Search results for ""author mark salter""

A “moving and lucidly written memoir” (The Wall Street Journal) of the late Senator John McCain from one of his closest and most trusted confidants, friends, and political advisors.More so than almost anyone outside of McCain’s immediate family, Mark Salter had unparalleled access to and served to influence the Senator’s thoughts and actions, cowriting seven books with him and acting as a valued confidant. Now, in The Luckiest Man, Salter draws on the storied facets of McCain’s early biography as well as the later-in-life political philosophy for which the nation knew and loved him, delivering an intimate and comprehensive account of McCain’s life and philosophy. Salter covers all the major events of McCain’s life—his peripatetic childhood, his naval service—but introduces, too, aspects of the man that the public rarely saw and hardly knew. Woven throughout this narrative is also the story of Salter and McCain’s close relationship, including how they met, and why their friendship stood the test of time in a political world known for its fickle personalities and frail bonds. Through Salter’s revealing and “psychological portrait” (The Washington Post) of one of our country’s finest public servants, McCain emerges as both the man we knew him to be and also someone entirely new. Glimpses of his restlessness, his curiosity, his courage, and sentimentality are rendered with sensitivity and care—as only Mark Salter could provide. The capstone to Salter’s intimate and decades-spanning time with the Senator, The Luckiest Man is the authoritative last word on the stories McCain was too modest to tell himself and an influential life not soon to be forgotten.

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Between 1983 and 2009 Sri Lanka was host to a bitter civil war fought between the Government and the Tamil Tigers, which sought the creation of an independent Tamil state. In May 2009 came the war's violent end with the crushing defeat of the Tamil Tigers at the hands of the Sri Lanka Army. But prior to this grim finale, for some time there had been hope for a peaceful end to the conflict. Beginning with a ceasefire agreement in early 2002, for almost five years a series of peace talks between the two sides took place in locations ranging from Thai- land and Japan to Norway, Germany and Switzerland.To End a Civil War tells the story of trying to bring peace to Sri Lanka. In particular it tells the story of how a faraway European nation--Norway--came to play a central role in efforts to end the conflict, and what its small, dedicated team of mediators did in their untiring efforts to reach what ultimately proved the elusive goal of a negotiated peace.In doing so it fills a critical gap in our understanding of the Sri Lankan conflict. But it also illuminates in detail a much wider problem: the intense fragility that surrounds peace processes and the extraordinary lengths to which their proponents often stretch in order to secure their progress.

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A Division of Brothers. Sins of the Tribe, by first-time author Mark Salter, explores the impact of intense tribalism and its resulting dehumanization through a popular and wildly flawed source: college football. Wally Hestia is on top of the world when he becomes a member of the Bastille University Tribe football team, a powerhouse with a pristine reputation and a nationwide following. But he's only on the team as the holder for his mentally deficient brother, Henry, a kicking prodigy and the person who gives Wally purpose. But once on the team, Wally sees morality trampled underfoot for the larger cause of tribal dominance. When Wally finds himself in opposition to Bastille to the point where he and Henry are in danger, he must choose between the adulation of the larger tribe or embrace the idyllic virtues Bastille had draped itself in, even if it means losing everything. Sins of the Tribe explores the dark side of tribalism and themes such as greed, jealousy, and the complexities of brotherhood and will appeal to football fans as well as readers of fiction in general.

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