Central Kansas Library System

By 1966 the steam locomotive was entering its death throes: withdrawals were being carried out at a frenetic pace, with the slightest defect sending engines straight to the cutter's torch. In an attempt to capture the British steam scene before it was no more, teenage enthusiast Keith Widdowson made it his mission to travel the length and breadth of the country to obtain runs behind as many locomotives as possible. Armed with a Southern Region season...

Honour is a dying virtue. Here we look at what honour means. Not all warrior and conquerors were honourable but many unexpected people were. It traces the concept of honour, looks at some people who fought and died or lived for their beliefs and some who risked all but did not fight physically for them. It also looks at three very noble and honourable people a queen, a King and a warrior from three different countries in Europe over different time...

Get the Summary of Jim Sciutto's The Return of Great Powers in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "The Return of Great Powers" delves into the geopolitical tensions and military strategies of the early 21st century, focusing on the resurgence of Russia and China as formidable global actors challenging the post-Cold War international order. The book provides an in-depth analysis of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,...

Scurvy took a terrible toll in the Age of Sail, killing more sailors than were lost in all sea battles combined. The threat of the disease kept ships close to home and doomed those vessels that ventured too far from port. The willful ignorance of the royal medical elite, who endorsed ludicrous medical theories based on speculative research while ignoring the life-saving properties of citrus fruit, cost tens of thousands of lives and altered the course...

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave. In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife,...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. "War, what is it good for?" The Vietnam War: History in an Hour gives a gripping account of the most important Cold War-era conflict, fought between the United States and the Viet Cong, the Vietnam People's Army and their Communist allies. It was one of the most traumatic military conflicts America has ever been involved in - and provoked a backlash of anti-war protests at home. Here are the key...

This is not a book about archaeological sites. We shall come across flint tools, bones, skulls, surprising structures, and layers of earth that we can date to different periods-but they are not the heart of the matter. This book is about us, human beings, and about our place in the world. About what we have done, where we came from, which other humans used to be here, why they are no longer with us, and how and why our lives have changed. It's also...

Epic poetry and tragic drama provide us with some of the richest ancient Greek depictions of women who are married to soldiers. In tales of the Trojan War, as told by Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, we encounter these mythical warriors' wives: Penelope, isolated but resourceful as she awaits the return of Odysseus after his lengthy absence; the war widow Andromache, enslaved and displaced from her homeland after the fall of Troy; the unfaithful...

By the late 1880s, the buffalo that once numbered in the tens of millions have been reduced to fewer than 1,000 and teeter on the brink of extinction. But a diverse and unlikely collection of Americans have started a few private herds in different locations--and for different reasons. In the early 1900s, their efforts grow into a movement that rescues the national mammal from disappearing forever.

A groundbreaking, sweeping overview of the great kingdoms in African history and their legacies, written by world-leading experts. This is the first book for nonspecialists to explore the great precolonial kingdoms of Africa that have been marginalized throughout history. Great Kingdoms of Africa aims to decenter European colonialism and slavery as the major themes of African history and instead explore the kingdoms, dynasties, and city-states that...