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showing 579 library results for '2019'

Battle of the Atlantic : gauntlet to victory /Ted Barris "The years 2019 to 2025 mark the 80th anniversary of the longest battle of the Second World War. The Battle of the Atlantic also proved to be the war's most critical and dramatic battles of attrition. For five and a half years, German surface warships and submarines attempted to destroy Allied trans-Atlantic convoys, mostly escorted by Royal Canadian destroyers and corvettes, as well as aircraft of Royal Canadian Air Force. Throwing deadly U-boat 'wolf packs' in the paths of the convoys, the German Kriegsmarine almost succeeded in cutting off this vital life line to a beleaguered Great Britain. In 1939, the Royal Canadian Navy went to war with exactly thirteen warships and about 3,500 regular servicemen and reservists. During the desperate days and nights of the Battle of the Atlantic, the RCN grew to 400 fighting ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V-E Day in 1945, it had become the fourth largest navy in the world. The Battle of the Atlantic lasted 2,074 days. It claimed more than 4,000 lives--men and women in the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Merchant Navy. It was Canada's longest continuous military engagement of the Second World War. The story of Canada's naval awakening from the dark, bloody winters of 1939-1942, to be ready-aye-ready to challenge the U-boats, indeed to drive them to defeat 1943-1945, is a Canadian wartime saga for the ages. While Canadians think of the Great War battle of Vimy Ridge as Canada's coming of age, it was the Battle of the Atlantic that proved to be Canada's gauntlet to victory and a nation-building milestone."-- [2022] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.54/5971
The darksome bounds of a failing world : the sinking of the "Titanic" and the end of the Edwardian era /Gareth Russell. "When the ship of dreams sank, so did the Edwardian era. In this original and meticulously-researched narrative history, Gareth Russell considers the real story of the Titanic, and the seismic shift of modernity the 1910s have come to mark in the West. Had she survived her first voyage, The Titanic probably would have dated like other ocean liners. Instead, within a week of setting sail on 10th April 1912, the disaster of her sinking had turned her into one of the biggest news stories of the century. Writing in his signature prose, Gareth Russell peers through the portholes of six first-class travellers to immerse us into the Edwardian era while demonstrating how modernity shook up the class system of the age. Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; 'son' of the British Empire, Tommy Andrews; captain of the industry John Thayer and his son Jack; Jewish immigrant Ida Straus; and model and movie star Dorothy Gibson. Each subject?s unique story offers insights into the established hierarchy during the fin de siáecle of pre-war Britain and America, the Titanic's respective spiritual and economic homelands. Through these entwining lives, Russell investigates social class - its mores, its foibles, its accents, its etiquette, its benefits, its casual or intentional cruelties, its potential nobility. Those nuances also invite analyses of the shipping trade, the birth of the movie industry, the aristocracy, the American Gilded Age, the Irish Home Rule crisis, and Jewish-American communities. The Titanic is the vessel in which we can extrapolate lessons on hubris, folly, greed, love, class, magnificent courage and pitiable weakness. She carried thousands of people and, in that way, she still has thousands of stories to tell. Drawing on brand new and unpublished materials, journal entries and film archives from the time, The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World focuses on the symbolism of the Titanic as the floating symbol of Anglo-American success, its clientele an apt illustration of the limitless - technological, financial - possibilities of its time."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3TITANIC
Black out : silhouettes then and now /Asma Naeem ; with contributions by Penley Knipe, Alexander Nemerov, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, and Anne Verplanck. "Before the advent of photography in 1839, Americans were consumed by the fashion for silhouette portraits. Economical in every sense, the small, stark profiles cost far less than oil paintings and could be made in minutes. Black Out, the first major publication to focus on the development of silhouettes, gathers leading experts to shed light on the surprisingly complex historical, political, and social underpinnings of this ostensibly simple art form. In its examination of portraits by acclaimed silhouettists, such as Auguste Edouart and William Bache, this richly illustrated volume explores likenesses of everyone from presidents and celebrities to everyday citizens and enslaved people. Ultimately, the book reveals how silhouettes registered the paradoxes of the unstable young nation, roiling with tensions over slavery and political independence. Primarily tracing the rise of the silhouette in the decades leading up to the Civil War, Black Out also considers the ubiquity of the genre today, particularly in contemporary art. Using silhouettes to address such themes as race, identity, and the notion of the digital self, the four featured living artists - Kara Walker, Kristi Malakoff, Kumi Yamashita, and Camille Utterback - all take the silhouette to unique and fascinating new heights. Presenting the distinctly American story behind silhouettes, Black Out vividly delves into the historical roots and contemporary interpretations of this evocative, ever popular form of portraiture."--Provided by the publisher. [2018] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 741.7 qN139 2018
A carrier at risk : Argentine aircraft carrier and anti-submarine operations against the Royal Navy's attack submarines during the Falklands/Malvinas war, 1982 /Mariano Sciaroni. "The naval warfare of the last few decades appears dominated by operations of fast missile craft and a wide diversity of other minor vessels in so-called 'littoral warfare'. On the contrary, skills and knowledge about antisubmarine warfare on the high seas - a discipline that dominated much of the World War II, and once used to be the reason for existence of large fleets of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and of the Warsaw Pact - appear nearly extinct. Indeed, it seems that no armed conflicts involving this form of naval warfare have been fought for a significant time. As so often, the reality is entirely different. Submarine and antisubmarine warfare remain one of most sophisticated forms of armed conflicts to this day. Unsurprisingly, considering the amount of high-technology equipment necessary for their conduct, they are shrouded behind a thick veil of secrecy. This is why the operations of the sole Argentinean aircraft carrier - ARA 25 de Mayo - during the much-publicized war in the South Atlantic of 1982 remain largely unknown until this very day. It is well-known that the United Kingdom deployed the largest task force its Royal Navy had assembled since the Korean War over 12,000 kilometers away from home. It is well-known that the operations of this task force proved decisive for the outcome of the war: it not only brought the air power that established itself in control of the air space over the battlefield, but also hauled all the troops and supplies necessary to recover the islands that were the core of the dispute. However, the impression created very early during this conflict - and largely maintained until today - is that ARA 25 de Mayo and other elements of the accompanying Task Force 79 of the Argentinean Navy were forced into a hurried withdrawal by the sheer presence of multiple nuclear attack submarines of the Royal Navy. Based on years of research, including extensive investigation into naval operations of both sides of the conflict, A Carrier at Risk is a vibrant and lucid account of a week-long cat-and-mouse game between antisubmarine warfare specialists on board ARA 25 de Mayo, and multiple nuclear attack submarines of the Royal Navy: an entirely unknown, yet crucial aspect of the South Atlantic War. Illustrated by over 100 photographs, maps, and color profiles, this volume closes one of the major gaps - though also a crucially important affair - in the coverage of this conflict."--Provided by the publisher 2019 • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 355.48"1982"(829)
Enemy Waters : Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Norwegian Navy, U.S. Navy, and other Allied mine forces battling the Germans and Italians in World War II /Cdr. David D. Bruhn, USN (retired) and Lt. Cdr. Rob Hoole, RN (retired). "When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, the Royal Navy was deficient in minelayers needed to try to hold enemy forces at bay and out of its home waters. Turning first to the Merchant Navy, it requisitioned a liner and two ferries for this use, and a dozen destroyers and submarines were also converted to carry mines. Later, six fast minelaying cruisers joined the force. When Italy entered the war on the Axis side in June 1940, the situation became dire. As U-boats continued to sink shipping in the North Sea and around the British Isles, the Italian Fleet and German and Italian Air Forces controlled the central Mediterranean. Royal Air Force Bomber and Coastal Command planes took up mining, as did old Swordfish biplanes of the Fleet Air Arm. Joining in the fight were units of exiled navies, including the Dutch minelayer Willem van der Zaan, Free French submarine Rubis, and the Norwegian 52nd Motor Launch Flotilla. U.S. Navy mine forces supported the invasion of French North Africa in late 1942, subsequent landings in Italy, and the invasions of Normandy and southern France. The Canadian 31st Minesweeping Flotilla was at Normandy, and joined in later operations. Enemy Waters puts readers in the heart of the action. One hundred and forty-five photographs, maps, and diagrams; appendices; and an index to full-names, places and subjects add value to this work."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 940.5421 BRU
Six victories : North Africa, Malta, and the Mediterranean convoy war ; November 1941 - March 1942 /Vincent P. O'Hara. "Six Victories relates one of the most interesting and instructive naval campaigns of World War II: the Mediterranean war on traffic in the fall and winter of 1941-42. It is a cautionary tale of how sea power was practiced, and how it literally shifted 180 degrees overnight. The book is based on British and Italian archival sources. It emphasizes strategic context, the role of intelligence, and the campaign's logistics. It is well-paced and entertaining but also authoritative. The book's conclusions are controversial but based on compelling evidence. In October 1941 the British Admiralty based a surface strike force in Malta to attack Axis sea lanes between Italy and Africa. Aided by ULTRA intelligence, submarines and bombers based in Malta, this force dominated the Central Mediterranean. From the end of October through the middle of December 1941 less than third of the supplies shipped from Italian ports arrived in Libya. Shortages of ammunition and fuel finally compelled the Afrika Korps to retreat four hundred miles. Then, in the space of thirty hours, this all changed. First, Italian naval forces broke the blockade by fighting through a major convoy that arrived in time to blunt the British advance; next, the strike force plowed into a minefield laid by Italian cruisers; and finally, in a daring attack, Italian commandos crippled the Mediterranean Fleet's battleships in port. The swing in fortune was immediate and dramatic. Six Victories shows how information provided by ULTRA was often offset by the Italian ability to read British codes and take corrective actions even as British strikes forces were approaching their target. It examines how the Italians improved the protection of their traffic and how, in conjunction with Germany, came to dominate the Central Mediterranean and isolate Malta. The book the ends with the triumph of Axis sea power as expressed in the late March 1942 Second Battle of Sirte which initiated a period of Axis domination in the Central Mediterranean. Six Victories breaks new ground in the historiography of World War II. It relates lessons that are relevant today and should be required reading for all who practice the art of power at sea as well as those who want to understand the intricate and interrelated factors that are the foundations of military success. It is also a good and compelling story."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.54/5091822
Paper jewels : postcards from the Raj /Omar Khan. "Postcards were to people in 1900 what the Internet was to the world in 2000. Postcards can be thought of as the world's first mass transfusion of images. The world went from thousand to a billion postcards in a very short span of time, with the finest painters from India, Austria and Japan got involved. Paper Jewels is the story of postcards during the Raj, and covers India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma. The first book on this subject, it is also the first to show hundreds of professionally restored images in original format. The volume uncovers such gems as the early postcards of the great Indian painter M V Dhurandhar and the Ravi Varma Press, the exceptional work of an early Austrian lithographer in Kolkata and a German one in Mumbai. The essays cover the major cities and regions important to postcard publishing and the key themes - from religion to dancers, to tea, soap, famines, fakirs, humour and warfare. The volume displays the most beautiful and popular postcards, telling the stories of the first postcard publishers in the subcontinent between 1892 and 1947. Many of the images in the book have never been published since their first runs a century ago. Paper Jewels relies almost entirely on primary research in archives and private collections in India, Europe and America done over a period of twenty years, and much of the story is entirely new."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 741.6/830954074
Small boats and daring men : maritime raiding, irregular warfare, and the early American Navy /Benjamin Armstrong. "Two centuries before the daring exploits of Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders captured the public imagination, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were already engaged in similarly perilous missions: raiding pirate camps, attacking enemy ships in the dark of night, and striking enemy facilities and resources on shore. Even John Paul Jones, father of the American navy, saw such irregular operations as critical to naval warfare. With Jones's own experience as a starting point, Benjamin Armstrong sets out to take irregular naval warfare out of the shadow of the blue-water battles that dominate naval history. This book, the first historical study of its kind, makes a compelling case for raiding and irregular naval warfare as key elements in the story of American sea power. Beginning with the Continental Navy, Small Boats and Daring Men traces maritime missions through the wars of the early republic, from the coast of modern-day Libya to the rivers and inlets of the Chesapeake Bay. At the same time, Armstrong examines the era's conflicts with nonstate enemies and threats to American peacetime interests along Pacific and Caribbean shores. Armstrong brings a uniquely informed perspective to his subject; and his work-with reference to original naval operational reports, sailors' memoirs and diaries, and officers' correspondence-is at once an exciting narrative of danger and combat at sea and a thoroughgoing analysis of how these events fit into concepts of American sea power. Offering a critical new look at the naval history of the Early American era, this book also raises fundamental questions for naval strategy in the twenty-first century."--Provided by publisher. 2019 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.353(73)
The sea and the Second World War : maritime aspects of a global conflict /edited by Marcus Faulkner and Alessio Patalano. "This volume illustrates the impact of naval operations on the Second World War by providing insight into political, strategic, administrative, and operational aspects of the maritime war from Axis and Allied perspectives. This colleciton emphasises the function of the sea as a bridge and as a barrier that can connect and protect nations or can be used to project power and sustain campaigns ashore. The sea shaped the course and conduct of World War II, from the first moments of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, to the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945. The impact could be felt far beyond the shoreline, as the arms and armies carried across the oceans were ultimately destined to wage war ashore. Populations and industries depended on the raw materials and supplies in a war that increasingly became a contest of national will and economic might. Ultimately, it was the war at sea that linked numerous regional conflicts and theaters of operation into a global war. As the war grew in complexity and covered an increasingly larger geographical area, the organization of the maritime effort and the impact it had on the formulation of national strategy also evolved. This volume illustrates the impact of naval operations on the Second World War by highlighting topics previously neglected in the scholarship. In doing so, it provides new insights into political, strategic, administrative, and operational aspects of the maritime dimension of the war"-- 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.54/5
The greater gulf : essays on the environmental history of the Gulf of St. Lawrence /edited by Claire E. Campbell, Edward MacDonald, and Brian Payne. "The largest estuary in the world, the Gulf of St Lawrence is defined broadly by an ecology that stretches from the upper reaches of the St Lawrence River to the Gulf Stream, and by a web of influences that reach from the heart of the continent to northern Europe. For more than a millennium, the gulf's strategic location and rich marine resources have made it a destination and a gateway, a cockpit and a crossroads, and a highway and a home. From Vinland the Good to the novels of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the Gulf has haunted the Western imagination. A transborder collaboration between Canadian and American scholars, The Greater Gulf represents the first concerted exploration of the environmental history--marine and terrestrial--of the Gulf of St Lawrence. Contributors tell many histories of a place that has been fished, fought over, explored, and exploited. The essays' defining themes resonate in today's charged atmosphere of quickening climate change as they recount stories of resilience played against ecological fragility, resistance at odds with accommodation, considered versus reckless exploitation, and real, imagined, and imposed identities. Reconsidering perceptions about borders and the spaces between and across land and sea, The Greater Gulf draws attention to a central place and part of North Atlantic and North American history."-- 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 577.7/344
The Durham papers : selections from the papers of Admiral Sir Philip Charles Henderson Calderwood Durham, G.C.B. (1763-1845) /edited by Hilary L. Rubinstein "Admiral Sir Philip Durham (1763?1845) was one of the most distinguished and colourful officers of the late Georgian Navy. His lucky and sometimes controversial career included surviving the sinking of HMS Royal George in 1782, making the first conquest of the tricolour flag in 1793 and the last in 1815, and having two enemy ships surrender to him at Trafalgar. A Scot distantly related to Lord Barham, Durham entered the Navy in 1777, serving initially on the American and West Indies stations. He was Kempenfelt's signal officer on HMS Victory during the second battle of Ushant in 1781 and on the Royal George. Making his reputation initially as the daring young master and commander of HMS Spitfire early in the French Revolutionary War, he became a crack frigate captain with a fortune in prize money, and commanded HMS Defiance at Trafalgar, where he was wounded. He ended his war service as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands. En voyage he artfully captured two brand-new French frigates which were subsequently taken into the service of Britain, and during his tenure he won the heartfelt gratitude of local merchants by ridding the surrounding seas of American privateers preying on British trading vessels. True to form, he clashed with the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court on Antigua and with the general with whom he led a combined naval and military assault on Martinique and Guadeloupe following Napoleon's escape from Elba. He later served as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth having resigned his parliamentary seat to do so. Married first to the sister of the Earl of Elgin, of 'Marbles' fame, and secondly to a cousin of 'sea wolf' Lord Cochrane, he was well-known to George III, who as a result of Durham's amusing yet improbable anecdotes, dubbed any tall tale he heard 'a Durham'. This collection of his papers consists mainly of letters and despatches relating to his service in the Channel Fleet, the Mediterranean, and the Leeward Islands. Correspondence with his parents during 1789?1790 reflects his anxieties relating to employment and prospects for promotion when he was a young lieutenant with an illegitimate child to support. The collection, featuring items from and to him, comprises a fascinating and informative set of documents."--Provided by publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 061.22NRS
Essential essays / Stuart Hall ; edited by David Morley. "From his arrival in Britain in the 1950s and involvement in the New Left, to founding the field of cultural studies and examining race and identity in the 1990s and early 2000s, Stuart Hall has been central to shaping many of the cultural and political debates of our time. Essential Essays - a landmark two volume set - brings together Stuart Hall's most influential and foundational works. Spanning the whole of his career, these volumes reflect the breadth and depth of his intellectual and political projects while demonstrating their continued vitality and importance. Volume 1: Foundations of Cultural Studies focuses on the first half of Hall's career, when he wrestled with questions of culture, class, representation, and politics. This volume's stand-out essays include his field-defining 'Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies;' the prescient 'The Great Moving Right Show,' which first identified the emergent mode of authoritarian populism in British politics; and 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse,' one of his most influential pieces of media criticism. As a whole, Volume 1 provides a panoramic view of Hall's fundamental contributions to cultural studies. Volume 2: Identity and Diaspora draws from Hall's later essays, in which he investigated questions of colonialism, empire, and race. It opens with 'Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity,' which frames the volume and finds Hall rethinking received notions of racial essentialism. In addition to essays on multiculturalism and globalization, black popular culture, and Western modernity's racial underpinnings, Volume 2 contains three interviews with Hall, in which he reflects on his life to theorize his identity as a colonial and diasporic subject."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 301
British submarines in two world wars / Norman Friedman "Although the Royal Navy did not invent the submarine, Norman Friedman's new book demonstrates how innovative the service was, to an extent which few will recognise. Its submarines performed well in combat in both world wars, and often in unheralded ways. Few will be aware that in 1914 Britain had the largest submarine fleet in the world, and that at the end of World War I it had some of the largest and most unusual of all submarines - whose origins and design are all detailed. During the First World War they virtually closed the Baltic to German iron ore traffic, and they helped block supplies to the Turkish army fighting at Gallipoli. British submarines were a major element in the North Sea battles, and they helped fight the U-boat menace. These roles led on to British submarine operations in World War II. Readers will be aware of the role of US submarines in strangling Japan, but perhaps not how British submarines in the Mediterranean fought a parallel costly but successful battle to strangle the German army in North Africa. Like their US counterparts, interwar British submariners were designed largely with the demands of a possible Pacific War, although that was not the war they fought. And the author shows how the demands of such a war, which would be fought over vast distances, collided with interwar British Government attempts to limit costs by holding down the size (and numbers) of submarines. It says much about the ingenuity of British submarine designers that they managed to meet their requirements despite enormous pressure on submarine size. As in other books in this series, the author demonstrates how a combination of evolving strategic and tactical requirements and evolving technology produced successive types of design. The Royal Navy was always painfully aware of the threat enemy submarines posed, and British submariners contributed heavily to the development of British anti-submarine tactics and technology, beginning with largely unknown efforts before the outbreak of World War I. Between the Wars British submariners exploited the new technology of sonar (Asdic), both to find and attack enemies and to avoid being attacked themselves. As a result, they pioneered submarine silencing, with important advantages to the US Navy as it observed the British. And it was a British submarine that pioneered the vital postwar use of submarines as anti-submarine weapons, sinking a U-boat while both were submerged. This feat was unique. Heavily illustrated with photos and original plans, this new volume from Norman Friedman, incorporating so much original analysis, will be eagerly awaited by naval historians and enthusiasts everywhere."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • FOLIO • 2 copies available. 940.451(42)