Eastern Europe

In 1854, a quarter of a million British soldiers headed east to fight in the Crimean War. Together with their French and Turkish allies, the goal was to free the important port city of Sevastopol from the clutches of Russia, thus keeping them from the seizing control of the Red Sea and thence Mediterranean. This they did, but not without considerable hardship, suffering and loss of life - over 21,000 British men fell to enemy fire, accidents and disease.

The story of the young Teodor unravels on the background of the drama that his family and his country lived in the terrible days of the 1950s in a Stalinist Romania. While the Western countries were engaged in post-war reconstruction, the communist regime, imposed on Romanians by the Soviet Union, was committed to depriving its citizens of the most elementary freedoms and reducing an entire people to starvation. The regime threatens to eliminate the Flonta family, declaring Pavel, Teodor's father, an "enemy of the people". As a consequence, he is arrested, imprisoned and tortured.

In Polish: Jacek Hugo-Bader once again embarks on a trip around Poland. He returns to matters, events, and places from 20-30 years ago. He meets with the people from the front pages of Gazeta Wyborcza: bandits, bums, converted, rednecks, and chosen - this is the face of modern Poland which is so easy to turn one's back to. The reporter discovers that his previous writings about these people were dwarfed by the stories which life wrote for them.

Greater Than a Tourist: Belgrade, Serbia by Robert Tozer offers the inside scoop on Belgrade. Most travel guides tell you how to travel like a tourist. As a part of the Greater Than a Tourist series, this guide will give you travel tips from someone who lives at your next travel destination. You'll discover local advice that will help you throughout your stay.

A millioner and a self-made businessman, Marek Zmysłowski, built African Amazon and became one of the most famous people in IT in Africa. One day it turned out that he's also a fugitive wanted by the Interpol. How did this happen? In his autobiography, Zmysłowski doesn't take himself too seriously and with humor shows the backstage of doing business, which was sometimes dangerous. With his journalistic verve, he draws a colorful picture of Africa, which became his favorite continent.

Where do you turn when you can trust no one? World War II is over, but the fighting in Eastern Europe continues as Lithuanian resistance fighters wreak havoc on the Russian army. Colonel Karmachov, a Soviet military officer, is incensed by the tiny yet deadly resistance. Anxious to destroy them, he forces a young Lithuanian, Anton Dubus, to join the rebels as a spy. In Book Two of the Amber War series, resistance fighter Ludmelia Kudirka faces treachery as she works with Polish partisans to get a man through the Iron Curtain in a last-ditch effort to gain help from the West and keep the ...

In 1945, both the U.S. State Department and U.S. Intelligence saw Czechoslovakia as the master key to the balance of power in Europe and as a chessboard for the power-game between East and West. Washington believed that the political scene in Prague was the best available indicator of whether the United States would be able to coexist with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.

Rare eyewitness account of early, chaotic days of WWII - Nazi invasion of Poland, Siege of Warsaw, and first months of Occupation - written by a young working mother. Rulka Langer's eye for detail and lively storytelling bring to life, from her unique vantage point, the opening chapter of the struggle between good and evil which ultimately engulfed the entire globe.

Koledzy z Polskiej Armii na Zachodzie mówili o nich „PESTKI” (od Pomocniczej Służby Kobiet). Miłości, przyjaźnie, codzienne kłopoty. PESTKI po wojnie wylądowały w różnych zakątkach globu; w Afryce, w Australii, w Szkocji, Kanadzie i na Podkarpaciu. Losy 19 dzielnych kobiet, które wyrwały się ze Związku Sowieckiego i razem z II Korpusem polskim przeszły cały szlak bojowy. „Byłam jedną z pierwszych ochotniczek wcielonych do Pomocniczej Służby Kobiet. Dostałam mundur. Wreszcie czysta, syta i ubrana w coś innego niż łachmany.

Meteora: The History of the Famous Greek Landmark That Houses Eastern Orthodox Monasteries looks at the unique place and what life has been like there since the monasteries were built there. You will learn about Meteora like never before.

An unforgettable literary masterpiece written over 200 years ago by a remarkable woman during the struggle and fall of Europe's first attempt at a constitutional democracy. A coming-of-age story, love drama, and historical saga all in one, it unfolds more like a novel than an authentic memoir. Despite its epoch, the highs and lows of Countess Anna's journey reverberate with timeless issues that still affect us all today. This courageous young woman wrote down extraordinarily visceral details of the horrendous experiences she was living through between 1791 and 1795

Michał Ogórek meticulously recreates the picture of Poland that used to be drawn during the particular periods of the 100 years of Polish independence: Poland of Piłsudski, Rydz-Śmigły, Bierut, Gomułka, Gierek, Jaruzelski, Wałęsa, and Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński. The more worshiped each of the leaders were, the more painful their demise usually was. The magnitude of the leaders' worship caused people to cry out of emotion, and later out of disappointment and anger. But this book will only make you cry out of laughter.

With travel tips and culture in our guidebooks written by a local, it is never too late to visit Cyclades. Greater Than a Tourist—Cyclades Greece by Author Vivi Gialou offers first-hand and personal insight into the best ways to visit the Cyclades. Most travel books tell you how to travel like a tourist. Although there is nothing wrong with that, as part of the Greater Than a Tourist series, this book will give you candid travel tips from someone who has lived at your next travel destination.

A few years ago Linda Kinstler discovered that a man fifty years dead—a former Nazi who belonged to the same killing unit as her grandfather—was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation in Latvia. The proceedings threatened to pardon his crimes. They put on the line hard-won facts about the Holocaust at the precise moment that the last living survivors—the last legal witnesses—were dying.

Biografia Władysława Gomułki, jedynego I sekretarza KC PZPR, który chciał być samodzielnym politykiem. Jedynego, który mógł być samodzielnym politykiem. Historia polityka, który - tak jak jego poprzednik i jego kolejni następcy - przegrał wszystko. Jeden z najbardziej paradoksalnych życiorysów polskiego komunizmu. Absolwent sowieckiej "Leninówki", członek partii bolszewickiej, wierny wyznawca stalinizmu, który w obecności Berii miał odwagę odmówić samemu Stalinowi.

Inside, you will hear about the history of the Ottoman empire, including: origins until the Balkan conquests; institutions and society: millets, guilds, trade, religion, and mysticism; 15th-century imperial style, 16th-century Golden Age, cracks before World War I; the Eastern Question; and much more!

Nearly three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of World War I. Filled with the hope of life in a new land, most were young, single, uneducated, and unskilled. Many were children or teens. They were, in a sense, unfinished citizens of either the old or the new world.

Greater Than a Tourist: Rotterdam Zuid-Holland Netherlands, by Rikki Srichankij, offers the inside scoop on Rotterdam. This audiobook will give you tips from someone who lives at your next travel destination.

First biography of the great actress in a brilliant interpretation of Danuta Stenka. One-hundred-two years of fascinating life, turbulent career, and dramatic turns in history. Gabriel Michalik paints a subtle portrait of the legend of the theatre and cinema, the people she met, and the era through which she lived with natural elegance, grace, and unusual cheerfulness, in spite of dramatic obstacles.

In Polish: A life as interesting as an action movie. Life of Zuzanna Łapicka, daughter of Andrzej Łapicki, an ex-wife of Daniel Olbrychski, is the perfect material for a screenplay about the life of the so-called artistic elites, not only Polish. In her book, Łapicka creates portraits of tens of intriguing people she met, like Krzysztof Kieślowski and Andrzej Żuławski. She looks at them closely and amusingly. She writes about Agnieszka Osiecka and Jeremi Przybora, about Federico Fellini met in Cinecittà, and Pope John Paul II whom she visited in the Vatican.