Showing results by narrator "Bob Neufeld" in All Categories

A Tempest of Iron and Lead: Spotsylvania Court House, May 8–21, 1864 is a comprehensive and comprehensible study of this endlessly fascinating campaign. Author Chris Mackowski is intimately familiar with the battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to “Too Much for Human Endurance” and learn about the George Spangler farm hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Sickles at Gettysburg by licensed battlefield guide James Hessler, is the most deeply-researched, full-length biography to appear on this remarkable American icon. No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. By 1863, Sickles was notorious as a disgraced former Congressman who murdered his wife’s lover on the streets of Washington and used America’s first temporary insanity defense to escape justice.

Socrates, at 70+ years of age, defends himself against charges of corrupting the youth of Athens, atheism, and other false claims before accepting his fate and starting his final days on Earth.

The American Civil War is often called the first “modern war.” Sandwiched between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, it spawned a host of “firsts” and is considered a precursor to the larger and more deadly 20th century wars. Confederate Gen. James Longstreet made overlooked but profound modern contributions to the art of war. Retired Lt. Col. Harold M. Knudsen explains what Longstreet did and how he did it in James Longstreet and the American Civil War: The Confederate General Who Fought the Next War.

Licensed battlefield guide James Hessler has produced the most deeply-researched, full-length biography to appear on this remarkable American icon. No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. For Civil War enthusiasts who want to understand General Sickles’ scandalous life, Gettysburg’s battlefield strategies, the in-fighting within the Army of the Potomac, and the development of today’s National Park will find Sickles at Gettysburg it is a must-listen.

The regiment’s career commenced with an ignominious defeat in its initial engagement on the South Carolina coast at Port Royal Sound in 1861. This demoralizing event could have set the regiment on a trajectory of self-fulfilling failure and catastrophe.

Step into the enchanting world of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Mosses From An Old Manse". This collection of short stories showcases Hawthorne's mastery of the written word, transporting listeners to a realm where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. With exquisite prose and a keen understanding of human nature, Hawthorne explores themes of love, guilt, morality, and the intricacies of the human psyche. Each story is a literary gem, filled with vivid characters, atmospheric settings, and thought-provoking narratives.

This is a fairy tale about two kings who bluster and stumble into a hilarious non-war, a princess who finds true love in an unexpected place, and a conniving, beautiful Countess whose poetry was stolen by Shelley. The plot is driven by a bent ginger whisker, seven-league boots, two cloaks of darkness, and stiff notes. The characters are three-dimensional; the satire is gentle and wise. There is whimsy in every minute.

One of WWII’s pivotal events was the capture of U-505 on June 4, 1944. The top secret seizure of this massive Type IX submarine provided the Allies with priceless information on German technology and innovation. After the war, U-505 was transported to Chicago, where today several hundred thousand visitors a year pass through its well-preserved hull at the Museum of Science and Industry. Hunt and Kill offers the first definitive study of U-505.

John Bell Hood had done his job too well. In the fall of 1864, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee had harassed Federal forces in North Georgia so badly that the Union commander, William T. Sherman, decided to abandon his position. During his subsequent “March to the Sea”, Sherman’s men lived off the land and made Georgia howl. Rather than confront the larger Federal force directly, Hood chose instead to strike northward into Tennessee.

From the author of Tempesta's Dream - A Story of Love, Friendship and Opera, comes a spellbinding, historical fiction novel of a young man's desire to free his Sicilian village from the domination of one family's long reign.

Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom” - the wilderness of Virginia, 70 square miles of dense second-growth forest known as “the dark, close wood”. Here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Immovable object intercepted irresistible force - and the wilderness burst into flame.

This unique book brings together George Bernard Shaw's witty and iconoclastic take on Wagner's masterwork, The Ring of the Nibelungen, with the composer's own essay on the role of art in revolution.

World War II has ended, and Sicily lies in ruins. As money flows in from Italy, the black market becomes the lifeblood of the island's inhabitants. At the same time, with the defeat of Mussolini and fascism, an old nemesis re-emerges from the ashes—the mafia. Exiled during Mussolini's dictatorship, the Mafia has returned to fight for control of the black market.

Beginning with the Continental Navy, Small Boats and Daring Men traces maritime missions through the wars of the early republic, from the coast of modern-day Libya to the rivers and inlets of the Chesapeake Bay. Armstrong brings a uniquely informed perspective to his subject; and his work is at once an exciting narrative of danger and combat at sea and a thoroughgoing analysis of how these events fit into concepts of American sea power.

The Transcontinental Railroad, laid across the United States during the 1860s, remains the very epitome of contradiction. On the one hand, it was a triumph of engineering skills over thousands of miles of rough terrain, but on the other hand, it drained the natural resources in those places nearly dry.

The Ring and the Book is a verse novel of sex, lies, and murder, authored by Robert Browning, and it is widely considered to be one of the greatest literary works of the 19th century. It’s a “true crime” story based on the proceedings of a Roman murder trial held in 1698. Each of the 12 books consists of a dramatic monologue in the voice of a different character involved in the tale.

It has been called Robert E. Lee's supreme moment: riding into the Chancellorsville clearing...the mansion itself aflame in the background...his gunpowder-smeared soldiers crowding around him, hats off, cheering wildly. After one of the most audacious gambits of the war, Lee and his men had defeated a foe more than two and half times their size. The Federal commander, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, had boasted days earlier that his plans were perfect - yet his army had crumbled, and Hooker himself had literally been knocked senseless.

It is the winter of 1942, and the world is at war. A few Jewish musicians attempt to flee the Nazi death grip, each desperately trying to navigate his own path to safety. With the courageous aid and kindness of strangers, they soon find themselves in Rome, where under the highly secret help of the Vatican, they are hidden in Bellafortuna, a small village in Sicily.