- Table View
- List View
Existentialism and Excess: The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
by Gary CoxJean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and Excess covers all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life.Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself.
Exit Berlin: How One Woman Saved Her Family from Nazi Germany
by Charlotte R. BonelliJust a week after the Kristallnacht terror in 1938, young Luzie Hatch, a German Jew, fled Berlin to resettle in New York. Her rescuer was an American-born cousin and industrialist, Arnold Hatch. Arnold spoke no German, so Luzie quickly became translator, intermediary, and advocate for family left behind. Soon an unending stream of desperate requests from German relatives made their way to Arnold’s desk. Luzie Hatch had faithfully preserved her letters both to and from far-flung relatives during the World War II era as well as copies of letters written on their behalf. This extraordinary collection, now housed at the American Jewish Committee Archives, serves as the framework for Exit Berlin. Charlotte R. Bonelli offers a vantage point rich with historical context, from biographical information about the correspondents to background on U.S. immigration laws, conditions at the Vichy internment camps, refuge in Shanghai, and many other topics, thus transforming the letters into a riveting narrative. Arnold’s letters reveal an unfamiliar side of Holocaust history. His are the responses of an “average” American Jew, struggling to keep his own business afloat while also assisting dozens of relatives trapped abroad—most of whom he had never met and whose deathly situation he could not fully comprehend. This book contributes importantly to historical understanding while also uncovering the dramatic story of one besieged family confronting unimaginable evil.
Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars
by Nick Duerden'Exit Stage Left is the book I've long wanted to read about the PTSD-like after-effects of pop stardom - and Nick Duerden is the perfect writer for the job. The pop star's bittersweet lot - the mass adoration that comes with pop stardom, followed by the bathetic comedown of what inevitably follows - is represented with flair and empathy.' - Pete Paphides, author of Broken Greek'Tragedy, genius, addiction and inspiration: Exit Stage Left is a comprehensive tour through all the ways life can go wrong post-fame (and the few ways it can go right). Funny, poignant and often inspirational.' - Mat Osman 'Duerden finds fascinating layers of humanity, pathos, humour and wisdom in equal measure. A brilliant book, for artists and fans alike.' - Frank Turner'Fame is the brightest candle, but in this brilliant collection of interviews, Nick Duerden answers the question: what does a candle do after it's burned out?' - David Quantick The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?This is the world the pop star is required to inhabit. It's invariably eventful. We know all about them when they're at the top of their game, of course, but they tend to reveal far more of their true selves once they've peaked, and are on their way down. This is the point at which they are at their most heroic, because they don't give up. They keep on striving, keep making music, and refuse simply to ebb away. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed. But all of them, in their own individual ways, still dare to dream.Exit Stage Left features tales of drug addiction, bankruptcy, depression and divorce, but also of optimism, a genuine love of the craft, humility and hope. This is a candid, laugh-out-loud and occasionally shocking look at what happens when the brightest stars fall back down to earth.Featuring brand new interviews with the likes of: Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Wendy James, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, and Justin Hawkins.
Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars
by Peter GodwinPeter’s mother is dying. Born in England and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned living room of his sister’s London apartment, her accent having overnight become posher than the Queen’s. Unsentimental, fiercely stubborn and at times hilarious, she finally drops her guard, losing all fear of conflict to become the family provocateur.While confronting the revelations of what his family was – and wasn’t – and the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, Peter also mourns the ending of his long marriage. At this point of rupture and healing, Peter reflects on his family’s legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home.In Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars, Peter Godwin considers, with both tenderness and candour, the life of émigrés, exiles and refugees, and grieves the many losses that make life both magnificent and unbearable. He brings us into the spaces which make us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.
Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism
by Clara Claiborne ParkExiting Nirvana details Clara Claiborne Park's continuing efforts to have her daughter Jessy 'exit Nirvana,' develop as an artist, and connect with our world.
Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism
by Clara Claiborne ParkExiting Nirvana details Clara Claiborne Park's continuing efforts to have her daughter Jessy 'exit Nirvana,' develop as an artist, and connect with our world.
The Exmoor Files: How I Lost A Husband And Found Rural Bliss
by Liz JonesMoving from Islington to Exmoor; one small step for mankind but a very large one for MAIL ON SUNDAY columnist Liz Jones.Liz Jones lived the perfect urban life. The immaculate Georgian townhouse in a leafy London square. The glamorous career. The Italian wardrobe stuffed with designer bags and shoes. The much younger novelist husband. But then it all goes horribly wrong. She discovers her husband has been having numerous affairs (with women who are younger, dimmer, slimmer) and realises that her pursuit of perfection has never made her happy, and probably never will. And so she decides to start all over again, burying herself alive in the middle of the bleak, unforgiving wilderness that is Exmoor National Park. She buys a wreck of a farmhouse, with an original stable block, 46 acres, an ancient wood and a lake. She rescues a nervous and abused but breathtakingly beautiful racehorse and hopes to live out the rural dream. The reality, of course, is much, much harder. THE EXMOOR FILES is a funny, honest, often brutal real-life account of what it is like to start all over again in an alien environment. It is about discovering that you cannot find peace just by moving somewhere peaceful. It is about mourning for a relationship and letting go of the life you thought you deserved.
EXO: K-Pop Superstars
by Adrian BesleyA K-pop band like no other, EXO have been dominating charts and stealing hearts since they debuted in 2012. For the first time, this unofficial biography will tell their extraordinary story. Extensively researched, this book weaves in the backstories of each of the nine individual members with the story of the band as a whole, as well as detailing the support from their incredible fanbase, EXO-L. As any EXO-L knows, EXO come from an alien planet and possess superpowers – not hard to believe when you see how talented they are! They record their songs in Korean, Mandarin and Japanese, they have millions of fans all over the world, their music videos clock up hundreds of millions of views, and a captivated global audience watched this Korean-Chinese band close the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. No wonder Dazed magazine called them the ‘biggest Korean boyband in the world’.Featuring biographies of each of the nine current members – Suho, Xiumin, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai and Sehun – as well as previous members Luhan, Kris and Tao, and taking an in-depth look at what makes them stand out from the K-pop crowd, this accessible and upbeat book is a must for all fans of one of the biggest bands on the planet.
Experience: A Memoir (Folio Ser. #Vol. 30702)
by Martin AmisIn this remarkable work of autobiography, the son of the great comic novelist Kingsley Amis explores his relationship with his father and writes about the various crises of Kingsley's life, including the final one of his death. Amis also reflects on the life and legacy of his cousin, Lucy Partington, who disappeared without trace in 1973 and was exhumed twenty years later from the basement of Frederick West, one of Britain's most prolific serial murderers.
The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis)
by Jan GolinskiWhat did it mean to be a scientist before the profession itself existed? Jan Golinski finds an answer in the remarkable career of Humphry Davy, the foremost chemist of his day and one of the most distinguished British men of science of the nineteenth century. Originally a country boy from a modest background, Davy was propelled by his scientific accomplishments to a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. An enigmatic figure to his contemporaries, Davy has continued to elude the efforts of biographers to classify him: poet, friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth, author of travel narratives and a book on fishing, chemist and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. What are we to make of such a man? In The Experimental Self, Golinski argues that Davy’s life is best understood as a prolonged process of self-experimentation. He follows Davy from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experiment through his self-fashioning as a man of science in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today. What emerges is a portrait of Davy as a creative fashioner of his own identity through a lifelong series of experiments in selfhood.
The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis)
by Jan GolinskiWhat did it mean to be a scientist before the profession itself existed? Jan Golinski finds an answer in the remarkable career of Humphry Davy, the foremost chemist of his day and one of the most distinguished British men of science of the nineteenth century. Originally a country boy from a modest background, Davy was propelled by his scientific accomplishments to a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. An enigmatic figure to his contemporaries, Davy has continued to elude the efforts of biographers to classify him: poet, friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth, author of travel narratives and a book on fishing, chemist and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. What are we to make of such a man? In The Experimental Self, Golinski argues that Davy’s life is best understood as a prolonged process of self-experimentation. He follows Davy from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experiment through his self-fashioning as a man of science in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today. What emerges is a portrait of Davy as a creative fashioner of his own identity through a lifelong series of experiments in selfhood.
The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis)
by Jan GolinskiWhat did it mean to be a scientist before the profession itself existed? Jan Golinski finds an answer in the remarkable career of Humphry Davy, the foremost chemist of his day and one of the most distinguished British men of science of the nineteenth century. Originally a country boy from a modest background, Davy was propelled by his scientific accomplishments to a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. An enigmatic figure to his contemporaries, Davy has continued to elude the efforts of biographers to classify him: poet, friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth, author of travel narratives and a book on fishing, chemist and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. What are we to make of such a man? In The Experimental Self, Golinski argues that Davy’s life is best understood as a prolonged process of self-experimentation. He follows Davy from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experiment through his self-fashioning as a man of science in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today. What emerges is a portrait of Davy as a creative fashioner of his own identity through a lifelong series of experiments in selfhood.
The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis)
by Jan GolinskiWhat did it mean to be a scientist before the profession itself existed? Jan Golinski finds an answer in the remarkable career of Humphry Davy, the foremost chemist of his day and one of the most distinguished British men of science of the nineteenth century. Originally a country boy from a modest background, Davy was propelled by his scientific accomplishments to a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. An enigmatic figure to his contemporaries, Davy has continued to elude the efforts of biographers to classify him: poet, friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth, author of travel narratives and a book on fishing, chemist and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. What are we to make of such a man? In The Experimental Self, Golinski argues that Davy’s life is best understood as a prolonged process of self-experimentation. He follows Davy from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experiment through his self-fashioning as a man of science in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today. What emerges is a portrait of Davy as a creative fashioner of his own identity through a lifelong series of experiments in selfhood.
Experts in the World Heritage Regime: Between Protection and Prestige
by Luke JamesAddressing the topic of expertise in international cultural conservation, this book argues that the UNESCO World Heritage regime emerged as a Faustian pact between protection and prestige, and a productive tension between these elements remains at its core, embodied by the heritage expert. Tracing experts’ practices in the World Heritage regime, this book shows how they burnish, broker and themselves benefit from World Heritage prestige. As World Heritage prestige also contributes to states’ international status claims, the stakes are raised, with both the denouement of the pact and the future for World Heritage poised between condemnation and redemption.
Exploited: The heartbreaking true story of a teenage girl trapped in a world of abuse and violence (A Maggie Hartley Foster Carer Story)
by Maggie HartleyFourteen-year-old Hannah comes to live with foster carer Maggie Hartley after her mum pleads with Social Services to take her into care, unable to cope with her daughter anymore. Previously a good student, a loving daughter and sister, Hannah is now playing truant, drinking, and taking drugs. Angry and mistrustful, it seems that nobody can reach this troubled teenager.Maggie is used to difficult teenagers, but Hannah's behaviour brings into question everything Maggie has ever learnt in all her years as a foster carer. Determined to push away everyone around her away, Hannah's life seems to be spiralling out of control. But when Hannah finally breaks down and confides a shocking secret to Maggie, the truth behind her chaotic behaviour is finally revealed. Can Maggie help this vulnerable young girl overcome the trauma of what's happened to her and set her free from the demons that haunt her?
Exploited
by Emma Jackson'If you read the papers, you'd think that the only girls to get hooked are from dysfunctional families. But what happened to me could happen to anyone. Your child, your sister, your friend – even yourself if you are young and naive enough, like I was'Emma was just 13 when her happy childhood came crashing down. A nice girl from a good home, she had no idea the young lads she and her friends met every Saturday in the shopping mall weren’t all they seemed.The boys were part of an organised child sexual exploitation gang targeting innocent young girls, grooming them for prostitution. Captivated by the ring leader, and the alcohol and drugs he freely handed round, Emma didn't see the first brutal rape coming. From that moment, her life was never her own.Emma found herself drawn into a trap of degradation and violence, frightened for her life and not knowing where to turn. But Exploited is also the story of how she found the courage and inner strength to risk everything, and escape.Exploited is an updated edition of Emma's book The End of My World - brought bang up to date with a brand new chapter.
Exploration Fawcett
by Col. Percy FawcettThe life of Colonel Fawcett is now the subject of the major motion picture The Lost City of Z.The disappearance of Colonel Fawcett in the Matto Grosso remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. In 1925, Fawcett was convinced that he had discovered the location of a lost city; he had set out with two companions, one of whom was his eldest son, to destination 'Z', never to be heard of again. His younger son, Brian Fawcett, has compiled this book from letters and records left by his father, whose last written words to his wife were: 'You need have no fear of any failure . . .' This is the thrilling and mysterious account of Fawcett's ten years of travels in deadly jungles and forests in search of a secret city.
Explorer: The Quest for Adventure and the Great Unknown
by Benedict AllenWhat does it mean to be an explorer in the twenty-first century? This is the story of what first led Benedict Allen to head for the farthest reaches of our planet – at a time when there were still valleys and ranges known only to the remote communities who inhabited them. It is also the story of why, thirty years later, he is still exploring. Benedict decides to journey back to a clouded mountain in New Guinea to find an old friend called Korsai, and to fulfil a promise they made as young men. Explorer tells the story of what it means to be ‘lost’ and ‘found’.
The Explorer and the Journalist: Frederick Cook, Philip Gibbs and the Scandal that Shocked the World
by Richard EvansOn 1 September 1909, a telegram from American explorer Frederick Cook caused perhaps the biggest sensation in polar exploration history. With no word from Cook for over a year and many assuming he was dead, here came the news that not only had he survived his Arctic expedition, but he had claimed one of the great prizes in exploration by becoming the first person to reach the North Pole.Cook was instantly transformed into one of the heroes of the age. And with his boat due to arrive in Copenhagen a few days later, the world’s journalists scrambled to get there in time to meet him. One of those journalists was Philip Gibbs, a young reporter for the Daily Chronicle in London, who had a chance encounter in a Copenhagen café that led to him getting an exclusive interview with Cook before he reached land. But Gibbs left the interview doubting Cook’s story, and so in his subsequent article he decided to gamble both his career and his reputation by making it clear he thought Cook might be lying.Gibbs’s article made him the most unpopular man in Copenhagen, and marked the start of a frantic six days during which Copenhagen showered Cook with accolades while Gibbs tried to prove his claim was untrue. The Explorer and the Journalist is the story of the explorer who was determined to prove he really had reached the Pole, and the journalist who was convinced he was a fraud. It was a confrontation from which only one of them would emerge with his reputation intact…
The Explorer Gene: How Three Generations of One Family Went Higher, Deeper and Further Than Anyone Before
by Tom CheshireThis is a remarkable story, not just about the extraordinary achievements of a family, but about the power of the individual to spur innovation, even when the consen
Explorers of the American East: Mapping the World through Primary Documents (Mapping the World through Primary Documents)
by Kelly K. Chaves Oliver C. WaltonFocusing on ten key figures whose careers illuminate the history of the European exploration of North America, this book presents compelling first-person narratives that bring to life the challenges of historical scholarship in the academic classroom.Explorers of the American East: Mapping the World through Primary Documents covers 280 years of North American exploration and colonization efforts, ranging geographically from Florida to the Arctic. Arranged thematically and mononationally, the work focuses on a selection of 10 explorers who represent the changing course of North American exploration during the early modern period. The use of biography to narrate this history draws in readers and makes the work accessible to both a specialized and general audience. The dozens of primary source documents in this guided source reader span travel accounts, autobiographies, letters, official reports, memoirs, patents, and articles of agreement. This wide variety of primary sources serves to bring to life the failures and triumphs of exploring a newly discovered continent in the early modern period.This work focuses on ten explorers, including those who are well known, including John Cabot, John Smith, Jacques Cartier, and Samuel de Champlain, as well as discoverers who have slipped from our modern historical consciousness, such as George Waymouth, John Lawson, and J.F.W. Des Barres. The documents that narrate the voyages of these adventurers are arranged chronologically, vividly telling the story of historical events and presenting different voices to the reader. This variety of viewpoints serves to heighten readers' critical engagement with historical source material. The vast variety of primary source materials present students with the opportunity to read and engage critically with different types of historical documents, thereby growing their analytical skillsets.
Explorers of the American East: Mapping the World through Primary Documents (Mapping the World through Primary Documents)
by Kelly K. Chaves Oliver C. WaltonFocusing on ten key figures whose careers illuminate the history of the European exploration of North America, this book presents compelling first-person narratives that bring to life the challenges of historical scholarship in the academic classroom.Explorers of the American East: Mapping the World through Primary Documents covers 280 years of North American exploration and colonization efforts, ranging geographically from Florida to the Arctic. Arranged thematically and mononationally, the work focuses on a selection of 10 explorers who represent the changing course of North American exploration during the early modern period. The use of biography to narrate this history draws in readers and makes the work accessible to both a specialized and general audience. The dozens of primary source documents in this guided source reader span travel accounts, autobiographies, letters, official reports, memoirs, patents, and articles of agreement. This wide variety of primary sources serves to bring to life the failures and triumphs of exploring a newly discovered continent in the early modern period.This work focuses on ten explorers, including those who are well known, including John Cabot, John Smith, Jacques Cartier, and Samuel de Champlain, as well as discoverers who have slipped from our modern historical consciousness, such as George Waymouth, John Lawson, and J.F.W. Des Barres. The documents that narrate the voyages of these adventurers are arranged chronologically, vividly telling the story of historical events and presenting different voices to the reader. This variety of viewpoints serves to heighten readers' critical engagement with historical source material. The vast variety of primary source materials present students with the opportunity to read and engage critically with different types of historical documents, thereby growing their analytical skillsets.
Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure (Playaway Adult Nonfiction Ser.)
by Tim JealBetween 1856 and 1876, five explorers, all British, took on the seemingly impossible task of discovering the source of the White Nile. Showing exceptional courage and extraordinary resilience, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, Samuel Baker, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley risked their lives and their reputations in the name of this quest. They journeyed through East and Central Africa into unmapped territory, discovered the great lakesTanganyika and Victoria, navigated the upper Nile and the Congo, and suffered the ravages of flesh-eating ulcers, malaria and deep spear wounds. Using new research, Tim Jeal tells the story of these great expeditions, while also examining the tragic consequences which the Nile search has had on Uganda and Sudan to this day.Explorers of the Nile is a gripping adventure story with an arresting analysis of Britain's imperial past and the Scramble for Africa.
Exploring the World: Two centuries of remarkable adventurers and their journeys
by Alexander MaitlandExplorers and travellers have always been attracted by the lure of the unknown. By traversing and mapping our planet, they have played a vital role in mankind's development. For almost two hundred years, the Royal Geographical Society has recognised their achievements by awarding its prestigious gold medals to those who have contributed most to our knowledge of the world.Taking us on a journey across mountains and deserts, oceans and seas, Exploring the World tells the stories of more than eighty of these extraordinary men and women. Some, such as David Livingstone, Scott of the Antarctic and Jacques-Yves Cousteau, are well known; whilst others, such as William Chandless and Ney Elias, are today less familiar. Some dreamed of being the first to sight a lake or a river; others sighted some of the world's greatest natural features by chance. Some were naturalists, anthropologists or mountaineers; others went in search of explorers who had vanished without trace, or had been shipwrecked or marooned.Filled with epic tales of endurance and perseverance, Exploring the World celebrates a group of exceptional individuals possessed of indomitable courage, boundless determination and adventurous spirit. It portrays a variety of fascinating lives driven by curiosity, wanderlust and the pursuit of knowledge - and, in doing so, provides a unique overview of two centuries of exploration.
Explosive: Bringing the World's Deadliest Bombers to Justice
by Cliff ToddTHE STORY OF BRITAIN'S LEADING FORENSIC EXPLOSIVES SCIENTIST, WHO FOR NEARLY THREE-DECADES INVESTIGATED SOME OF THE MOST PROMINENT NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL BOMB ATTACKS IN HISTORY.Cliff Todd devoted his life to bringing bomb makers to justice. He and his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence's Forensic Explosives Laboratory are the unsung heroes of terrorist bomb attacks - the men and women in white suits who piece together who planted the bombs, what a device consisted of and how the perpetrators might give themselves away.They played a pivotal role in uncovering the secrets behind some of the world's most horrifying terrorist outrages. Explosive tells the stories of these high-profile cases and details, for the first time, the contribution Todd and his team made in tracking down bombers during a time when Britain was under attack first by the IRA and then by Islamic extremists inspired by al-Qaeda.Explosive takes the reader into the murky world of the amateur bomb maker, and reveals what Todd's department achieved in many now infamous attacks, including the device concealed in a radio cassette player that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the IRA attacks on Warrington in Cheshire, the Bali nightclub bombings of 2002, and the 7/7 onslaught in central London that claimed 56 lives and injured 784 others in 2005.In Explosive, Todd takes us step by step through the investigations, explaining the chemistry, the forensic work and the emotional toll on him and his staff as they sought to recreate and understand what had happened at some of the most shocking tragedies in modern peacetime history.