Having had unparalleled access to the Chilean mine disaster, award-winning journalist Jonathan Franklin takes readers to the heart of a remarkable story of human endurance, survival, and historic heroism.
33 Men is the groundbreaking, authoritative account of the Chilean mine disaster, one of the longest human entrapments in history. Rushing to the scene when the miners were discovered, Franklin obtained a coveted "Rescue Team" pass and reported directly from the front lines of the rescue operation, beyond police controls, for six weeks.
Based on more than 110 intimate interviews with the miners, their families, and the rescue team, Franklin's narrative captures the remarkable story of these men and women, in details shocking, beautiful, comedic, and heroic. Gripping and raw with never-before-revealed details, 33 Men is a true story that reads like a thriller.
Expansivo recuento de los diversos, creativos, frecuentemente extraños y sin embargo increíblemente inquietantes intentos de asesinar a Fidel Castro. Fabián Escalante, el fundador de los servicios de seguridad cubanos y jefe del Departamento de Seguridad del Estado Cubano provee un lúcido recuento en primera persona de sus experiencias defendiendo a Castro contra extraordinarios intentos de homicidio. Escrito en el estilo de una novela de suspenso político, pero lleno de detalles históricos sobre Fidel, Cuba, el movimiento comunista y los intentos de Estados Unidos de silenciar la rebelión, este libro clarifica los peligros inherentes que conlleva luchar por un mundo mejor. 634 maneras de matar a Fidel ilumina la amenaza que Castro y el movimiento revolucionario cubano presentaban para la hegemonía estadounidense. El resultado es un inquietante retrato de cómo los impuestos de ciudadanos estadounidenses financian campañas para reprimir el disentimiento e intentar quebrar movimientos en el Sur Global que luchan por la soberanía, la justicia, la autodeterminación y, básicamente, un mundo mejor. "Planes de asesinato concebidos contra Fidel Castro a lo largo de muchos años involucraron armas tales como venenos letales, potentes explosivos plásticos, cigarros conteniendo sustancias peligrosas, granadas a lanzar en espacios públicos, armas con telescopios sofisticados, jeringas llenas de veneno con agujas tan finas que el contacto con la piel pasaría desapercibido, lanzadores de misiles y bazucas, y cargas explosivas escondidas en caños bajo tierra con un temporizador contando los minutos y segundos hasta la explosión."
Fabián Escalante, the founder of the Cuban intelligence services, and head of the Cuban State Security Department, provides a clear-eyed first-person account of his experiences defending Fidel Castro from the extraordinary attempts to take his life. From lethal poisons to plastic explosives to bazookas, Escalante introduces and describes an array of assassination plots and historical figures and depicts the ensuing cat-and-mouse game in the midst of the Cold War.
Written in the style of a political thriller yet based on real events, 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro is a well-researched and documented series of vignettes put together by multiple investigations in Cuba and the experiences of the author, who participated in several of them. Filled with harrowing stories of deceitful FBI tactics as well as undercover attempts to give Fidel poison laced cigars, Escalante takes the listener from DC to New York, Miami to Havana, and uncovers the intricate conspiracy to kill Fidel Castro.
634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro is filled to the brim with historical details on the CIA, Cuba, the communist movement, US government officials, and Fidel himself. Escalante's firsthand account provides evidence of the lengths to which the CIA went through to assassinate Fidel Castro and the determined efforts to protect him and what he stood for.
"A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies" is the story of the Spanish Dominican priest Bartolome de las Casas, who came to the Americas in the 16th century. Immediately he was struck by the inhumane ways in which the native peoples were treated by the European explorers and conquerors, Las Casas went on to be a leading opponent of slavery, torture, and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists. "A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies" is his personal account, with chapters covering Cuba, Nicaragua, Hispaniola, Guatemala, Venezuela, Florida, and many other areas conquered by the Spaniards.
On March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compañía de Santa Gertrudis-the largest employer in the region, and a subsidiary of the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company-may have committed murder.
The alert was first raised at six in the morning: a fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that "no more than ten" men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all ten were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death toll was not ten, but eighty-seven. And there were seven survivors.
A century later, acclaimed novelist Yuri Herrera has reconstructed a workers' tragedy at once globally resonant and deeply personal: Pachuca is his hometown. His work is an act of restitution for the victims and their families, bringing his full force of evocation to bear on the injustices that suffocated this horrific event into silence.
Our 1846 war with Mexico was a blatant land grab provoked by President James Polk. And while it secured the entire Southwest and California for America, it also exacerbated regional tensions over slavery, created the first significant antiwar movement in America, and helped lead the nation into civil war. A Wicked War is the definitive history of this conflict that turned America into a continental power. Amy Greenberg describes the battles between American and Mexican armies, but also delineates the political battles between Democrats and Whigs, the former led by the ruthless Polk, the latter by the charismatic Henry Clay, and a young representative from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, who initially drew national attention as a critic of the war. Greenberg brilliantly recounts this key chapter in the creation of the United States, evoking time, place, event, and personality with equal parts authority and narrative flair.
Montoya desmitifica las figuras de Simón Bolívar, Francisco de Paula Santander, Sebastian de Belalcazar y muchos otros próceres de nuestro país; mostrándonos el lado más corriente y humano de estas leyendas
En medio de las celebraciones oficiales de la historia nacional, Adiós a los próceres asume con arrojo la senda de la contracorriente. Pablo Montoya, por ello, ha escrito un libro de obligatoria lectura para quienes quieren curarse de la pedantería marcial y las ridículas grandezas de la patria.
Adiós a los próceres es una divertida y feroz demolición de la independencia colombiana. Entre la sátira inteligente y el formato de la biografía enciclopédica, es este un libro audaz y diferente en la nueva cuentística colombiana.
'En compañía de Voltaire me he sumergido en los tiempos de la Independencia colombiana y he sacado algunas conclusiones. No fue ésta una época sabia y penetrada por la transparencia. La invadieron, al contrario, la torpeza, el delirio, el equívoco y una gama variopinta de valentías. De tal itinerario, hecho de lecturas filtradas por el cedazo del sarcasmo y la distorsión, surgieron las veintitrés semblanzas que conforman este libro. Quien llegue a él encontrará una particular mezcla de información histórica e imaginación literaria'.
Pablo Montoya
This volume will revise the way we look at the modern populations of Latin America and North America by providing a totally new view of the history of Native American and African American peoples throughout the hemisphere. Africans and Native Americans explores key issues relating to the evolution of racial terminology and European colonialists' perceptions of color, analyzing the development of color classification systems and the specific evolution of key terms such as black, mulatto, and mestizo, which no longer carry their original meanings. Jack Forbes presents strong evidence that Native American and African contacts began in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean and that Native Americans may have crossed the Atlantic long before Columbus.
Cabeza de Vaca left Spain to explore the New World on a 1527 expedition. He was second in command of nearly 600 men, but only he and three others survived the treacherous weather, exotic diseases, and attacking indigenous people. Cabeza de Vaca survived eight straight years of wandering through the America's southwest by becoming a medicine man to the natives. In the events of this memoir, he recounts how he helped resuscitate a man, and suddenly "all over the land nothing else was spoken of."
After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home-only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence.
Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation's foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. The frequency of these tragedies seemed like a terrible coincidence, before Elizondo Griest moved to the New York-Canada borderlands.
Once she began to meet Mohawks from the Akwesasne Nation, however, she recognized striking parallels to life on the southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties, their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround their neighborhoods while the US Border Patrol militarizes them. Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems, meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints, Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating the spaces in between and the people who live there.
American Civil Wars takes listeners beyond the battlefields and sectional divides of the U.S. Civil War to view the conflict from outside the national arena of the United States. Contributors position the American conflict squarely in the context of a wider transnational crisis across the Atlantic world, marked by a multitude of civil wars, European invasions and occupations, revolutionary independence movements, and slave uprisings-all taking place in the tumultuous decade of the 1860s. The multiple conflicts described in these essays illustrate how the United States' sectional strife was caught up in a larger, complex struggle in which nations and empires on both sides of the Atlantic vied for the control of the future. These struggles were all part of a vast web, connecting not just Washington and Richmond but also Mexico City, Havana, Santo Domingo, and Rio de Janeiro and-on the other side of the Atlantic-London, Paris, Madrid, and Rome. American Civil Wars creates new connections between the uprisings and civil wars in and outside of American borders and places the United States within a global context of other nations.
This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.
Discover the history of America's most iconic cities with 'American History: Concrete Jungle To Neon Oasis,' a four-in-one book bundle featuring in-depth explorations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Las Vegas.
In 'Empire City: The History Of New York City,' readers will delve into the fascinating story of the city that never sleeps, from its origins as a Dutch trading post to the bustling metropolis of today. Explore the birth of Wall Street, the immigrant experience, and the rise of iconic landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.
'City Of Angels: The History Of Los Angeles' takes readers on a journey through the glamour and grit of the City of Dreams. From the golden age of Hollywood to the Watts riots and beyond, this book examines the forces that have shaped one of America's most iconic cities.
'City On The Make: The Evolution Of Chicago' tells the story of the Windy City, from its humble beginnings as a fur trading post to its status as a global economic powerhouse. Discover the rise of Al Capone and the influence of architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright on this city that has always been defined by its ambition and drive.
Finally, 'The Neon Oasis: The History Of Las Vegas' explores the glitz and glamour of Sin City. From the mobsters who built the first casinos to the rise of mega-resorts such as the Bellagio and the Mirage, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the city that has become synonymous with excess and entertainment.
With 'American History: Concrete Jungle To Neon Oasis,' readers will gain a deeper understanding of the forces that have shaped some of America's most iconic cities. Whether you're a history buff, a fan of these cities, or just looking for a great read, this book bundle is sure to satisfy.
