Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 by Kathryn S. Olmsted
Requirements: .M4A/.M4B reader, 359.0 MB
Overview: Many Americans believe that their own government is guilty of shocking crimes. Government agents shot the president. They faked the moon landing. They stood by and allowed the murders of 2,400 servicemen in Hawaii. Although paranoia has been a feature of the American scene since the birth of the Republic, in Real Enemies, Kathryn Olmsted tells us that it was only in the 20th century that strange and unlikely conspiracy theories became central to American politics.

In particular, she posits World War I as a critical turning point and shows that as the federal bureaucracy expanded, Americans grew more fearful of the government itself - the military, the intelligence community, and even the president. Analyzing the wide-spread suspicions surrounding such events as Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, Watergate, and 9/11, Olmsted sheds light on why so many Americans believe that their government conspires against them, why more people believe these theories over time, and how real conspiracies - such as the infamous Northwoods plan - have fueled our paranoia about the governments we ourselves elect.
Genre: Audiobooks > Non-Fiction


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1-2 Kings by William Barnes, Philip W. Comfort
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 2.2 MB
Overview: The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series provides up-to-date, evangelical scholarship on the Old and New Testaments. Each volume is designed to equip pastors and Christian leaders with exegetical and theological knowledge to better understand and apply God's Word by presenting the message of each passage as well as an overview of other issues surrounding the text. The commentary series has been structured to help readers understand the meaning of Scripture, passage-by-passage, through the entire Bible.
The New Living Translation is an authoritative Bible translation, rendered faithfully into today's English from the ancient texts by 90 leading Bible scholars. The NLT's scholarship and clarity breathe life into even the most difficult-to-understand Bible passages―but even more powerful are stories of how people's lives are changing as the words speak directly to their hearts. That's why we call it “The Truth Made Clear.”
William Barnes (ThD, Harvard Divinity School) has worked extensively in the Historical books of the OT, published several commentaries and scholarly articles, and is a contributor to Biblica: The Bible Atlas. His interests include OT history and chronology as well as narrative and poetic structure and sequencing in the Hebrew Bible and the NT. He served as a member of the NLT Translation Team for 1–2 Kings.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History


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Animal Logic by Richard Barnes
Requirements: .MOBI reader, 24 MB
Overview: A buffalo stands horns to head with a man who is calmly vacuuming the snow-covered plains beneath its feet. A herd of plastic-wrapped zebras surrounds a giraffe, while a man on scaffolding above paints them a lovely trompe l'oeil sky. Photographer Richard Barnes has spent more than ten years documenting the way we assemble, contain, and catalog the natural world. Barnes's behind-the-scenes photographs are haunting reminders that there is nothing natural about a natural history museum.
Animal Logic, Barnes's first monograph, collects four related species of his photographic work that touch on themes relevant to science, history, archaeology, and architecture. Through his lens, sights and objects normally hidden from public view half-installed dioramas, partially wrapped specimens, anatomical models, exploded skulls, and taxidermied animals in shipping crates take on a strange beauty. Barnes peels back layers of artifice to reveal the tangle of artistry, craftsmanship, and curatorial decisions inside every lifelike diorama and meticulously arranged glass case. Animal Logic investigates both the human desire to construct artificial worlds for "the wild" and the haunting and poignant worlds the real wild constructs. Barnes's camera freezes migrating starlings to reveal the visual poetry hidden inside their dense ormations. His extraordinary photographs of birds' nests constructed from detritus string, plastic, milkweed, tinsel, hair, dental floss, pine needles sculpturally embody our often complicated relationship with nature. Animal Logic presents more than 120 of Barnes's photographs and includes essays by Jonathan Rosen of the New York Times and curator Susan Yelavich, which explore the themes that emerge from Barnes's unique body of work.
Genre: Non-Fiction > Educational


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Yanks and Limeys: Alliance Warfare in the Second World War by Niall Barr
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 12 MB
Overview: An enlightening history of the Anglo-American alliance in the Second World War, from high command down to the soldiers on the ground.
In the mid-twentieth century the relationship between America and Britain had a chequered past. Theirs was a history of protection and oppression, of rebellion and ultimately war. But then the shared crisis of World War Two brought Britain and America closer than ever before or since, and saw an unprecedented level of military cooperation. How was such a radical shift possible?
To uncover how this historically fraught relationship recovered from its inauspicious start, Niall Barr goes back to the origins of their shared military history in the American War of Independence and shows how these early days had ramifications for the later crucial alliance. Picking up the tale with America's entry into the Second World War, Niall Barr tells the story of these two armies as they fought in the largest war in history, right from the uppermost echelons of the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt down to battlefield level and the soldiers fighting side by side for a common cause.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History


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