In Honduras, he begins a quiet new life. But trouble has a way of finding Christmas. With unrest sweeping the countryside, he’s kidnapped by bandits. Soon, he finds himself taking sides in an all-out civil war–as leader of the rebellion.
MERCENARY is the story of the USA’s most famous soldier of fortune: the hard-drinking drifter who changed the fate of a nation.
Even as Idi Amin consolidates power in Uganda by murdering the Anglican archbishop, Janini Luwum, Bishop Festo Kivengere encourages young Yacobo Kabaza to write a play commemorating the centennial of the Church of Uganda, a production that endangers Yacobo’s brother, Blasio, and the other cast members.
This biography is short yet imparts the tyrants’ atrocities. Amin explores the dictator’s personal life and tells of his like of murdering those he suspected of treason. Dark humor mixed with facts to show how the ‘Butcher of Uganda’ reigned.
In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power in China after a long and brutal civil war. He and his Chinese Communist Party immediately set out to transform their nation into a Communist state. They seized land from wealthy and middle-class farmers and distributed it to poor peasant farmers. The government also took over ownership of all industries. Citizens who resisted these changes were branded ?counterrevolutionaries, ? and thousands were imprisoned or executed. Within a few years, Mao had turned China into a totalitarian state, controlling all aspects of his citizens? daily lives. In the 1960s, he sought to wipe out what remained of traditional Chinese society by launching the Cultural Revolution. Millions died as the country erupted into spasms of mob violence. Yet, despite the tumult, Chairman Mao remained a revered, almost godlike figure, worshiped by his people. How did he do it? Learn more about one of the most powerful and controversial figures of the 20th century.
The penniless tramp who rose to wield more power than most any other man in history. This illustrated biography exposes the beguiling nature of totalitarianism. A must read.
When Joseph Djugashvili was born the son of a poor shoemaker, few suspected he would rise to become one of the twentieth century’s most ruthless and powerful dictators. Enamored as a young man with the revolutionary politics of Lenin, he joined the underground Marxist Party and began his pursuit of power by leading strikes and demonstrations. Six times he was exiled to Siberia for his illicit activities, escaping many times despite below freezing temperatures and on one occasion an attack by a pack of wolves. His instinctive ability to command authority and divide the opposition through lies and deceit set him on a path he would follow to become Russia’s most absolute dictator. He was never reticent to shed innocent blood in the pursuit of his own ends, and he carefully orchestrated demonstrations that brought about massacres that he then used to his own revolutionary ends. His vision was far reaching, and while his initial purpose was to establish a Soviet socialist state his larger goal was world domination. Ultimately responsible for the deaths of over 30 million 13 million alone in the Ukrainian famine he caused Stalin’s life is a sober and heartbreaking account of the reign of terror suffered by countless millions at the hands of one man. Illustrated with photographs. 
