Thousands of Roads

Thousands of Roads PDF

Author: Maria Savchyn Pyskir

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2001-01-04

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780786450664

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Before, during, and after World War II, Maria Savchyn Pyskir served in the Ukrainian Underground resistance. Her dramatic and poignant memoir tells of her recruitment into underground service at age 14, her participation in resistance activities during the War, her bittersweet marriage to revolutionary leader “Orlan,” her struggle against Stalinist forces, and her captures by and escapes from the KGB. In the 1950s when she escaped to the West, she began these memoirs, which were not published in Ukrainian until after the fall of the Soviet Union. Their appearance in Ukrainian caused a sensation, as she remains the only survivor of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to have told her tale, now offered in English. Pyskir, whose escape came at the cost of her husband, children, and family, recreates in her memoir an astonishing account of her experiences as a Ukrainian partisan, a woman, a wife, a mother, and an outcast from her own land. The book contains maps, many of the author’s own photographs, and a foreword by John A. Armstrong.

The Big Roads

The Big Roads PDF

Author: Earl Swift

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2011-06-09

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 054754913X

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Discover the twists and turns of one of America’s great infrastructure projects with this “engrossing history of the creation of the U.S. interstate system” (Los Angeles Times). It’s become a part of the landscape that we take for granted, the site of rumbling eighteen-wheelers and roadside rest stops, a familiar route for commuters and vacationing families. But during the twentieth century, the interstate highway system dramatically changed the face of our nation. These interconnected roads—over 47,000 miles of them—are man-made wonders, economic pipelines, agents of sprawl, uniquely American symbols of escape and freedom, and an unrivaled public works accomplishment. Though officially named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, this network of roadways has origins that reach all the way back to the World War I era, and The Big Roads—“the first thorough history of the expressway system” (The Washington Post)—tells the full story of how they came to be. From the speed demon who inspired a primitive web of dirt auto trails to the largely forgotten technocrats who planned the system years before Ike reached the White House to the city dwellers who resisted the concrete juggernaut when it bore down on their neighborhoods, this book reveals both the massive scale of this government engineering project, and the individual lives that have been transformed by it. A fast-paced history filled with fascinating detours, “the book is a road geek’s treasure—and everyone who travels the highways ought to know these stories” (Kirkus Reviews).

Rat Roads

Rat Roads PDF

Author: Jacques Pauw

Publisher: Random House Struik

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781770223370

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In this extraordinary book, celebrated journalist Jacques Pauw gives a human face to some of the most tumultuous events in recent African history. Rat Roads chronicles the remarkable journey of Kennedy Gihana, a young Tutsi man who survived the genocide in Rwanda, committed horrifying atrocities in Africa's bloodiest civil war and walked thousands of kilometers to South Africa. Once in South Africa he slept in parks, lived as a street child and worked as a low-paid security guard until he had saved enough money to enroll for a law degree. In 2011 he took the podium at the University of Pretoria to receive a master's degree in law. Rat Roads combines many strands of what life in Africa, and South Africa, is like for a large proportion of people. Besides being the chronicle of one man's unforgettable journey, it addresses topical issues such as civil conflict, xenophobia and the plight of refugees, and will open people's eyes to the reality of life on the streets. It is a story of horror and adversity, and of triumph and hope. A searingly honest, brutal story of endurance and tenacity, but with an ultimate message of hope, it takes the reader on a journey through the most turbulent times in recent African history.

Journeys on the Silk Road

Journeys on the Silk Road PDF

Author: Joyce Morgan

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2012-08-22

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0762787333

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When a Chinese monk broke into a hidden cave in 1900, he uncovered one of the world’s great literary secrets: a time capsule from the ancient Silk Road. Inside, scrolls were piled from floor to ceiling, undisturbed for a thousand years. The gem within was the Diamond Sutra of AD 868. This key Buddhist teaching, made 500 years before Gutenberg inked his press, is the world’s oldest printed book. The Silk Road once linked China with the Mediterranean. It conveyed merchants, pilgrims and ideas. But its cultures and oases were swallowed by shifting sands. Central to the Silk Road’s rediscovery was a man named Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born scholar and archaeologist employed by the British service. Undaunted by the vast Gobi Desert, Stein crossed thousands of desolate miles with his fox terrier Dash. Stein met the Chinese monk and secured the Diamond Sutra and much more. The scroll’s journey—by camel through arid desert, by boat to London’s curious scholars, by train to evade the bombs of World War II—merges an explorer’s adventures, political intrigue, and continued controversy. The Diamond Sutra has inspired Jack Kerouac and the Dalai Lama. Its journey has coincided with the growing appeal of Buddhism in the West. As the Gutenberg Age cedes to the Google Age, the survival of the Silk Road’s greatest treasure is testament to the endurance of the written word.

Long and Winding Roads, Revised Edition

Long and Winding Roads, Revised Edition PDF

Author: Kenneth Womack

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1501387081

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In Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles, Revised Edition, Kenneth Womack brings the band's story vividly to life-from their salad days as a Liverpool Skiffle group and their apprenticeship in the nightclubs and mean streets of Hamburg through their early triumphs at the legendary Cavern Club and the massive onslaught of Beatlemania itself. By mapping the group's development as an artistic fusion, Womack traces the Beatles' creative arc from their first, primitive recordings through Abbey Road and the twilight of their career. In this revised edition, Womack addresses new insights in Beatles-related scholarship since the original publication of Long and Winding Roads, along with hundreds of the group's outtakes released in the intervening years. The updated edition also affords attention to the Beatles' musical debt to Rhythm and Blues, as well as to key recent discoveries that vastly shift our understanding of formative events in the band's timeless story.

A Thousand Country Roads

A Thousand Country Roads PDF

Author: Robert James Waller

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2003-04-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780446613064

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In this poignant epilogue to his bestselling "The Bridges of Madison County, " Waller tells the remainder of the story of photographer Robert Kincaid and farmer's wife Francesca Johnson. Hardy Publishing.

The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County PDF

Author: Robert James Waller

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2001-03-15

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13: 0759521727

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Fall in love with one of the bestselling novels of all time -- the legendary love story that became a beloved film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. If you've ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why readers all over the world are so moved by this small, unknown first novel that they became a publishing phenomenon and #1 bestseller. The story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream, The Bridges of Madison County gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere -- and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.

Twenty Thousand Roads

Twenty Thousand Roads PDF

Author: Virginia Scharff

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0520237773

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"Virginia Scharff's wonderfully readable account of women in motion complicates and enriches our understanding of the nineteenth and twentieth century Wests. Her gendered remapping of the regional landscape explodes traditional notions of western movement. All students of women and gender, travel and place, the West and America, would do well to read this excellent book."—David M. Wrobel, author of Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory, and the Creation of the American West "Virginia Scharff claims for women what has long been central to the masculine mythology of the West—free movement and its many gifts, real and imagined. Her book is as exhilarating and as intellectually and emotionally expansive as our enduring dream of flight across the American land."—Elliott West, author of The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado "Brilliant is not a word that is often a part of my critical vocabulary, but brilliantly is how Twenty Thousand Roads begins. When writing of Sacagawea and Susan Magoffin, Virginia Scharff shows vividly how a single life can be a source of sophisticated cultural analysis without becoming an academic artifact or an object of condescension."—Richard White, author of It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West

Blue Highways

Blue Highways PDF

Author: William Least Heat-Moon

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2012-04-03

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 0316218545

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Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map -- if they get on at all -- only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

One Thousand Roads to Mecca

One Thousand Roads to Mecca PDF

Author: Michael Wolfe

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2015-09-29

Total Pages: 701

ISBN-13: 0802192203

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“Wolfe does an exemplary job of detailing the ceremonies performed at Mecca and the reasons behind them . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review This updated and expanded edition of One Thousand Roads to Mecca collects significant works by observant travel writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries—including two new contemporary narratives—creating a comprehensive, multifaceted literary portrait of the enduring tradition. Since its inception in the seventh century, the pilgrimage to Mecca has been the central theme in a large body of Islamic travel literature. Beginning with the European Renaissance, it has also been the subject for a handful of adventurous writers from the West who, through conversion or connivance, managed to slip inside the walls of a city forbidden to non-Muslims. These very different literary traditions form distinct impressions of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the common subject of inquiry. Along with an introduction by Reza Aslan, featured writers include Ibn Battuta, J. L. Burckhardt, Sir Richard Burton, the Begum of Bhopal, John F. Keane, Winifred Stegar, Muhammad Asad, Lady Evelyn Cobbald, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, and Malcolm X. One Thousand Roads to Mecca is a historically, geographically, and ethnically diverse collection of travel writing that adds substantially to the literature of Islam and the West. “Serves as an excellent introduction to a religion, people, culture, and philosophy.” —Santa Cruz Sentinel