The Build Up To The Beginning

This is the first volume of a most impressive tribute and accurate four part work that uniquely presents a complete account of the air operations throughout Market-Garden in September 1944 when British, US and Polish airborne troops made a gallant attempt to seize and hold bridges across the Lower Rhine in Holland as a springboard for crossing into Germany. Market, the aerial side of the proceedings, was at the time the largest airborne operation in history. In this unprecedented and insightful account, the exploits of the First Allied Airborne Army are relayed in full detail; supplemented with historical notes regarding the ground operations, this is sure to offer an unparalleled account of the events as they unfolded in the skies above Holland.If successful, the war could be over by Christmas. What could go wrong? That it did and on such a massive scale is the underlying theme throughout this series. The action was at times very confused, so a narrative of events contained in sixteen timelines at intervals throughout this series cuts through the fog of battle to explain the situation from its over-optimistic beginning to the tragic conclusion.

The Truman administration's decision to embark on an arms build-up in 1950 was a critical event. For the first time other than a World War, the United States became a global military presence. Unlike the World Wars, in this instance the deployment lasted decades, altering the nature of the Cold War and the United States' global role. Such a decision deserves a book dedicated to understanding the strategy and politics behind it. The Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race serves that purpose. The Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race reviews the state of American military affairs in the late 1940s and describes the role of atomic power in American strategy. It also outlines the factional fighting within the Truman administration over military spending and deployments and considers the Truman administration's perceptions of Soviet military power and intentions. The author presents a fascinating account of the strategy and politics behind the Truman administration's decision to engage in a massive arms build-up that initiated the Cold War arms race.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play—now with a new preface by Neil Howe. First comes a High, a period of confident expansion. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion. Then comes an Unraveling, in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning—when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. William Strauss and Neil Howe will change the way you see the world—and your place in it. With blazing originality, The Fourth Turning illuminates the past, explains the present, and reimagines the future. Most remarkably, it offers an utterly persuasive prophecy about how America’s past will predict what comes next. Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four twenty-year eras—or “turnings”—that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth. Illustrating this cycle through a brilliant analysis of the post–World War II period, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for this rendezvous with destiny.

An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.

What the world can learn from Israel's meteoric economic success. Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion dollar question: How is it that Israel -- a country of 7.1 million, only 60 years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources-- produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada and the UK? With the savvy of foreign policy insiders, Senor and Singer examine the lessons of the country's adversity-driven culture, which flattens hierarchy and elevates informality-- all backed up by government policies focused on innovation. In a world where economies as diverse as Ireland, Singapore and Dubai have tried to re-create the "Israel effect", there are entrepreneurial lessons well worth noting. As America reboots its own economy and can-do spirit, there's never been a better time to look at this remarkable and resilient nation for some impressive, surprising clues.

The inspirational bestseller that ignited a movement and asked us to find our WHY Discover the book that is captivating millions on TikTok and that served as the basis for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time—with more than 56 million views and counting. Over a decade ago, Simon Sinek started a movement that inspired millions to demand purpose at work, to ask what was the WHY of their organization. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, and these ideas remain as relevant and timely as ever. START WITH WHY asks (and answers) the questions: why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over? People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won't truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it. START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who have had the greatest influence in the world all think, act and communicate the same way—and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

“Essential . . . one for the ages . . . a must read for all who care about presidential power.” —The Washington Post “Authoritative . . . The most comprehensive account yet of that smoldering wreck of foreign policy, one that haunts us today.” —LA Times One of BookPage's Best Books of 2020 To Start a War paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. Robert Draper’s fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning. In the spirit of Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collective scurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely false—evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.

The Build-up, Volume 3 of the Stecher Trilogy, picks up the thread of White Mule and In the Money. Although all of the novels deal with the triumphant rise of an immigrant family in the early 1900s, The Build-up is more concerned with the overwhelming drive and ambition of Joe Stecher's wife, Gurlie. After years of hard work, careful planning (and his wife's badgering) Joe's printing business is providing his family with a comfortable income. As soon as her financial goal is realized, Gurlie focuses her attention on another area. Her phenomenal energy is soon earning her all unassailable position as a social leader in a small New Jersey suburb. Her achievement is not without its heartache, however. This story is told with all the gentle humor and exacting detail that mark Williams's prose works.