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The Black Room at Longwood

Author : Jean-Paul Kauffmann

Publisher : Da Capo Press

Page : 342 pages

File Size : 29,64 MB

Release : 1999-05-31

Category : History

ISBN : 9781568581286

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Book Description

Like his subject, Napoleon, author Jean-Paul Kauffmann has experienced captivity, as a three-year hostage in Beirut. He brings his insider's knowledge to this moving account of the most famous French soldier's last years in seclusion on a tropical island. After his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon was exiled and imprisoned by the British on the island of St. Helena. He became increasingly withdrawn, surviving on a diet of memories that he recounted to the few people around him. But the book -- part history, part travelogue -- portrays the leader as a prisoner also of his mind, poisoned by nostalgia for his triumphs and grief over his defeats. "A haunting, unforgettable book....Kauffmann captures the desolate atmosphere of Napoleon's last home with evocative precision." -- Boston Globe



How to Find a Black Cat in a Dark Room

Author : Jacob Burak

Publisher : Watkins Media Limited

Page : 254 pages

File Size : 33,87 MB

Release : 2017-10-17

Category : Psychology

ISBN : 1786780976

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Book Description

An inquiry into what it is about our experiences and cultures that brings out the differences and reveals the similarities in us as humans beings, in the vein of Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Kahneman. Jacob Burak is on a quest to answer the question “are we as human beings, who are separated by different cultures and experiences, similar or different?” Through the lens of behavioural studies, we see how, while our approaches differ and often conflict, we all strive for similar things: love, acceptance, power and understanding. How to Find a Black Cat in a Dark Room offers the latest scientific studies of human behaviour alongside accessible anecdotes to examine the universal human experiences of comparing ourselves to others, the need to belong, the urge to achieve and the anxiety and uncertainty of life itself. More importantly, Burak shows us how, in understanding these behavioural patterns, we learn that we are actually more alike than we are different; that our rivals often make us stronger; and that being trusting can help us live longer. With his inquisitive nature, logical thinking and engaging style, Burak examines whether it is destiny or personality that controls our lives, through intriguing subjects such as: • What are the ten rules for happiness that are entirely under our control? • Why do smart people make stupid mistakes? • What distinguishes bureaucrats and entrepreneurs? • What are the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives? • In what circumstances is it right to surrender our privacy? • Does it pay to trust people?



Black Elephants in the Room

Author : Corey Fields

Publisher : Univ of California Press

Page : 294 pages

File Size : 13,80 MB

Release : 2016-10-18

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 0520291905

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Book Description

From many to few -- Beyond Uncle Tom -- Race doesn't matter -- Black power through conservative principles -- Like crabs in a barrel -- Whither the Republican Party.



The American Black Chamber

Author : Herbert O. Yardley

Publisher : Naval Institute Press

Page : 403 pages

File Size : 34,14 MB

Release : 2013-01-15

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1612512828

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Book Description

During the 1920s Herbert O. Yardley was chief of the first peacetime cryptanalytic organization in the United States, the ancestor of today's National Security Agency. Funded by the U.S. Army and the Department of State and working out of New York, his small and highly secret unit succeeded in breaking the diplomatic codes of several nations, including Japan. The decrypts played a critical role in U.S. diplomacy. Despite its extraordinary successes, the Black Chamber, as it came to known, was disbanded in 1929. President Hoover's new Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson refused to continue its funding with the now-famous comment, "Gentlemen do not read other people's mail." In 1931 a disappointed Yardley caused a sensation when he published this book and revealed to the world exactly what his agency had done with the secret and illegal cooperation of nearly the entire American cable industry. These revelations and Yardley's right to publish them set into motion a conflict that continues to this day: the right to freedom of expression versus national security. In addition to offering an exposé on post-World War I cryptology, the book is filled with exciting stories and personalities.



For the Blind Man in the Dark Room Looking for the Black Cat that Isn't There

Author : Anthony Huberman

Publisher : Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis

Page : 176 pages

File Size : 32,53 MB

Release : 2009

Category : Art

ISBN :

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Book Description

The KGB grooms a charming young American to run for president Although in the mid-1940s no one had ever heard of JFK, Jack Adams's mother insisted her new son be christened John Fitzgerald. Years after his parents' death, Jack learns the reason for his name: a packet of photos showing his mother in bed with young John Kennedy. As a student at Columbia University, Jack demonstrates that he inherited more than JFK's good looks. His irresistible charisma and political instinct make him a natural campus leader, but he has his sights set on something bigger than the student council. Young Jack Adams wants to be president of the United States, and the Soviet Union is prepared to help. A KGB spy named Dmitri recruits Jack, promising him the presidency in exchange for treason. Dmitri guides Jack for decades, putting him in a position to become the largest intelligence coup in history--unless the candidate's libido derails him first.





Inside the Black Room

Author : Jack A. Vernon

Publisher :

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 13,88 MB

Release : 2023-06-08

Category : Sensory deprivation

ISBN : 9781958425800

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Book Description

In the 1950s, a new word 'brainwashing' entered the English language. Although its meaning was ambiguous and continued to evolve, it captured both concerns about the uses of psychology in warfare and the imagination of the general public through popular cinema (popular example would be The Manchurian Candidate in 1962) through the years as to how possible it really was to "brainwash" an individual. For many experts, the Cold War brainwashing scare offered an opportunity to engage the public with contemporary psychological theory and research. Originally published in 1963, Inside the Black Room covers a series of experiments specifically dealing with sensory deprivation and its effect on the human subjects involved in the studies. The goal of these studies was to provide practical information on the effects of long-term sensory deprivation on the human condition. At that time at the beginning of the 'space race' it was unknown what impact space travel and long period of solitary confinement would have on the human psyche. A fascinating study that shows through unique experiments how malleable the human psyche is and effect methods like sensory deprivation can have on manipulating that psyche.



The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

Author : Otto Penzler

Publisher : Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Page : 962 pages

File Size : 13,66 MB

Release : 2014-10-28

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 0307743969

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Book Description

The Most Complete Collection of Impossible Crime Stories Ever Assembled, with puzzling mysteries by Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Lawrence Block, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. G. Wodehouse, Erle Stanley Gardner, and many, many more THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES: An empty desert, a lonely ski slope, a gentleman’s study, an elevator car—nowhere is a crime completely impossible. Edgar Award–winning editor Otto Penzler has collected sixty-eight of the all-time best impossible-crime stories from almost two hundred years of the genre. In addition to the many classic examples of the form—a case of murder in a locked room or otherwise inaccessible place, solved by a brilliant sleuth—this collection expands the definition of the locked room to include tales of unbelievable thefts and incredible disappearances. Among these pages you’ll find stories with evocative titles like “The Flying Death”, “The Man From Nowhere”, “A Terribly Strange Bed”, and “The Theft of the Bermuda Penny”, not to mention appearances by some of the cleverest characters in all of crime, including Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op, and many more. Featuring • Unconventional means of murder • Pilfered jewels • Shocking solutions Includes • Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, the first detective story and the first locked-room mystery • Masters of the short story form: Edward D. Hoch, Ellery Queen, Carter Dickson, and Stanley Ellin A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL



The Ballad of Black Tom

Author : Victor LaValle

Publisher : Tordotcom

Page : 153 pages

File Size : 20,47 MB

Release : 2016-02-16

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 0765386615

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Book Description

One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping. A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break? "LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do." — Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All "[LaValle] reinvents outmoded literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction." — Praise for The Devil in Silver from Elizabeth Hand, author of Radiant Days “LaValle cleverly subverts Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos by imbuing a black man with the power to summon the Old Ones, and creates genuine chills with his evocation of the monstrous Sleeping King, an echo of Lovecraft’s Dagon... [The Ballad of Black Tom] has a satisfying slingshot ending.” – Elizabeth Hand for Fantasy & ScienceFiction At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.



The Dark Room

Author : Minette Walters

Publisher : Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Page : 451 pages

File Size : 11,3 MB

Release : 2009-03-12

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 030749473X

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Book Description

In this acclaimed psychological mystery, Jinx Kingsley, a prominent photographer and millionaire’s daughter, wakes up in an exclusive hospital suffering from amnesia. Not only can she not remember the car accident that caused her memory loss, but she doesn’t remember that her impending wedding has been called off or that her former fiancé and his girlfriend have been brutally murdered in the same way her first husband had been ten years before. Now she must try to piece together her memories in order to determine her innocence. With deft psychological explorations and shocking twists, Walters brings the story to an awe-inspiring conclusion.