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In Who They Were, Dr. Robert C. Shaler, the man who directed the largest and most groundbreaking forensic DNA investigation in U.S. history, tells with poignant clarity and refreshing honesty the story behind the relentless effort to identify the 2,749 victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center. No part of the investigation into the 9/11 attacks has taken as long or been less discussed than the daunting task of identifying the victims -- and the hijackers -- from the remains in the rubble of Ground Zero. In Who They Were, Dr. Robert C. Shaler, former director of the Forensic Biology Department at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, tells the inside story of the relentless process of DNA identification and depicts the victories and frustrations that he and his team of scientists experienced during more than three years of grueling work. On September 11, 2001, New York City was unprepared for the mass-fatality event that occurred at the World Trade Center. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had to completely reconfigure itself to process and identify the nearly 20,000 remains that would eventually come through its doors. Facing an astonishing array of obstacles -- from political infighting and an overwhelming bureaucracy to the nearly insurmountable task of corralling personnel and supplies to handle the work -- Shaler and his team quickly established an unprecedented network of cooperation among public agencies and private labs doing cutting-edge research. More than a story of innovative science at the frontiers of human knowledge, Who They Were also tells the very human story of how Dr. Shaler and his staff forged important and lasting bonds with the families of those who were lost. He shares the agony of mistakes made in the chaos and unintended misidentifications resulting in the excruciating difficulty of having to retrieve remains from families of the lost. Finally, Dr. Shaler shares how he and the dedicated team of scientists who gave up more than three years of their lives when the rest of the world had moved on had to face the limits of science in dealing with the appalling level of destruction at Ground Zero and concede that no more victims would be sent home to their families. As of April 2005, when the process was suspended, only 1,592 out of the 2,749 who died on that fateful day had been identified. With compelling prose and insight, Who They Were reveals the previously untold stories of the scientists determined to bring closure to devastated families in the wake of America's largest disaster.
The question of how to improve organizational effectiveness through better people management is always top of mind. This book challenges incorrect and oversimplified assumptions and much conventional management wisdom - delivering business commentary that helps business leaders make smarter decisions.
National Book Award Finalist: Never before has the mentality of the average German under the Nazi regime been made as intelligible to the outsider.” —The New York TImes They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Milton Mayer’s book is a study of ten Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany. Mayer had a position as a research professor at the University of Frankfurt and lived in a nearby small Hessian town which he disguised with the name “Kronenberg.” These ten men were not men of distinction, according to Mayer, but they had been members of the Nazi Party; Mayer wanted to discover what had made them Nazis. His discussions with them of Nazism, the rise of the Reich, and mass complicity with evil became the backbone of this book, an indictment of the ordinary German that is all the more powerful for its refusal to let the rest of us pretend that our moment, our society, our country are fundamentally immune. A new foreword to this edition by eminent historian of the Reich Richard J. Evans puts the book in historical and contemporary context. We live in an age of fervid politics and hyperbolic rhetoric. They Thought They Were Free cuts through that, revealing instead the slow, quiet accretions of change, complicity, and abdication of moral authority that quietly mark the rise of evil.
Not all of them set out to change the world, but some of them managed to do just that. Not even legendary announcer Ernie Harwell knew the intrigue that led to his brutal and disastrous dismissal--the full story is presented here for the first time. How did the coolest-of-cool novelist Elmore "Dutch" Leonard find his voice and create those just-off-center bad guys and capture that street-smart dialogue? Haney takes readers inside the minds of these and more than a dozen other notable Michigan figures, people like Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the zealot who elevated the issue of assisted suicide. And Academy Award-winning Sue Marx, automotive genius Ed Cole, the three visionary men who built the Palace and the championship Pistons, and many more men and women who made a difference. Haney reveals the motivations and the passions of people--some prominent, some scarcely known--who made decisions and took actions that had impacts that reverberated far beyond the borders of the state.
A reporter’s firsthand, close-up-and-personal look at the impact of our recent wars on America’s unlucky soldiers.
An award-winning historian on the transformative year in the sixties that continues to reverberate in our lives and politics—for readers of Heather Cox Richardson. If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964—or rather, the long 1964, from JFK’s assassination in November 1963 to mid-1965—was the time when the sixties truly arrived. It was then that the United States began a radical shift toward a much more inclusive definition of “American,” with a greater degree of equality and a government actively involved in social and economic improvement. It was a radical shift accompanied by a cultural revolution. The same month Bob Dylan released his iconic ballad “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty. Spurred by the civil rights movement and a generation pushing for change, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act were passed during this period. This was a time of competing definitions of freedom. Freedom from racism, freedom from poverty. White youth sought freedoms they associated with black culture, captured imperfectly in the phrase “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.” Along with freedom from racist oppression, black Americans sought the opportunities associated with the white middle class: “white freedom.” Women challenged rigid gender roles. And in response to these freedoms, the changing mores, and youth culture, the contrary impulse found political expression in such figures as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, proponents of what was presented as freedom from government interference. Meanwhile, a nonevent in the Tonkin Gulf would accelerate the nation's plunge into the Vietnam tragedy. In narrating 1964’s moment of reckoning, when American identity began to be reimagined, McElvaine ties those past battles to their legacy today. Throughout, he captures the changing consciousness of the period through its vibrant music, film, literature, and personalities.
Hitler’s attempt to murder all of Europe’s Jews almost succeeded. One reason it fell short of its nefarious goal was the work of brave non-Jews who sheltered their fellow citizens. In most countries under German control, those who rescued Jews risked imprisonment and death. In Poland, home to more Jews than any other country at the start of World War II and location of six German-built death camps, the punishment was immediate execution. This book tells the stories of Polish Holocaust survivors and their rescuers. The authors traveled extensively in the United States and Poland to interview some of the few remaining participants before their generation is gone. Tammeus and Cukierkorn unfold many stories that have never before been made public: gripping narratives of Jews who survived against all odds and courageous non-Jews who risked their own lives to provide shelter. These are harrowing accounts of survival and bravery. Maria Devinki lived for more than two years under the floors of barns. Felix Zandman sought refuge from Anna Puchalska for a night, but she pledged to hide him for the whole war if necessary—and eventually hid several Jews for seventeen months in a pit dug beneath her house. And when teenage brothers Zygie and Sol Allweiss hid behind hay bales in the Dudzik family’s barn one day when the Germans came, they were alarmed to learn the soldiers weren’t there searching for Jews, but to seize hay. But Zofia Dudzik successfully distracted them, and she and her husband insisted the boys stay despite the danger to their own family. Through some twenty stories like these, Tammeus and Cukierkorn show that even in an atmosphere of unimaginable malevolence, individuals can decide to act in civilized ways. Some rescuers had antisemitic feelings but acted because they knew and liked individual Jews. In many cases, the rescuers were simply helping friends or business associates. The accounts include the perspectives of men and women, city and rural residents, clergy and laypersons—even children who witnessed their parents’ efforts. These stories show that assistance from non-Jews was crucial, but also that Jews needed ingenuity, sometimes money, and most often what some survivors called simple good luck. Sixty years later, they invite each of us to ask what we might do today if we were at risk—or were asked to risk our lives to save others.
The author describes his time as chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, which investigated police corruption in New York City.