Author: Fred Halliday File Type: pdf

Author: Dalton Fury File Type: epub The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world--an operationof such magnitude thatit couldnt be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed toroughly forty members of Americas supersecret counterterrorist unit formerly known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta more popularly, theelite and mysterious unit Delta Force. The American generals were flexible. A swatch of hair, a drop of blood, or simply a severed finger wrapped in plastic would be sufficient. Deltas orders were to go into harms way and prove to the world bin Laden had been terminated. These Delta warriors had help adozen of the British Queens elite commandos, another dozen or so Army Green Berets, and six intelligence operatives from the CIA who laid the groundwork by providing cash, guns, bullets, intelligence, and interrogation skills to this clandestine military force. Together,this team waged modern siege of epic proportions against bin Laden and his seemingly impenetrable cave sanctuary burrowed deep inside the Spin Ghar Mountain range in eastern Afghanistan. Over the years, since the battle ended, scores of news stories have surfaced offering tidbits of information about what actually happened in Tora Bora. Most of it is conjecture and speculation. This is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden, how close U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing him, and exactly why he slipped through our fingers. Lastly, this is an extremely rare inside look at the shadowy world of Delta Force and a detailed account of these warriors in battle. **

Author: Evelyn Toynton File Type: pdf Jackson Pollock (19121956) not only put American art on the map with his famous drip paintings, he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williamss A Streetcar Named Desirethe role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollocks hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artistour American van Gogh.In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollocks itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollocks paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style.ReviewJournalist and novelist Toynton . . . lends her multifarious talent to the story of the turbulent life of iconic artist Jackson Pollock. . . .Few are better suited to pen such a quotable and inspired contemporary portrait.Publishers Weekly(Publishers Weekly) This is a Vasari-like narrative of Jackson Pollock, and a case study of his depression, his propensity to get into fist fights when drunk, to be taciturn when sober, and to let himself be taken care of by the women in his life. But it is also a story of how he broke the ice, in de Koonings words, enabling American painters to take world leadership in a fresh style of paintinghuge, abstract, emotional, and direct. It is the book to read to find out what he was and was about.ArthurDanto, author of Andy Warhol(Arthur Danto) Toyntons sensitive and incisive book sorts through the wreckage of an imagination out of which so much of contemporary art would go on to assemble itself.Kelly Grovier, Times Literary Supplement(Kelly Grovier Times Literary Supplement 2012-04-06) Book DescriptionEvelyn Toyntons fresh, fascinating portrait of Jackson Pollock explores his work, his influence, and his legend in the context of both art history and the cultural history of mid-twentieth-century America. Jackson Pollock (19121956) not only put American art on the map with his famous drip paintings, he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williamss A Streetcar Named Desirethe role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollocks hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artistour American van Gogh. In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollocks itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollocks paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style. **

Author: Joanna de Groot File Type: pdf A new and original interpretation of the social history of religion in Iran from the 1870s to the 1970s. Drawing together religion and other social and cultural issues, it places the revolutionary upheavals of 1977-82 in the context of historical developments over the preceding century. De Groot argues that Irans revolution was not the inevitable outcome of the nature of the Iranian state or of religion in Iran but was much more complex and resulted from a wider range of factors than is traditionally believed. She focuses on the human responses of Iranians to their experiences and on the rich variety and complexity of the relationship between religion and other aspects of society, thought and culture in their daily life. Stimulating and engaging, Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran makes an important contribution to the study of Iranian society. **