Neal Bascomb

Hubo un tiempo no muy lejano en el que se creía que correr una milla en menos de cuatro minutos estaba más allá de los límites del ser humano y, en el mundo del deporte, lograrlo se consideraba una gesta sin parangón. En 1952, tres hombres en tres continentes distintos Europa, Australia y América se empeñaron en conseguir lo imposible. La milla perfecta es un clásico de la literatura deportiva que captura todo el drama humano y el espíritu de competición de este acontecimiento legendario.

Adolf Eichmann was the operational manager of the genocide that dispatched six million European Jews to the gas chambers. Escaping US custody in 1946, he hid in various locations in Germany before absconding in 1950 via a ratline escape route to Argentina, where he lived, undisturbed, for the next decade. On 11 May 1960 he was captured in an operation of breathtaking skill and daring by a team of Mossad agents in a Buenos Aires suburb. Smuggled out of Argentina to Israel, Eichmann was indicted there on charges of crimes against humanity, and hanged on 1 June 1962. Part history, part detective story, part international thriller, Hunting Eichmann brings the story of the fifteen-year search for Eichmann more thrillingly, more accurately, more completely to life than ever before. Superbly researched and relentlessly paced, Hunting Eichmann brings us closer to understanding the architect of the Holocaust than even before - a man whose terrifying ordinariness came to embody the banality of evil.

Le récit haletant de la traque du criminel nazi le plus recherché...1945. Au lendemain de larmistice, alors que les Alliés entrent dans Berlin et font arrêter les plus hauts dignitaires nazis, le maî

In the winter trenches and flak-filled skies of World War I, captured soldiers and pilots narrowly avoided death only to find themselves imprisoned in Germanys archipelago of brutal POW camps. After several unsuccessful escapes, a group of Allied prisoners of Holzminden - Germanys land-locked Alcatraz- hatched the most elaborate escape plan yet known. With ingenious engineering, disguises, forgery and courage, their story would electrify Britain in some of its darkest hours of the war.Drawing on never-before-seen memoirs and letters, Neal Bascomb brings this little-known story narrative to life amid the despair of the trenches and the height of patriotic duty.

From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Hunting Eichmann and The Perfect Mile, a World War II spy adventure set in Norway that draws on top-secret documents and memoirs of the saboteurs.In 1942, the Nazis were racing to complete the first atomic bomb. All they needed was a single, incredibly rare ingredient: heavy water, which was produced solely at Norways Vemork plant. Under threat of death, Vemorks engineers pushed production into overdrive. If the Allies could not destroy the plant, they feared the Nazis would soon be in possession of the most dangerous weapon the world had ever seen. But how would the Allied forces reach the castle fortress, set on a precipitous gorge in one of the coldest, most inhospitable places on earth?Based on a trove of top-secret documents and never-before-seen diaries and letters of the saboteurs, The Winter Fortress is an arresting work of narrative nonfiction and a chronicle of a brilliant scientist, a band of spies on skis, perilous survival in the wild, Gestapo manhunts, and a last-minute operation that would alter the course of the war.Riveting and poignant . . . The Winter Fortress metamorphoses from engrossing history into a smashing thriller . . . Mr. Bascombs research and, especially, his storytelling skills are first-rate.Wall Street JournalThis true story of a high-stakes sabotage operation explores: Espionage True Story: Based on recently declassified documents and the personal letters of the commandos, this is the definitive account of the race to stop the Nazi bomb. Spies on Skis: A small team of Norwegian commandos parachutes into the frozen wilderness to carry out an impossible mission against a fortress-like industrial plant. Race Against Time: With Gestapo manhunts closing in, the team must survive the unforgiving Norwegian winter and destroy the heavy water supply before its too late. Military History: Perfect for fans of Antony Beevor and Ben Macintyre, this meticulously researched book reads like a fast-paced thriller.

This edition does not include illustrations. The inspirational story of three international runners attempting to achieve what no one had managed to break the four-minute mile barrier. It was the ultimate test of endurance, and the human drama that unfolded is told here for the first time. In sport, running the four-minute mile was the elusive Holy Grail, considered by most to be beyond the limits of human endeavour. Then in late 1952, shortly after the Helsinki Olympics, three men set out to challenge the record books: Roger Bannister, the Oxford medical student, the great British hero who epitomised the ideal of the amateur athlete; John Landy, the tireless Australian, the romantic who trained night and day in search of perfection; and the American Wes Santee, son of a Kansas ranch hand, a natural runner and the quickest of the three (I was just born to run fast). Three men, each of contrasting character, competing thousands of miles apart, but all with the same valedictory goal. The Perfect Mile is the stirring account of their quest for sporting martyrdom, charting their journey through triumph and failure, culminating in the moment when Bannister broke the record in a monumental run at the Iffley Road cinder track in Oxford in May 1954. It was a feat that became one of the most celebrated in the history of British sport. Far from bringing an end to the rivalry, this watershed moment turned out to be merely the prelude to a final climactic battle three months later the ultimate head-to-head between Bannister and Landy in what was dubbed the mile of the century at the Vancouver Empire Games. Bascomb provides a fascinating account of what happened and an invaluable insight into the motivations and characters of three amazing achievers.

The Roaring Twenties in New York was a time of exuberant ambition, free-flowing optimism, an explosion of artistic expression in the age of Prohibition. New York was the city that embodied the spirit and strength of a newly powerful America. In 1924, in the vibrant heart of Manhattan, a fierce rivalry was born. Two architects, William Van Alen and Craig Severance (former friends and successful partners, but now bitter adversaries), set out to imprint their individual marks on the greatest canvas in the world--the rapidly evolving skyline of New York City. Each man desired to build the citys tallest building, or skyscraper. Each would stop at nothing to outdo his rival.Van Alen was a creative genius who envisioned a bold, contemporary building that would move beyond the tired architecture of the previous century. By a stroke of good fortune he found a larger-than-life patron in automobile magnate Walter Chrysler, and they set out to build the legendary Chrysler building. Severance, by comparison, was a brilliant businessman, and he tapped his circle of downtown, old-money investors to begin construction on the Manhattan Company Building at 40 Wall Street. From ground-breaking to bricklaying, Van Alen and Severance fought a cunning duel of wills. Each man was forced to revamp his architectural design in an attempt to push higher, to overcome his rival in mid-construction, as the structures rose, floor by floor, in record time. Yet just as the battle was underway, a third party entered the arena and announced plans to build an even larger building. This project would be overseen by one of Chryslers principal rivals--a representative of the General Motors group--and the building ultimately became known as The Empire State Building.Infused with narrative thrills and perfectly rendered historical and engineering detail, Higher brings to life a sensational episode in American history. Author Neal Bascomb interweaves characters such as Al Smith and Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, leading up to an astonishing climax that illustrates one of the most ingenious (and secret) architectural achievements of all time.

That Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense to the young these days: sports glory. But at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type of cool was brewing. A physics teacher with a dream the first public high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award -- had rounded up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical know-how to work. If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that first week of their project, theyd have told you it was all about winning a robotics competition building the ultimate robot and prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming fans at Atlantas Georgia Dome. But for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance. The fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one based not on rote learning -- on absorbing facts and figures -- but on active creation. In his minds eye, he saw an even more robust academy within Dos Pueblos that would make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) cool again, and he knew he was poised on the edge of making that dream a reality. All he needed to get the necessary funding was one flashy win a triumph that would firmly put his Engineering Academy at Dos Pueblos on the map. He imagined that one day there would be a nation filled with such academies, and a new popular veneration for STEM a new cool that would return America to its former innovative glory. It was a dream shared by Dean Kamen, a modern-day inventing wizard often-called the Edison of his time whod concocted the very same FIRST Robotics Competition that had lured the kids at Dos Pueblos. Kamen had created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) nearly twenty years prior. And now, with a participant alumni base approaching a million strong, he felt that awareness was about to hit critical mass. But before the Dos Pueblos DPenguineers could do their part in bringing a new cool to America, theyd have to vanquish an intimidating lineup of super-teams high-school technology goliaths that hailed from engineering hot spots such as Silicon Valley, Massachusetts Route 128 technology corridor, and Michigans auto-design belt. Some of these teams were so good that winning wasnt just hoped for every year, it was expected. In The New Cool, Neal Bascomb manages to make even those who know little about or are vaguely suspicious of technology care passionately about a team of kids questing after a different kind of glory. In these kids heartaches and headaches and yes, high-five triumphs -- we glimpse the path not just to a new way of educating our youth but of honoring the crucial skills a society needs to prosper. A new cool.

La mítica del motín a bordo del acorazado Potemkin que presagió la Revolución rusa. En 1905, tras comprobar que les servían carne podrida, más de seiscientos marinos rusos se amotinaron contra sus oficiales a bordo del acorazado Potemkin, el navio de guerra mas poderoso del mundo en ese momento. La suya era una vida que apenas merecia vivirse, con un trabajo extenuante y una opresion absoluta, una existencia similar en su injusticia y desesperanza a la de la mayoria de los trabajadores de la epoca en Rusia. Contra todo pronostico, los marinos rebeldes lograron hacerse con el control del barco e izar la bandera roja de la revolucion. Lo que siguio fue una dramatica persecucion puerto por puerto que duro once increibles dias, y acabo convertida en aviso y emblema de la Revolucion rusa, como recogio magistralmente Serguei Eisenstein en su pelicula. Historia maravillosa que transcurre entre la opulenta corte del zar Nicolas II y la tension insoportable a bordo del buque, Motin rojo esta repleto de aventuras increibles, epicas batallas navales, heroicos sacrificios, traiciones, sangre y un grito por la libertad que cambio el curso del siglo XX. La critica ha dicho...Una emocionante y elegiaca historia. Un drama en alta mar tan fascinante como las novedades de C. S. Forster o Patrick O'Brian.Los Angeles Times Historia de la mejor: bien escrita, dramatica y con protagonistas inolvidables.Kirkus Reviews Omnisciente y vivida como una novela, presenta un agitado coro de marinos desmoralizados, oficiales despoticos, idealistas revolucionarios y zares reaccionarios: una magnifica historia en manos de un moderno Eisenstein.Times