Showing results by narrator "Bob Neufeld" in All Categories

In the spring of 1864, the newly installed Union commander Ulysses S. Grant did something none of his predecessors had done before: He threw his army against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific 22-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8 to 21, 1864 - 14 long days of battle and maneuver.

This new edition is a concise history of warfare from the American Revolution to Operation Desert Storm. Addington provides a comprehensive picture of the evolution of modern warfare. He discusses developments in strategies and tactics, logistics, and weaponry and provides detailed discussions of important battles and campaigns. His book is an excellent introduction for both students and the general listener.

This unique book brings together George Bernard Shaw's witty and iconoclastic take on Wagner's masterwork, The Ring of the Nibelungen, with the composer's own essay on the role of art in revolution.

It is almost impossible to imagine today, but in the late 19th and early 20th century there were places where land was cheaper than food and more plentiful than water. During the homesteading period of the 1860s-1880s, the government typically offered land grants of 160 acres to any farmer who could get it cultivated within a certain amount of time. With that much land to make productive, and a limited number of years to get it cleared and planted, men would do whatever it took to get their crops in.

The Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley suffers from no lack of drama, interest, or importance. The ramifications of the May 1864 engagement, which involved only 10,000 troops, were substantial. Previous studies, however, focused on the Confederate side of the story. David Powell’s Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah: Major General Franz Sigel and the War in the Valley of Virginia, May 1864 provides the balance that has so long been needed.

Personalities. Characters. History. John C. Waugh, the author of the popular and award-winning The Class of 1846, presents forty of the most memorable and impactful individuals he has come across during his three decades of researching and writing about the American Civil War—or as he calls them, his “Unforgettables” in the aptly titled, Unforgettables: Winners, Losers, Strong Women, and Eccentric Men of the Civil War Era.

The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac is the first installment in a remarkable trilogy to examine the strategy, tactics, and relationships of the leading Union army’s mounted arm and their influence on the course of the Civil War in the Eastern Theater. George Armstrong Custer’s career has attracted its fair share of coverage, but most Custer-related studies focus on his decision-making and actions to the exclusion of other important factors, including his relationships with his fellow officers.

In this memoir, Lockwood draws upon his forty years in the newspaper industry as a reporter and editor, offering a unique glimpse into the world of newspaper cartoon strips. He details the production and promotion of countless comic strips, while also providing his own assessments of the most iconic cartoonists of the last half-century. The book is filled with fascinating anecdotes about his relationships with some of America's greatest cartoonists and the syndicate reps who sold their cartoon strips.

On June 25, 1876, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led the 7th U.S. Cavalry into the valley of the Little Bighorn. By sunset, Custer and five of his companies lay dead - killed in battle against Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Through the passage of time, Custer’s last fight has come to overshadow the rest of his military career, which had its brilliant beginning in the American Civil War. Plucked from obscurity by Maj. Gen. George McClellan, Custer served as a staff officer through the early stages of the war.

The Transcontinental Railroad, laid across the United States during the 1860s, remains the very epitome of contradiction. On the one hand, it was a triumph of engineering skills over thousands of miles of rough terrain, but on the other hand, it drained the natural resources in those places nearly dry.

It's London, 1907. Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monsters.

Enter the captivating world of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales." This collection of short stories takes listeners on a journey through the mysterious and dark corners of the human psyche. Hawthorne's masterful storytelling skillfully weaves together elements of the supernatural, romance, and allegory, creating a rich tapestry of narratives that explore the complexities of human nature. Each tale is beautifully crafted, immersing the listener in atmospheric settings and thought-provoking themes.

The Ring and the Book is a verse novel of sex, lies, and murder, authored by Robert Browning, and it is widely considered to be one of the greatest literary works of the 19th century. It’s a “true crime” story based on the proceedings of a Roman murder trial held in 1698. Each of the 12 books consists of a dramatic monologue in the voice of a different character involved in the tale.

Plague strikes the city of Sarum, and the dead rise from their graves. The liche, Dr. Cadman, has discovered a long-hidden artifact and perverted its power for his own selfish ends. But an ancient evil from beyond the stars is drawn by its use and turns hungry eyes upon the Earth. These are the times of Unweaving, the times Deacon Shader has been prepared for since the day he was born. A man of prayer, deeply troubled by a contradictory faith, he is also the deadliest warrior of his generation.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. It is set in the 1840 in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived as a boy. In the novel, Tom Sawyer has several adventures, often with his friend Huckleberry Finn. Originally a commercial failure, the book ended up being the best selling of any of Twain's works during his lifetime. Although overshadowed by its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the book is considered a masterpiece of American literature.

Heart of Darkness is a short novel by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, written as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow's life as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. This book was the basis for Francis Ford Coppola's classic Vietnam film Apocalypse Now.

From the author of Tempesta's Dream - A Story of Love, Friendship and Opera, comes a spellbinding, historical fiction novel of a young man's desire to free his Sicilian village from the domination of one family's long reign.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. A Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copy and any other task required of him, with the words "I would prefer not to".

In the middle of February 1945, the Allies were steadily advancing against the Germans from both east and west, with British and American forces having repulsed the German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge and the Soviet Union's Red Army pushing from the east. Indeed, the war would be over in just a little more than two months. Nonetheless, it was during this timeframe that the Allies conducted one of the most notorious attacks of the war: the targeting of Dresden.

The Hittites are an ancient people who remain somewhat enigmatic, but their influence on the ancient Near East is undeniable. From high in their capital of Hattusa in central Anatolia, the Hittites were able to conquer and control a kingdom that roughly comprised the area of modern Turkey, Syria, and parts of Iraq and Lebanon through a combination of brute military force and shrewd diplomatic machinations.