Bøker av Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson delves into the previously unpublished diaries of a Second World War POW, exploring camp life and Lieutenant John Blomfield Dixon's passion for drama.

Diaries and letters from service personnel who were held captive throughout the Second World War survive in quite large numbers, but rarely are they so detailed as those of John Blomfield Dixon, whose home was in the Hertfordshire town of Ware. Having joined the Territorial Army in 1938, he soon found himself hurried through officer training and, with the outbreak of the Second World War, being commissioned as a subaltern, attached to the East Riding Yeomanry. Following his death in 2013, his family were bequeathed a series of scrapbooks, folders, maps, photographs and documents, along with a small pile of well-worn booklets, revealing his voracious appetite in describing his training, life and death during the retreat to Dunkirk, his humiliating capture by the enemy at the culmination of the Battle of Cassel and the long arduous journey through a series of 'Offizierslagers', which would, ultimately, lead him to Oflag VIIB, which was located in the Bavarian town of Eichstätt. Complimented by a series of annotated photographs, some of which have not been seen before, this book provides an insight to the long tedious days, miserable food shortages, his thoughts for home, the woman he desperately loved, his hatred for both captors and captives, the killing of his comrades both on and off the battlefield, the tireless efforts and disasters of escape, and his passion for the theatrical life, which was borne out on dusty prison camp stages, all of which provide a picture of his experiences and emotions. His views and opinions on the wild and inaccurate rumours, as well as propaganda relayed through both the German and Allied press, paint an oft distorted picture of the war's progression at that time. The Normandy landings in June 1944 brought a sudden realisation that freedom may soon become a reality. However, the frustration and anxiety of anticipated release culminate in a terrible disaster at the very moment liberty appears upon the horizon. This was on 14 April 1945, when the prisoners were machine-gunned by U.S. aircraft as they moved to Moosburg. Fifteen were killed and a further forty-one were wounded. Liberation too brings its own frustrations, borne out in the final diary entries and supplemented by a post-war summary of his long journey home. Combined with a narrative lifted from both official records of the period, and the recollections of men who served or were imprisoned with him, the carefully selected entries not only provide one of the most detailed pictures of life at Oflag VIIB, but also serve to memorialise the service of John Blomfield Dixon and those with whom he shared his incarceration.

From the author of the best selling Neurology Resident review book, Raven Neurology Review for the Medical Student Clerkship is a comprehensive guide to clinical neurology and the NBME shelf exam. This easy to read, case-based review walks you through the neurological exam and anatomy, neuroimaging, and each sub-specialty of neurology using clinical cases with pertinent review questions. High-yield images, charts and diagrams are found throughout, making this book is a must have for the neurology clerkship.

First published in 1980, Ireland: Land of Troubles is a fascinating and eminently readable account of Ireland¿s history from the twelfth century which gives a valuable insight into her twentieth century Troubles.

This book traces the evolution of the most popular religions people around the world believe, worship, live and die for. This book explains religion¿s early roots based on a matriarch belief in a Goddess by the name of Typhon-Sut. She was worshiped throughout Egypt and she was also the mother of a Christ of immaculate birth. Typhon-Sut worshipers were chased and killed by the new worshipers of Osiris and this was the true ¿Exodus¿, and the beginning of a patriarch belief and male dominated religion. This book explains the rise of the biggest religions in the world, which are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It also describes how millions of lives have been lost in the name of God and his so-called laws. This book will help you decide if all the good has been worth all the death, and if this is really God¿s will.

Blood Money is a non-stop thrill ride thru the mean streets of Brooklyn into the bloody feuds between young American drug bosses and their many foes. The excess of life drugs, money and sex catapult three friends into international politics, revolution and betrayal from D.C. to Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Africa. This is an incredible tale of just how far ambition, friendship and bullets can take you.

This book gives an uncut, undiluted and unapologetic look at the plight of Black America. This book is a real and raw wake-up call to an endangered race. This book explore the problems created, sustained and furthered by a racist system in place designed to oppress and control the masses and more specifically, people of color. Pen Black forcefully removes the veil from your eyes and lovingly replace them with a wide-eyed view and some very necessary solutions.

This book gives a clear and precise look into one of the most misunderstood,controversial and sublime group in American history. The Nation of Gods and Earths, otherwise known as The 5%ers rich history are teachings are finally made available to the world in ways that very mentally digestible. This is your invitation to get your knowledge, wisdom and understanding in a way that only Pen Black can deliver it.

This is the heart wrenching bloody tale of three young ladies coming of age surrounded the hustlers, strippers, lesbians, sexual predators and even a serial killer. Atlanta has never looked so good or felt so bad as Lovely Sinclair and her friends Candace and Joy leave broken hearts and dead bodies in their path to the top. Paul Johnson has earned the title of Urban Literature¿s champion writer with this follow-up to his street classic Blood Money.

This book is designed to help Women of Color in the areas of health, business, education, family, and relationships. Most importantly, it helps provide the much needed knowledge to protect themselves from the many abuses of power threatening their well-being. In this part 2 of self-awareness, knowledge of self and save yourself books, Pen Black expounds on the sobering realities facing today¿s Women of Color.

Are some mysteries meant to remain unsolved? Or can Skip Rhodes unravel the disappearance of an ambitious couple who rafted the dangerous Colorado River rapids in 1928?In Whitewater Honeymoon, set at Grand Canyon, a scandalous movie star and her mother hire Sedona tour guide Skip Rhodes, a man with a secret past, and his half-Mayan friend, Kuul Balthazar, to lead them on a whirlwind trip following in the honeymooners' footsteps.From Lee's River Ferry to the dusty landscape of a remote reservation, Skip, Kuul and their guests retrace the ill-fated honeymooners' trip. Their tragic story reaches across time to reveal clues and threaten them at every stop - until shocking secrets are revealed in an ageless showdown.Readers of Tale of the Broken Spoke, the first book in the series, can expect deeper revelations about Skip Rhodes' enigmatic past and his stormy relationship with his pistol-packing girlfriend, Lilac Williams.

Windsor Park Boys Reminisce is a nostalgic collection of stories based on the lives of Henry and Larry as they reminisce about fun times growing up with the Windsor Park Boys during the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Get to know Henry and Larry and the Windsor Park Boys through their comical coming-of-age stories-from grade school to dating girls and all the antics in between.

This book describes the men who were executed for crimes committed in the European Theater of Operations during and just after the Second World War.

A galaxy of legendary figures from the annals of Western historyIn this enlightening and entertaining work, Paul Johnson, the bestselling author of Intellectuals and Creators, approaches the subject of heroism with stirring examples of men and women from every age, walk of life, and corner of the planet who have inspired and transformed not only their own cultures but the entire world as well. Heroes includes: Samson, Judith, and Deborah - Henry V and Joan of Arc - Elizabeth I and Walter Raleigh - George Washington, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Nelson - Emily Dickinson - Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee - Mae West and Marilyn Monroe - Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II

"Johnson emphasizes the rarity of truly visionary artists . . . his approach is unfailingly generous. . . . Genuinely revealing." --Publishers WeeklyFrom celebrated journalist and historian Paul Johnson, an enlightening look at the imagination and drive of visionaries who have changed our world.Paul Johnson believes that creation is a mysterious business which cannot be satisfactorily analyzed. But it can be illustrated in such a way as to bring out its salient characteristics. In this companion to his New York Times bestseller, Intellectuals, he profiles outstanding and prolific creative spirits from a variety of artistic pursuits. Here are essays on such giants as Chaucer and Shakespeare, Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot, Jane Austen and George Eliot; artists such as Dürer, Turner, and the contemporary Japanese master Hokusai; architects Pugin and Viollet-le-Duc; Johann Sebastian Bach; Louis Comfort Tiffany; clothing designers Balenciaga and Dior; and masters of the 20th century, Picasso and Disney.

"The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures," begins Paul Johnson's remarkable new American history. "No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind." Johnson's history is a reinterpretation of American history from the first settlements to the Clinton administration. It covers every aspect of U.S. history--politics; business and economics; art, literature and science; society and customs; complex traditions and religious beliefs. The story is told in terms of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character. Wherever possible, letters, diaries, and recorded conversations are used to ensure a sense of actuality. "The book has new and often trenchant things to say about every aspect and period of America's past," says Johnson, "and I do not seek, as some historians do, to conceal my opinions." Johnson's history presents John Winthrop, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Cotton Mather, Franklin, Tom Paine, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison from a fresh perspective. It emphasizes the role of religion in American history and how early America was linked to England's history and culture and includes incisive portraits of Andrew Jackson, Chief Justice Marshall, Clay, Lincoln, and Jefferson Davis. Johnson shows how Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevelt ushered in the age of big business and industry and how Woodrow Wilson revolutionized the government's role. He offers new views of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover and of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and his role as commander in chief during World War II. An examination of the unforeseen greatness of Harry Truman and reassessments of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush follow. "Compulsively readable," said Foreign Affairs of Johnson's unique narrative skills and sharp profiles of people. This is an in-depth portrait of a great people, from their fragile origins through their struggles for independence and nationhood, their heroic efforts and sacrifices to deal with the `organic sin' of slavery and the preservation of the Union to its explosive economic growth and emergence as a world power and its sole superpower. Johnson discusses such contemporary topics as the politics of racism, education, Vietnam, the power of the press, political correctness, the growth of litigation, and the rising influence of women. He sees Americans as a problem-solving people and the story of America as "essentially one of difficulties being overcome by intelligence and skill, by faith and strength of purpose, by courage and persistence...Looking back on its past, and forward to its future, the auguries are that it will not disappoint humanity." This challenging narrative and interpretation of American history by the author of many distinguished historical works is sometimes controversial and always provocative. Johnson's views of individuals, events, themes, and issues are original, critical, and admiring, for he is, above all, a strong believer in the history and the destiny of the American people.

In these masterful essays drawn from his New York Times bestsellers A History of the American People and Heroes, one of the world's most renowned and respected historians explores what is arguably the most important chapter in the annals of America: the Civil War. Enlivened with the author's trademark scholarship, verve, and intelligence, this vivid, concise history revisits the conflict that tore a nation asunder and provides portraits of the people who played essential roles in the bloody drama. Johnson's Civil War America examines the factors that led to the devastating rift in the years before the fighting?and recounts the troubled healing a wounded nation underwent in the years after the final shot was fired.

"Spectacular . . . A delight to read.”—The Wall Street Journal From bestselling biographer and historian Paul Johnson, a brilliant portrait of Socrates, the founding father of philosophyIn his highly acclaimed style, historian Paul Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of Socrates, who is often hailed as the most important thinker of all time. Johnson provides a compelling picture of Athens in the fifth century BCE, and of the people Socrates reciprocally delighted in, as well as many enlightening and intimate analyses of specific aspects of his personality. Enchantingly portraying "the sheer power of Socrates's mind, and its unique combination of steel, subtlety, and frivolity," Paul Johnson captures the vast and intriguing life of a man who did nothing less than supply the basic apparatus of the human mind.

The Definitive Pocket Guide to Fairies and Elves.

Description Choose Life tells of a journey of personal growth and development, set against the realities of a stressful modern lifestyle. It shows the search for meaning and fulfilment in life, and takes a refreshingly honest and holistic approach to living the life that you want to live - one that is easily accessible, and very different from the usual 'ten easy steps to fulfilment' or promises of 'enlightenment in 30 days'. Over 260 pages.About the AuthorPaul Johnson was born in the north-east of England in 1970, and raised in South Yorkshire, where he lives with his wife and three children. He has spent the last fifteen years studying martial arts and their accompanying philosophies, and believes that we can all find a lasting sense of peace and fulfilment. Paul's interests include walking the dog, eating curry, and practical self defence, though preferably not all at the same time. Choose Life is his first book.

This book offers a series of compelling responses to the Jasmin Vardimon Company's production of Justitia, a multilayered, multimedia dance theatre piece. Through an innovative, visually annotated text, which includes the original script by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the book attempts to record the experience of the performance. Also included are nine critical responses from scholars and theatrical practitioners who consider the performance through lenses relating to time, collaboration, writing, confession and the law.