Bøger af Thomas Goodrich

Rage & Revenge is a terrifying, up-close and personal look at what war and its aftermath are really like. For too long, the true nature of combat and the "peace" that follows has been concealed from the general public. Most who have never witnessed war naively assume that there are rules and laws governing such contests. As the reader of Rage & Revenge will quickly discover, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, all war is wild, chaotic, brutal, and primitive. War is also the refuge where some of the most sick and sadistic among us may live out their darkest fantasies. In an fast-paced, no-nonsense writing style, author Thomas Goodrich offers the reader a riveting glimpse at the true face of war in all its ugly reality . . . and in all its ugly fascination.

It was the most deadly and destructive war in human history. Millions were killed, billions in property was destroyed, ancient cultures were reduced to rubble--World War II was truly man's greatest cataclysm. Thousands of books, movies and documentary films have been devoted to the war. There has never been such a terrible retelling of the story, however, as one will find in Hellstorm. In a chilling "you-are-there" style, the author places the reader at the scene, in the moment. Throughout this book readers will see what Allied airman saw as they rained down death on German cities; or the reader will experience what those below experienced as they sat trembling in their bomb shelters awaiting that very same death from above. The reader will view up close the horrors of the Eastern Front during the last months of fighting and through the mud, blood and madness of combat they may come to understand how the same German soldiers, who only moments before had destroyed an enemy tank, could now risk their own lives to rescue the trapped Soviet crew inside. Readers will witness for themselves the fate of German women as the rampaging Red Army raped and murdered its way across Europe--all females, from "eight to eighty" feared the dreaded words, "Frau Komm." The worst nautical disasters in history which claimed thousands of lives, the greatest mass migration known to man in which millions perished, the fate of those wretched victims in post-war death camps and torture chambers, these and many other dark secrets of World War II now come to light in Hellstorm.

"We Americans have the dangerous tendency in our international thinking to take a holier-than-thou attitude toward other nations. We consider ourselves to be more noble and decent than other peoples, and consequently in a better position to decide what is right and wrong in the world. What kind of war do civilians suppose we fought, anyway? We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off the enemy wounded, tossed the dying into a hole with the dead, and in the Pacific boiled the flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers.... [W]e mutilated the bodies of enemy dead, cutting off their ears and kicking out their gold teeth for souvenirs, and buried them with their testicles in their mouths.... We topped off our saturation bombing and burning of enemy civilians by dropping atomic bombs on two nearly defenseless cities, thereby setting an all-time record for instantaneous mass slaughter. As victors we are privileged to try our defeated opponents for their crimes against humanity; but we should be realistic enough to appreciate that if we were on trial for breaking international laws, we should be found guilty on a dozen counts. We fought a dishonorable war, because morality had a low priority in battle. The tougher the fighting, the less room for decency, and in Pacific contests we saw mankind reach the blackest depths of bestiality." ---- Edgar Jones, WWII Veteran

Denise Amber Lee was an anomaly. Married at 18, a mother at 19, a settled-in housewife at 20. At a time and in a place where many Florida females her age were into tattoos, drinking and spring breaks, Denise had invested in her husband, her children, her home. The pride of her father, Sergeant Rick Goff of the local sheriff's department, Denise was the daughter, wife and mother we all dream of: Thoughtful, intelligent, kind, caring. Then one afternoon in 2008 a 36-year-old stranger walked through Denise's door and everything ended. There was no warning, no hint, no clue; it was, very simply, a random act of evil. . . . Denise did everything right. She fought valiantly. She never once gave up. She did everything humanly possible to save herself. . . . But an ill wind was blowing over Toledo Blade that fateful day and a perfect storm of mistakes conspired against the young woman. What followed would shock a nation.

From the harrowing fate of pioneer women captured by Indians on the plains of America to World War Two in Europe and the greatest mass rape in human history . . . from the wholesale sexual assault on Japanese women and children by Allied occupation troops to the tragic story of a young wife and mother snatched from her Florida home in broad daylight, then raped, murdered and buried like garbage . . . as the title suggests, Rape Hate is an up-close and personal look at the scourge of modern times. From one of America's foremost writers, this book offers a rare "you-are-there" view of hate and lust and how, when combined, these two emotions often lead to murderous sexual violence both during and after war. Like the vicious crime it describes, Rape Hate is a riveting account of shocking violence, written in a brutally honest and unflinching fashion.

As the North celebrated the end of the Civil War, the people of the South, particularly of recently fallen Richmond, mourned. The South was about to enter a period of extreme turmoil reconstruction. The Union, though preserved, would not easily be healed. Starting with Lincolns assassination and continuing up through the harsh realities of occupation through the summer of 1866, authors Thomas and Debra Goodrich trace the history of reconstruction in the south-the death, destruction, crime, starvation, exile, and anarchy that pervaded those grim years.

Some of the most savage war in world history was waged on the American Plains from 1865 to 1879. As settlers moved west following the Civil War, they found powerful Indian tribes barring the way. When the U.S. Army intervened, a bloody and prolonged conflict ensued.

In 1854 a shooting war developed between pro-slavery men from Missouri and free-staters in Kansas over control of the territory. The prize was whether Kansas would become a slave or a free state when admitted to the Union. This title gives an account of a bloody episode in America's past.

On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led 400 Confederate irregulars to a rise on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas. For two years, the 3,000 inhabitants of this prosperous frontier community had managed to escape the Civil War which raged in the East. At Quantrill's command, the horrors of that war were brought directly into their homes. The attack began at dawn. When it was over, more than 150 townsmen were dead and most of the settlement burned to the ground. In Bloody Dawn, Thomas Goodrich considers why this remote settlement was signaled out to receive such brutal treatment. He also describes the retribution that soon followed, which in many ways surpassed the significance of the Lawrence Massacre itself. The story that unfolds reveals an event unlike anything our nation has experienced before or since.

From 1861 to 1865, the region along the Missouri-Kansas border was the scene of unbelievable death and destruction. This book presents a report of life in this merciless guerrilla war. It features bushwhackers and jayhawkers, soldiers and civilians, scouts, spies, runaway slaves, the generals and the guerrillas, who describe their ordeals.

The story of the Lincoln assassination and its aftermath, captured with you-are-there immediacy. It was one of the most tragic events in American history: The famous president, beloved by many, reviled by some, murdered while viewing a play at Ford's Theater in Washington. The frantic search for the perpetrators. The nation in mourning. The solemn funeral train. The conspirators brought to justice. Coming just days after the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln has become etched in the national consciousness like few other events. The president who had steered the nation through its bloodiest crisis was cut down before the end, just as it appeared that the bloodshed was over. The story has been told many times, but rarely with the immediacy of The Darkest Dawn. Thomas Goodrich brings to his narrative the care of the historian and the flair of the fiction writer. The result is a gripping account, filled with detail and as fresh as today's news. ';Among the hundreds of books published about the assassination of our 16th president, this is an exceptional volume.' Frank J. Williams, founding Chair of The Lincoln Forum