Vividly written and well researched by a noted historian of the period, this succinct history credits the Union Navy as an essential element in the northern victory. Neither ponderous nor hagiographic, the work presents characters and events that have been previously neglected and offers candid assessments of officers, men, and material. Originally published in 1990, when it was a Military History Book Club selection, the work is considered a must for Civil War buffs. It is an authoritative and gripping story of the battles waged.The author provides a rare look at the war fought by primitive northern gunboats drifting through Louisiana's muddy bayous, Yankee merchantmen captured by rebel privateers at sea, and Union ironclads subduing hotly defended Southern forts. Nor does William Fowler neglect the subtler sparrings behind the scenes: War Secretary Stanton and Navy Secretary Welles competing for Lincoln's favor and Welles's fierce duel of strategies with his Confederate counterpart, Stephen Mallory. Finally, the author describes the astonishing transformation of the Navy itself from a ragtag fleet of aging steamers and paddleboats to one of the most powerful waterborne forces in the world.

His first assignment in Russia was as head of the United Press bureau in Moscow in 1944. After joining The New York Times in 1949 he became their Moscow correspondent and remained there for the next five years. Out of his observations during this period grew his celebrated series for the Times, "Russia Re-Viewed," which brought him the 1955 Pulitzer Prize. He subsequently wrote two books dealing with the same period, American in Russia (1955) and Moscow Journal--The End of Stalin (1961). His recently published The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad was widely acclaimed and an important best-seller.As a result of his reports Mr. Salisbury was barred from Russia for five years, and was not allowed to return to the country until 1959. At that time he stayed for nearly six months, traveling thousands of miles within the Soviet Union. His 1960 book, To Moscow and Beyond, was a result of this trip. He has since revisited Russia in 1961-62, 1966, 1967, and 1969.

Holzman has seen all the great ones in action, and here he discusses the unique contributions of such superstars as Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Bob Cousy, Julius Erving, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and others. These are the names that changed the way the game is played today.The heart of the book is Holzman's appraisal of the great matchups, those individual rivalries that have often decided championship series. The model here is Russell, who brought back the concept of defense, against Chamberlain, the greatest offensive force the game has known and virtual owner of the record book. Other matchups such as Bradley vs. Havlicek are chosen to illustrate Holzman's concept of team play. In each case he breaks down the matchup into its physical and psychological aspects, with plenty of anecdotal spinoffs that reflect the intensity of the rivalry.Reading this book is like sitting beside Red Holzman on the bench. His uncensored observations give a whole new perspective on how the game is played by the pros and what to watch for.

An authority on weight management and fitness explains the wonders of walkingfor health.

If you have a weight problem, you probably believe that you eat too much. Your doctor may have told you this, and certainly every diet book does. But it may not be true; and your usual remedy, repeated low-calorie dieting, may be making you fatter and fatter whenever you stop dieting and start to eat like a normal human being.This breakthrough book shows you how to end the vicious circle of diet and despair. It shows you how to compare the contribution of your eating style versus your activity habits to your weight problem, and demonstrates that simply increasing your activity output by 200 calories a day is your ultimate fat solution.The other was once seventy pounds overweight. He then became director of the Vanderbilt University Weight Management Program in Nashville, Tennessee, supervised the treatment of over 1,500 patients, and developed an activity and nutrition program to meet the special physical and psychological needs of overweight people. He will show you how to discover your hidden athletic talents, how to run or play at any active sport and experience less effort than it now takes you to walk around the block. It is a book full of new ideas, new recipes, confidence, and pride. You will, quite literally, never have to diet again.

This taut adventure-mystery tells of the hunt by federal agents seeking to crack what may have been the most ruthless ring of international heroin smugglers in United States history.

"This is a magically well-written ornithological binge in flight from civilization, by the author of Argen, The Gull, and Watchers at the Pond. New Zealand born Russell, too long caged on Manhattan, longs to visit some remote islands. He finds them off the coast of Newfoundland, almost solely inhabited by gulls, petrels and near-relatives of the great auk. Although he is physically stimulated by the outdoor life, he is also plunged into exhausting speculation about the meaning of life and death in the natural orders...Russell's wasteland scenery is climactic, effective, and this is natural history with philosophical overtones." - Kirkus Review

The Saint Croix River Valley is a remarkable part of Minnesota and Wisconsin that combines stunning natural beauty with small-town life. Here, Noah Adams reflects with humor and pathos on the small things that add up to the good life -- watching a Christmas pageant, spotting eagles, listening to ghost stories, and paddling down the Saint Croix River. This collection, originally written for broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio's Good Evening, is one to cherish and reread.

Along the way are hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons and earthquakes in the Pacific and the Orient, wild times on Navy ships and on Navy liberty ashore, as well as rescues at sea--including the famous sinking of the Mary E in the 1976 Miami-Nassau race. There are also evocative stories of idyllic cruises and places, like Nantucket, Scandinavia, Greece, and the coasts of the United States.Robinson's stories are peopled with a warm, amusing, and frequently dramatic cast of characters, including yachts themselves--ranging from sailing skiffs to large ocean-racing machines, and most things in between--old and new, large and small, in storm and calm. His has been a rich sailing life and his stories tell of it with fascination and inescapable entertainment.

Missile X is a nuclear weapon of unprecedented destructive power. Once deployed, it could destroy all Soviet land missiles in one thiry-minute barrage. If based on land, it will require a construction effort greater than the Panama Canal or the Great Wall of China.But the superweapon is also vulnerable to attack, and its construction has enormous economic and political consequences. Thus, since its inception in 1970, MX has been fiercely debated in the White House, the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill. President Jimmy Carter called it, initially, "the craziest thing I ever heard," and yet only two years later, caught up in the implacable logic of the nuclear arms race, he would approve an expanded budget for its development.John Edwards has interviewed all the major actors in this drama, and through his incisive portraits of the scientists, politicians and generals who control the weapons community, he shows how policy grows out of their personal and ideological conflicts.

Sons of the Morning is Dewitt Copp's most complex and fascinating novel to date. Fifty years ago, a team of scientists hunting fossils camped out by a Canadian wilderness lake. They vanished, leaving only remains of the camp and the diary of their leader, Dowd, with its strange, indecipherable diagram.In subsequent years Dowd's mysterious document drew the hunters: Montour, the bush pilot, stole it, certain it would bring him the freedom he so fiercely sought. Jason, the British SOE agent on the run, killed for it, believing he had seen its duplicate in France. Von Werbel, the crazed German genius, plotted to use its markings to bring about mass destruction. The invidious Stanhope, of the Ashdom Foundation, kept the diary secret against the day it would make him famous. Now it is Dowd's haunted daughter, Kate, who flies to the deadly lake to find what Dowd's diary described as "a discovery like no other" and, in doing so, uncovers the real meaning of evil.