Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africas moral crusade nor as explosively booming as India & China it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent home to half a billion people the worlds largest reserves of arable land & 8.5 percent of global oil is busily transforming its political & economic landscape. This book argues that rather than failing the test Latin Americas efforts to build fairer & more prosperous societies make it one of the worlds most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries including Brazil Chile & Mexico democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth & more inclusive politics as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty inequality & social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chavezs oil-fueled populism & much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs & illegal immigrants to the United States & Europe jeopardize stability in a region rich in oil & other strategic commodities & threaten some of the worlds most majestic natural environments. Drawing on Michael Reids many years of reporting from inside Latin Americas cities presidential palaces & shantytowns the book provides a vivid immediate & informed account of a dynamic continent & its struggle to compete in a globalized world. ...

27th April 1944. Exercise Tiger. German E-boats intercept rehearsals for the D-Day landings. One dark night in 1944 a beautiful stretch of the Devon coast became the scene of murderous horror. The villages around the area had recently been cleared of civilians & had become the focus of intense military activity. Tales began to leak out of night-time explosions & seaborne activity. This was practice for Exercise Tiger the main rehearsal for the Utah Beach landings Ken Small tells a gripping tale of wartime disaster & rescue in the words of the soldiers who were there & which was buried by officials until it became almost forgotten. But this man's curiosity turned into a fight to honour the memory of nearly 1 000 American soldiers & sailors who died needlessly in one of the great fiascos of World War II. ...

Lottie Lacey & her mother Louella share a house in Victoria Court with Mr Magic & his son Baz. Lottie is a child star dancing & singing at the Gaiety Theatre to an enraptured audience whilst Louella acts as Max Magic's assistant. But Lottie was in hospital for weeks after a road accident & has lost her memory. Louella tries to help but the white mist remains. Until Lottie meets a boy with golden-brown eyes who calls her Sassy" & accuses her of running away. It is after this meeting that the dreams start dreams of another life almost another world & Lottie sharing them with Baz begins to believe he knows more than he chooses to tell. But then Merle joins the act & Lottie feels Baz & Merle both older than she are in league against her. Then the dreams begin to grow clearer & Lottie realises she must find her past at no matter what cost." ...

In 1886 Elisabeth Nietzsche Friedrich's bigoted imperious sister founded a 'racially pure' colony in Paraguay together with a band of blond-haired fellow Germans. Over a century later Ben Macintyre sought out the survivors of Nueva Germania to discover the remains of this bizarre colony. Forgotten Fatherland vividly recounts his arduous adventure locating the survivors while also tracing the colorful history of Elisabeth's return to Europe where she inspired the mythical cult of her brother's philosophy & later became a mentor to Hitler. Brilliantly researched & mordantly funny this is an illuminating portrait of a forgotten people & of a woman whose deep influence on the twentieth century can only now be fully understood. ...

A history of the Antarctic Peninsula South Shetland Islands & the Weddell Sea the most visited places in Antarctica. In 12 years John has visited over 40 times & guides & lectures on adventure cruise ships. He delivers a selection of highly readable accounts of the merchantmen navy men sealers whalers & aviators who with scientists & adventurers drew the first ghostly maps of the white continent. ...

1913 On the eve of the First World War a little girl is found abandoned after a gruelling ocean voyage from England to Australia. All she can remember of the journey is that a mysterious woman she calls the Authoress had promised to look after her. But the Authoress has vanished without a trace. 1975 Now an old lady Nell travels to England to discover the truth about her parentage. Her quest leads her to Cornwall & to a beautiful estate called Blackhurst Manor which had been owned by the Mountrachet family. What has prompted Nell's journey after all these years? 2005 On Nell's death her granddaughter Cassandra comes into a surprise inheritance. Cliff Cottage in the grounds of Blackhurst Manor is notorious amongst the locals for the secrets it holds -- secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is at Cliff Cottage abandoned for years & in its forgotten garden that Cassandra will uncover the truth about the family & why the young Nell was abandoned all those decades before. ...

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese 'hellships' which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died & Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan & then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away.. . This is the extraordinary story of a young men conscripted at nineteen & whose father was a Somme Veteran survived not just one but three close encounters with death
- encounters which killed nearly all his comrades.
...

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese hellships which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died & Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan & then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away.. . This is the extraordinary story of a young men conscripted at nineteen & whose father was a Somme Veteran survived not just one but three close encounters with death
- encounters which killed nearly all his comrades.
...

Romulus & Fabiola are twins born into slavery after their mother is raped by a drunken nobleman. At thirteen years old they are sold
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With over 250 stunning photographs of people & places all over London in the 1920s Forgotten London charts a decade of great ...