Best Books of the Month: Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America. The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation’s founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction. Filled with spectacular stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers, and the lives of bald eagles themselves—monogamous creatures, considered among the animal world’s finest parents—The Bald Eagle is a much-awaited cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird’s wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale.

Like an eagle, American colonists ascended from the gulley of British dependence to the position of sovereign world power in a period of merely two centuries. Seizing territory in Canada and representation in Britain; expelling the French, and even their British forefathers, American leaders George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson paved their nation’s way to independence. With the first buds of public relation techniques—of communication, dramatization, and propaganda—America flourished into a vision of freedom, of enterprise, and of unalienable human rights. In Flight of the Eagle, Conrad Black provides a perspective on American history that is unprecedented. Through his analysis of the strategic development of the United States from 1754-1992, Black describes nine “phases” of the strategic rise of the nation, in which it progressed through grave challenges, civil and foreign wars, and secured a place for itself under the title of “Superpower.” Black discredits prevailing notions that our unrivaled status is the product of good geography, demographics, and good luck. Instead, he reveals and analyzes the specific strategic decisions of great statesmen through the ages that transformed the world as we know it and established America’s place in it.

Discusses the German emigration from the homeland to the settlement in the Texas Hill country.

This book is about how you will leave your mark on the world. It is about discovering the purpose for which you were created, and how to fulfill that purpose. It is about the vision you have for your life, and how to bring that vision into reality. It is about building relationships that are rich and enduring. It is about the courage to rise above adversity in the pursuit of your dreams. It is about connecting to your creative and transcendent spirit. Most of all, it is about taking charge of your one precious life, spreading your wings, and soaring to new realms of possibility.

Describes the growth and development of a bald eagle, from the time it hatches until it is one year old, in a book that provides information about the physical characteristics, behavior, and habitat of bald eagles.

England, 1940. Barney’s home has been destroyed by bombing, and he and his mother are traveling to the countryside when German planes attack. Their train is forced to take shelter in a tunnel and there, in the darkness, a stranger— a fellow passenger—begins to tell them a story about two young soldiers who came face to face in the previous war. One British, one German. Both lived, but the British soldier was haunted by the encounter once he realized who the German was: the young Adolf Hitler. The British soldier made a moral decision. Was it the right one? Readers can ponder that difficult question for themselves with Michael Morpurgo's latest middle-grade novel An Eagle in the Snow.

Talons of the Eagle offers a vivid portrayal of the last two hundred years of U.S.-Latin American relations, casting new light on issues such as economic integration, concentrating only on US policy, as many texts do, it addresses the structural relationships of both regions. Focusing oninternational systems, the distribution of power, and the perception and pursuit of national interests, Smith uncovers recurrent regularities in the interaction between the US and Latin America and offers a compelling analysis of the continuity and change in their relations, as well as provocativeinsights into the possible future of these relations. With an entirely new introduction and thorough revisions of the last four chapters and conclusion, as well as completely updated bibliography, this continues to be the ideal text for students in general courses on Latin American history andpolitics as well as courses on US and inter-American foreign relations.