Christchurch Photo Hunt 2014
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Bringing down Gaddafi: on the ground with the Libyan rebels
by Andrei Netto
Based on interviews with participants in the Libyan revolution and the assassination of Gaddafi, a dramatic account of the decades leading up to the dictator's downfall reveals the extent of the uprisings, related covert weapons deals and the diplomatic efforts of the UN Security Council.
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Londonopolis: a curious history of London
by Martin Latham
This curious history of London whisks you down the rabbit hole and into the warren of backstreets, landmarks, cemeteries, palaces, markets, museums and secret gardens of the great metropolis. Meet the cockneys, politicians, fairies, philosophers, gangsters and royalty that populate the city, their stories becoming curiouser and curiouser as layers of time and history are peeled back. Spanning above and below ground, from the outer suburbs to the inner city, and from the medieval period to the modern day, Londonopolis is a celebration of the weird and the wonderful that makes the mysterious city of London so magical
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The rising sun: the decline and fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936 - 1945
by John Toland
This magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning history, told primarily from the Japanese viewpoint, traces the dramatic fortunes of the Empire of the Sun from the invasion of Manchuria to the dropping of the atomic bombs, demolishing many myths surrounding this catastrophic conflict. Why did the dawn attack on Pearl Harbor occur? Was it inevitable? Was the Emperor a puppet or a warmonger? And, finally, what inspired the barbaric actions of those who fought, and who speak here of the unspeakable - murder, cannibalism and desertion?
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The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons: the history of the human brain as revealed by true stories of trauma, madness, and recovery
by Sam Kean
Early studies of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike: strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents, and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims' personalities. Parents suddenly couldn't recognize their own children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. Sam Kean explains the brain's secret passageways and recounts forgotten tales of the ordinary people whose struggles, resilience, and deep humanity made modern neuroscience possible.
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Born in the GDR: living in the shadow of the wall
by Hester Vaizey
A carefully-researched exploration of a disappeared society and the complexities of transition from one set of social and economic expectations to another, including the real life stories of eight East Germans caught up in the dramatic transition from Communism to Capitalism by the fall of the Berlin Wall - and what they feel about life after the Wall. The changes that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 were particularly dramatic for East Germans. With the German Democratic Republic effectively taken over by West Germany in the reunification process, nothing in their lives was immune from change and upheaval: from the way they voted, the newspapers they read, to the brand of butter they bought. But what was it really like to go from living under communism one minute, to capitalism the next?
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The Nixon defense: what he knew and when he knew it
by John W. Dean
A former White House Counsel and one of the last surviving major figures from Watergate uses his own transcripts from hundreds of conversations as well as documents in the archives to definitively determine what Nixon knew and when he knew it.
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Nothing is true and everything is possible: the surreal heart of the new Russia
by Peter Pomerantsev
Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible is a journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of oligarchs convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, Bohemian theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators, and playboy revolutionaries. This is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, where life is seen as a whirling, glamorous masquerade where identities can be switched and all values are changeable.
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In the kingdom of ice: the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette
by Hampton Sides
A dramatic account of the ill-fated 19th-century naval expedition to the North Pole cites the contributions of German cartographer August Peterman, New York Herald owner James Gordon Bennett and famed naval officer George Washington De Long in the team's efforts to survive brutal environmental conditions.
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Disobeying Hitler: German resistance after Valkyrie
by Randall Hansen
In the last months of the war, Hitler ordered the poisoning, blocking, and wrecking of all ports across Europe, and the destruction of the most beautiful city in the world: Paris. Thanks to the determination and bravery of a few, Hitler's orders were often disobeyed. This book explores the phenomenon of disobedience and its consequences.
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The leaderless revolution: how ordinary people will take power and change politics in the 21st century
by Carne Ross
Wherever you live in the world, few ordinary people would vote for a government that promised to lead them to war, that announced that they couldn't predict or control the world markets in any way, that declared ambivalence about pollution and global warming, that openly appeared to be corrupt and self-serving. And yet, it appears to many that these are the leaders we end up with. Vacuous promises of 'change' amount to nothing, and there seems little decent, good people can do. The world has got too big, and we can only tinker at the edges. The Leaderless Revolution offers a refreshing way of understanding the world of the 21st century that is a clear and easily comprehensible call to all of us that we do matter as individuals and we can effect change.
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Global muckraking: 100 years of investigative journalism from around the world
by Anya Schiffrin
Crusading journalists from Sinclair Lewis to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have played a central role in American politics: checking abuses of power, revealing corporate misdeeds, and exposing government corruption. Muckraking journalism is part and parcel of American democracy. But how many people know about the role that muckraking has played around the world? This groundbreaking new book presents the most important examples of world-changing journalism, spanning one hundred years and every continent.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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