#205 - Dan O’Sullivan - In Search of Captain Cook

Author or Editor: Dan O’Sullivan
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Published: 2008
Pages: 264
Size: 3,8MB

Captain James Cook was certainly the most renowned explorer of his day, and, it might be claimed, one of the greatest of all time. He was a leader of men, a master voyager who journeyed to unknown places, a seeker of knowledge who commanded three intensely scientific expeditions. He and his crews had encounters with Pacific peoples which were intense and fleeting, violent and peaceful, sexual and commercial. Even before he died his exploits were widely admired, but his death at the hands of Hawaiians turned him into a legendary figure, a hero of the Enlightenment, who was said to have brought civilization to the Pacific, while yielding up his own life in the process.

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#194 - Lanny Ebenstein - Milton Friedman: A Biography

Author or Editor: Lanny Ebenstein
Publisher: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
Published: 2007
Pages: 310
Size: 1.13MB

Friedman has a clear view of the world, a view that he communicates forcefully and effectively. His ethical view of the world is enlightening, whether one agrees with it or not. It is the libertarian view that adults should be able to do as they wish so long as they are not harming anyone else. This viewpoint typically leads to advocacy of less government—virtually everywhere, at all times, and in every way.

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#183 - Chris Gardner - The Pursuit of Happyness

Author or Editor: Chris Gardner
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2006
Pages: 306
Size: 1.66MB

This is a work of nonfiction. I have rendered the events faithfully and truthfully just as I have recalled them. Some names and descriptions of individuals have been changed in order to respect their privacy.To anyone whose name I did not recall or omitted, I offer sincere apologies.While circumstances and conversations depicted herein come from my keen recollection of them, they are not meant to represent precise time lines of events or exact word for word reenactments of my life.

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#167 - Kathi Jackson - Steven Spielberg: A Biography

Author or Editor: Kathi Jackson
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Published: 2007
Pages: 143
Size: 1.21MB

Unlike actors and singers, there are just a handful of movie directors who are known worldwide and whose very name means success. Add the word “magic” and you have narrowed the list down to two: Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg.

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#158 - Tim McNeese - Salvador Dali

Author or Editor: Tim McNeese
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
Published: 2006
Pages: 122
Size: 1.2MB

The year was 1931, and calamitous change was blowing in on a strong wind across the political landscape of Spain. Seven years of harsh, autocratic rule at the hands of a Spanish general, Miguel Primo de Rivera, had finally come to an end in January 1930, and the fallout from the collapse of Rivera’s dictatorial leadership was still taking place. After Rivera went into exile in Paris, a series of short-lived, “caretaker” governments had tried to restore order and direction to the lives of the Spanish people, but they all failed miserably.

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#148 - Hillary Rodham Clinton - Living History

Author or Editor: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2006
Pages: 625
Size: 1.8MB

I wasn’t born a first lady or a senator. I wasn’t born a Democrat. I wasn’t born a lawyer or an advocate for women’s rights and human rights. I wasn’t born a wife or mother. I was born an American in the middle of the twentieth century, a fortunate time and place. I was free to make choices unavailable to past generations of women in my own country and inconceivable to many women in the world today. I came of age on the crest of tumultuous social change and took part in the political battles fought over the meaning of America and its role in the world.

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#136 - Joann F. Price - Barack Obama

Author or Editor: Joann F. Price
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Published: 2008
Pages: 144
Size: 1.59MB

On July 27, 2004, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. He said, “Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.” When he finished his speech, the audience that listened with rapt attention excitedly waved their arms, hats, and signs, thrilled with what they had just heard.

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#123 - Gene D.Phillips - Beyond the Epic

Author or Editor: Gene D.Phillips
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2006
Pages: 545
Size: 13.5MB

Two-time Academy Award winner Sir David Lean (1908-1991) was a prominent director in the world of twentieth-century cinema, responsible for such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia. British-born Lean asserted himself in Hollywood as a major artistic voice with his epic storytelling and panoramic depictions of history, but he was also a highly skilled film editor in Great Britain before he became a director who brought an art-house sensibility to big market films.

Lean's approach to filmmaking was far different from that of his contemporaries. He carefully chose his projects and, as a result, directed only sixteen films in a span of more than forty years. Those films, however, are some of the landmarks of motion-picture history. In addition to his epics, Lean also made adaptations of well-known novels, including Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and A Passage to India, and plays, including Brief Encounter.

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#86 - Bill Clinton - My Life

Author or Editor: Bill Clinton
Publisher: Alfred A.Knopf
Published: 2004
Pages: 870

When I was a young man just out of law school and eager to get on with my life, on a whim I briefly put aside my reading preference for fiction and history and bought one of those how-to books: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, by Alan Lakein. The book’s main point was the necessity of listing short-, medium-, and long-term life goals, then categorizing them in order of their importance, with the A group being the most important, the B group next, and the C the last, then listing under each goal specific activities designed to achieve them. I still have that paperback book, now almost thirty years old. And I’m sure I have that old list somewhere buried in my papers, though I can’t find it. However, I do remember the A list. I wanted to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book.

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#57 - Edvard Radzinsky - Stalin

Author or Editor: Edvard Radzinsky
Publisher: Anchor books
Published: 1997
Pages: 660

Every day the largest country in the world woke up with his name on its lips. All day long that name rang out in the voices of actors, resounded in song, stared out from the pages of every newspaper. That name was conferred, as the highest of honors, on factories, collective farms, streets, and towns. During the most terrible of all wars, soldiers went to their deaths intoning his name.

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