Latent Destinies examines the formation of postmodern sensibilities and their relationship to varieties of paranoia that have been seen as widespread in this century. Despite the fact that the Cold War has ended and the threat of nuclear annihilation has been dramatically lessened by most estimates, the paranoia that has characterized the period has not gone away. Indeed, it is as if—as O’Donnell suggests—this paranoia has been internalized, scattered, and reiterated at a multitud...

From the bestselling author of The Indispensables, the unknown and dramatic story of irregular guerrilla warfare that altered the course of the Civil War and inspired the origins of America’s modern special operations forces.The Civil War is most remembered for the grand battles that have come to define it: Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, among others. However, as bestselling author Patrick K. O’Donnell reveals in The Unvanquished, a vital shadow wa...

From bestselling author Patrick K. O'Donnell comes the untold story of World War II's first special operations combat swimmers—the forerunners of today's Navy SEALs.In the summer of 1942, an extraordinary group of men—among them a dentist, a medical student, a Hollywood star, an archaeologist, a British commando, and even former enemies of the Allies—formed an exceptional unit that would later become the US Navy's Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams. Known as the Maritime Unit, it comp...

"A generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken", was how F. Scott Fitzgerald defined his age. Perhaps nowhere in American fiction is this statement better exemplified than in Fitzgerald's first two volumes of short fiction: Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age. Penguin's new Jazz Age Stories gathers all of these early pieces in one volume, which together capture the shine and seductive sound of early American jazz, the scandalous affr...

What if a brachiosaurus needed braces? If a tyrannosaurus used toothpaste, would it squash the tube? A young child on the way to a dental checkup wonders if dinosaurs ever had cavities and if they had to brush their teeth, floss, get braces, and use fluoride or mouthwash. This whimsical picture book includes eleven common terms related to dental and oral health, along with a glossary of name pronunciations and fun, scientific facts about each of the eleven dinosaurs mentioned in the story....

On the way to a doctor checkup, a young child asks an important question: Do animals that live in really cold places ever get sick? From the same author as Did Dinosaurs Have Dentists?, this picture book uses Arctic and Antarctic creatures to lessen anxiety about the doctor. Can penguins catch pneumonia? Can a caribou get chicken pox? By introducing ailments through charmingly drawn animals, this humorous look at common childhood illnesses will ease the fears and worries many kids have abo...

Lively analysis of how Henry James's fiction anticipates later filmmakers' concerns with what we can see and what we can know.Perched as he was at the beginning of literary modernism and the evolution of film as a medium, Henry James addressed a cluster of epistemological and aesthetic issues related to the visualization of reality. In Knowing It When You See It, Patrick O'Donnell compares several late novels and stories by Henry James with a series of fil...

The true World War II story of a small team of American saboteurs with orders to sever the Third Reich's main supply artery—the Brenner Pass.Like a scene from Where Eagles Dare, a small team of American special operatives parachutes into Italy under the noses of thousands of German troops. Their orders: link up with local partisans in the mountains and sabotage the well-guarded Brenner Pass, the crucial route through the Alps for the Nazi war machine. With...

In August 1776, a little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a sudden and disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brooklyn, and it looked like there was no escape. But thanks to a series of desperate rear guard attacks by a single heroic regiment, famously known as the “Immortal 400,” Washington was able to evacuate his men, and the nas...

"A true-life companion to Quentin Tarantino's. . . . WWII movie Inglorious Basterds . . . Quick-paced and immediate, with many satisfying moments." — Publishers WeeklyAt the height of World War II, with the Third Reich's final solution in full operation, a small group of Jews who had barely escaped the Nazis did the unthinkable: They went back. Spies now, these men took on a dangerous mission be...

“If I were God, what would you want for Christmas?” With a thousand-yard stare, a haggard and bloodied marine looked incredulously at the war correspondent who asked him this question. In an answer that took “almost forever,” the marine responded, “Give me tomorrow.”After nearly four months of continuous and bloody combat in Korea, such a wish seemed impossible. For many of the men of George Company, or “Bloody George”—one of the Forgotten War’s most decorated yet unrecognized comp...

An epic story of valor and sacrifice by a legendary Marine company in the Korean War brought to gripping, cinematic light by an acclaimed historian ("Gives the brave Marines of George Company long overdue recognition"-- New York Post)"What would you want if you could have any wish?" asked the photojournalist of the haggard, bloodied Marine before him. The Marine gaped at his interviewer. The photographer snapped his picture, which became the iconic Korean W...