buildings for anthrax decontamination. The lethal power of microscopic organisms - no longer confined to the lab - permeated our collective psyches, forcing us to confront the serious threat posed by killer germs.This updated edition of Barry and David Zimmerman's classic on the subject offers a riveting retrospective of the havoc-wreaking microbes of the past as well as an engrossing exploration of emerging threats, including a new chapter on bioterrorism. In these pages, you'll discover: what makes smallpox the most potentially devastating of all bioweapons, and how prepared we are to fight it; why tuberculosis - already responsible for 2 billion deaths - is on the rise in the United States, Canada, and Europe; how antibiotic overload might one day turn a simple paper cut or skinned knee into a source of fatal infection; and why virologists fear that an easily transmissible, highly virulent superflu - strong enough to rival the strain that killed millions in 1918 - is imminent. From the bygone bubonic plague to the modern nightmare of Ebola, "Killer Germs" offers a fascinating examination of the horrors humanity has faced and the actions required to provide hope for the future.

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