![]() ![]() Gun Barons captures how their bold inventiveness dwelled in the psyche of an entire people, not just in the minds of men who made firearm fortunes. They promoted guns not only for the soldier, but for the Everyman, and also made themselves wealthy beyond their most fevered dreams. Their inventions embodied an intoxicating thread of American individualism-part fiction, part reality-that remains the foundation of modern gun culture. Their creations helped save a nation divided, while planting seeds that would divide the country again a century later. Through personal drive and fueled by bloodshed, they helped propel the young country into the forefront of the world's industrial powers. Yet few people are aware of the roles these men played at a crucial time in United States history, from westward expansion in the 1840s, through the Civil War, and into the dawn of the Gilded Age. Names like Colt, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and Remington are legendary. Love them or hate them, guns are woven deeply into the American soul. John Bainbridge, Jr.'s Gun Barons is a narrative history of six charismatic and idiosyncratic men who changed the course of American history through the invention and refinement of repeating weapons. ![]() ![]() A thorough, nuanced portrait of this often controversial woman, this is the first biographical work on Maria Montessori written by an author who is not a member of the Montessori movement, but who has been granted access to original letters, diaries, notes, and texts written by Montessori herself, including an array of previously unpublished material. In spite of the resistance she faced from all sides–scientists accused her of being too mystical, and the clergy of being too scientific–she would garner acclaim and establish the influential Montessori Method, which is now practiced throughout the world. At around age thirty, Montessori was struck by the work being done with children from the slums of the San Lorenzo neighborhood, and realized what she wanted to do with her life: change the school, and therefore the world, through a new approach to the child's mind. She never wanted to marry or have children-the accepted destiny for all women in her milieu of late nineteenth-century bourgeois Rome-and when she became pregnant by a colleague of hers, she gave up her son to continue pursuing her career. She studied until she became a doctor at a time when female graduates in Italy provoked outright scandal. She was self-confident, strong-willed, and had a fiery temper at a time when women were supposed to be soft and pliable. As a Jedburgh he was parachuted behind enemy lines to raise guerrilla resistance first against the Germans in France, then against the Japanese in Southeast Asia, where he won the moniker “Lawrence of Burma.”ĭescription: Born in 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy, Maria Montessori would grow up to embody almost every trait men of her era detested in the fairer sex. Tom Carew was a maverick, a left-handed stutterer, a law unto himself. As dementia stakes a claim over his memory, she embarks on a quest to unravel her father’s story, and soon finds herself in a far more consuming place than she had bargained for. ![]() Note: Winner of the Costa Book Award for Biography (UK).ĭescription: For most of her adult life, Keggie was kept at arm’s length from her father’s personal history, but when she is invited to join him for the sixtieth anniversary of the Jedburghs-an elite special operations unit that was the first collaboration between the American and British intelligence agencies during World War II-a new door opens in their relation-ship. Reviewed: NPR (7 March 2017 " Rebuilding A Father's Life - But Tearing Down His Myths - In Dadland") (8 March 2017 "All Things Considered" " Author Unravels Her Spy Dad's Life, One Secret Mission At A Time"). Sports, Recreation, Leisure, & Exercise.Sociology, Anthropology, Culture, & Gender.The Sciences : Science, Technology, Mathematics, & Nature.Human/Civil Rights, Activism, & Social Justice. ![]()
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