Archive for the ‘war books’ Category

I am 14 years old and in the 8th grade. We have to get points for Acelrated reader by
reading books and I don’t really like reading unless it’s about war. So does anybody know a good war book that is an AR book? You can found out if they are an AR book on arbookfind.com

The two greatest war books I have ever read are both AR books, and are even non-fiction, although they are so mesmerizing that they might as well be a fiction story.

The first is Flags of Our Fathers, by James Bradley. Its about the five men who rose a symbolic flag on Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theatre of WWII. Very graphic and entirely heroic, I’ve read it many a times and still can’t believe it.

The second is Band of Brothers, by Stephen E. Ambrose. Easy Company, the 506th Airborne Division. A group of soldiers that depend on each other make their way through war-torn Europe, filled with action and characters like never before seen in any non-fiction book.

The two above will surely catch your interest, although they both start off quite slow. And I warn you, the books are graphic, as well as true. That said, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Happy reading

I am looking for a really well written novel that has medieval battles for research for a book I am preparing to write. Does any one have any good books or other material that would be useful?
It will be a fiction book and I do not really need history of REAL battles, I just need some one that has a well written type of battle that I am able to learn how they did it.

Georgette Heyer has some good medieval novels like The Conqueror and Simon the Cold Heart. Both have some battles and war.

You might also read Beowulf.

I do have a book called The Crusades: The Flame of Islam by Harold Lamb. You might consider some other non-fiction books that talk about various battles and/or people. Some writers make them read like fiction. Here are some titles I’ve found that get high customer ratings (and might be helpful): Condottiere 1300-1500: Infamous Medieval Mercenaries by David Murphy; Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England by Juliet Barker; The Battle of Hastings by Jim Bradbury or Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England by Justin Pollard.

The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology by Kevin Crossley-Holland is a book that might interest you. It’s not particularly concerning war, but it’s translations of actual medieval tales/poems. It might give you more insight into the times.

Addition: There are some contemporary romance writers who have stories set in medieval times and incorporate war and warriors. You may be interested in…
-Dark Champion by Jo Beverley
-The Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick
-Chandra; Firesong; Earthsong and Secret Song by Catherine Coulter
-Lord of Hawkfell Island; Lord of Raven’s Peak and Lord of Falcon Ridge by Catherine Coulter
-Rosehaven by Catherine Coulter
-The Black Lyon by Jude Deveraux
-The Conquest by Jude Deveraux
-The Velvet Series by Jude Deveraux (The Velvet Promise; Highland Velvet; Velvet Song and Velvet Angel)
-Elizabeth Lowell has a series that includes Untamed; Forbidden and Enchanted.
-Ellis Peters has a series of Brother Cadfael mysteries set in the Middle Ages like A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury A Morbid Taste for Bones.
-Jean Plaidy (also Victoria Holt) wrote some historical fiction set in the Middle Ages like Lilith and a series about King Henry VIII’s wives.
-Uncommon Vows by Mary Jo Putney
Both Johanna Lindsey and Julie Garwood have some titles, too. Of course, there’s William Shakespeare’s plays like Hamlet; Henry IV; King Henry the Fifth; King Lear; MacBeth.
Mary Stewart has a series set around Merlin and Arthur and that time: The Crystal Cave; The Hollow Hills; The Last Enchantment; The Wicked Day.
Shelly Thacker has a Medieval/Time Travel series..Falcon on the Wind; Forever His; His Forbidden Touch.

I just finished the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and was wondering if anyone can recommend some books like those or a novel or history/non-fiction book about the War of the Titans.
Also if you know any good novel books on Perseus or Hercules or any other famous demigods that would be great.

Thanks.

Troy by Adèle Geras
Ithaka by Adèle Geras
Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B Cooney
Inside the Walls of Troy: A Novel of the Women Who Lived the Trojan War by Clemence McLaren
Quicksilver by Stephanie Spinner
Quiver by Stephanie Spinner
The Shadow Thieves (Cronus Chronicles) by Anne Ursu
The Siren Song (Cronus Chronicles) by Anne Ursu
The Immortal Fire (Cronus Chronicles) by Neil Swaab
Lost in the Labyrinth by Patrice Kindl
The Thieves of Ostia (The Roman Mysteries) by Caroline Lawrence (entire series of books)
Gods of Manhattan by Scott Mebus
Iris, Messenger by Sarah Deming
Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs (series)
Pandora Gets Jealous by Carolyn Hennesy

What are some books about civil war in Africa, like in the movie Blood Diamond?Very violent, realistic books.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle

According to many bloggers feeding off a London Daily Mail survey, 25% of Britons believe that Winston Churchill did not really exist. According to the report, ‘Likewise, they think historical figures such as Florence Nightingale, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mahatma Gandhi and Cleopatra were also fictional personalities created for literature or films. On the other hand, they believe Sherlock Holmes was a real person.’

But don’t worry these publicly educated geniuses have plenty of time to watch reality TV, listen to Oprah, or dance to Britney. After all it is all about them, and their self-esteem. Who cares about Churchill if from grade 3 to grade 12 your big obsessions are pulling condoms over cucumbers, learning that queer marriage is good, hating capitalism, endlessly viewing L. Ron Gore’s end of the world idiocy called Globaloney Warming, or learning Arabic and how to cook. Who the hell has time for math, science, Churchill or reality? [see 1 in 4 Brits think Churchill is made up]

Reality in state education is optional. The state exists to desensitise little minds from reality and brainwash little minds. It does not exist to educate. It is not important to learn about real facts, history, rational science or critical thinking. Nope.

It is more important to piss and moan about why you are not happy; why Mother Earth has a fever; and what to do about Gays and polar bears; than to actually understand the modern world, or the reality of the five senses. Why bother with reality in public schools, if the world owes you a living, and MUST, absolutely MUST guarantee your happiness. Oprah is far more relevant in such a little world, than someone like that white war-mongering fascist Winston Churchill.

Did Churchill ever make you happy? Did Winnie make you feel good? Did Winnie understand who you are and your inner struggles to break free of reality’s bondage? Did dear old Winnie commiserate with you and hold your hand while you cried that you were not happy and your self-esteem was not fully developed by age 12 yet? What did Winnie ever do to make you happy eh?

Nothing. Saving the Western world and lifting the scourge of Nazi fascism from Europe is not that relevant or important. Let’s face it the Nazis were doomed anyways and Winnie and his friends were making money off the military-industrial complex and wanted war to fatten their wallets and profits. World War II was a Jew-inspired, Churchill led scam. Get over it.

More importantly where was Winnie on happiness and self-esteem? Did he care? Did he cry over things like Mother Earth, polar bears and ‘native’ Indian rights? Well if he did not, then why bother with Winnie ? And while we are at it, why bother with those other white, fascist, racist, war-mongering, sometimes pro-Jew white British males who claimed they invented the modern world. Those lying white bastards. Who do they think they are? Jackasses one and all of them.

What did the Brits invent anyways? Limited goverment, constitutional division of powers, parliamentary procedure, modern capitalism, scientific rationality, inventions ranging from electromagnetics to railways, to canal locks, to bicycles, to refrigeration, to modern steam engines, to Newtonian physics, to Elizabethan drama, to central banking and extended global trade and commerce?

Piffle. These are not important items. These are only the tools of the crass fascist-white imperialist, racist inspired race of liars and murderers. They are the weapons used by whites to enslave, rape and steal. We all know the modern world and the 2000 year-old Western civilisational story, going back to the days of ancient Jerusalem, Athens and Rome is a crock of steaming bull dung. The Moslems, Chinese and Arabs invented and created everything. It was the whites who retarded human progress. If only we could go back to the pagan days of ‘native’ Indian innocence and natural harmony. Ah, mother earth would be so pleased.

Is it so surprising that in a state run educational ghetto that Churchill is thought by many to be mythical? Of course not. Government workers, called teachers, showing ignorance and being incompetent. Well that is a surprise now. Absolutley shocking darling.

Who cares about Churchill that white racist bastard. So many other things to care about. Let’s see. In place of Western history and British history we can read about Marxian dialectics and why communalism is a superior form of societal organisation. We must re-read for the 4th time, John Reed’s hagiography to Bolshevism, ‘10 days Which shook the world.’ Those Bolshies were bold chaps. Howard Zinn’s socialist history of America is far more interesting than Wellington, Nelson, Clive, or Hastings old boy. You know the standard book which hates the US founding fathers for instance, but spends page after page dealing with Black and Marxist history. Now that is real history.

Brits don’t know who Churchill is? Why would they? He is out of the standard curricula, replaced by Urdu, Arabic, learning how to cook, and Globaloney Warming. This was announced this past summer by Gordon Brown, former marxist, now Prime Minister. In 25 years maybe 1 in 25 Brits will know who Churchill is and they will all be above the age of 70 and reading books by Churchill in secret underground caves, by candlelight trembling with fear, hoping to escape the thought police. ‘You there put down that book by Churchill….put your arms in the air….recant…..say slowly, I love Mother Earth, I love Mother Earth…..’

Off to the re-education camp with you.

I doubt if any Brit – ANY – out of a public school system could identify:
-Bacon [both of them]
-Watt’s invention
-Harvey’s invention
-James Maxwell
-the point of Shakespeare’s Henry V
-the inventors of the railroad or the canal
-the inventor of the river lock, the bicycle, or refrigeration
-the consolidator of India
-or the creater of De Beers

Reality is optional in public schools.

Churchill? Who cares, he was a war mongering white bastard imperialist. What did he ever do for my self-esteem? What did Western civilisation and the modern world do for MY happiness?

C. Read
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/churchill-is-a-myth-so-say-1-in-4-brits-697580.html

I have many photos of the war at pearl harbor, US battleships, etc.. I also have books from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. I am looking for someone interested in these types of collectables.

You can find hundreds of people on eBay who are interested in war memorabilia and antique books.

O Believers!

The new Messiah. His divinity is all about change, hoping for change and changing for the hope – not to mention coolness and hype. So what is the second coming of Jesus doing ? In the name of progressive change the divine one has reappointed 28 former Clinton advisers to his ’shadow government’, named Tim Geithner an insider from the New York Central Bank and someone who is partially responsible for the current economic mess as Treasury Secretary [bad choice]; and now his holiness has announced that HE and HIS government [not markets you understand], will create 2.5 million jobs. Right out of thin air! Or maybe just by adding holy water ? Note to the Messianic genius – governments cannot create anything. Maybe his divinity can read the history of the 1930s and the failure of the New Deal to re-educate his Harvard trained mind before he wipes out the US economy ‘creating’ 2.5 million eco-jobs with welfare money.

O Believers!

The great one, the new prophet and savior of mankind, truly believes that HE [with divine approval?] will save the US economy and ‘manufacture’ jobs. Listen to what his Harvard trained eminence, with the ancient prophets smiling from above no doubt, had to say about HE and HIS team’s plan to solving the government created economic crisis: “..this plan is big enough to meet the challenges we face. … We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy.”

O Believers!

Blessed be the prophet Obama. The new messiah’s plan in his own words [are they divine?], “will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011.” Saving, creating, – a national effort ! personal and communal meaning ! Maybe we can call this the new ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ or the O’Messiah’s state-individual community agreement ? His divine being has proclaimed that the US will be engaged in a 2 year national socialist effort at inventing jobs – how communal, patriotic and heart warming. Tears well up in sundry eyes, as hearts throb to the messianic beat. But there is a slight problem for the holy messiah and the true believers – governments don’t create jobs.

O Believers!

But the kool-aid drinking media and the frenzied and brainwashed [but they hate Christians remember] O’Messiah cult, too busy to read, to get educated, and too disdainful of human skill and ingenuity, will wildly applaud and believe the Black Jesus and his commandments that ‘we shall create and save 2.5 million jobs!’ That would be the 11th commandment along with the other 10 that no one in today’s highly educated world can name. Markets will no doubt rise, female media correspondents faint, and Oprah and friends, along with the racist Trinity Church in Chicago will scream and dance.

O Believers!

The only problem is that government does not create anything. Government does not have independent revenue sources. Government does not have private capital. Government does not create private markets, private contracts, supply and demand and price points. Government does not expand anything other than state power which crowds out and destroys private capital. By destroying private markets in ‘creating’ welfare programs all a government will do is increase debt and actually increase real unemployment over a longer period of time.

Apparently basic economic knowledge is not a requirement to be President or a messiah.

O Believers!

The O’Messiah is simply imitating the failed policies of FDR in the 1930s – one of the great statists and socialists of all time and much beloved by students, professors, and the media. FDR’s statist deal apparently ‘created’ 5 million jobs in the US during the 1930s. Roads, bridges, stadia, public gardens and parks were all ‘created’ by FDR’s autocratic government. However in 1939 25-35 million men were still unemployed – the same number as in 1932. So over a 7 year period nothing changed. FDR did not create jobs, he did not stimulate the economy. In fact he raised taxes, increased government spending by 3 times, increased the Federal debt by 10 times, and after 7 years of hyper-active government interventionism the result was the same – mass unemployment.

Henry Morgenthau was Treasury Secretary during this period and was the man responsible for writing the cheques. In 1939 he admitted the entire New Deal program was a colossal failure: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And enormous debt to boot.”

You will never see such quotes or facts in history books, classrooms or in the media. FDR like the O’Messiah is a saint like figure. FDR ’saved’ America during the Great Depression. Actually no, he and his policies and that of the preceding Hoover administration caused the Great Depression. The dirty thirties were a government creation not a market failure. High taxes, protectionism, reduced credit, massive regulation and an orgy of spending and governmental interference created and deepened the Depression. Far from saving anything, FDR actually destroyed not only millions of jobs, but millions of ordinary lives.

O Believers!

And for that FDR is a hero.

Now fast forward the new O’Messiah. HE and HIS government, like FDR’s, will create or save 2.5 million jobs. This is rather disappointing since the great socialist FDR created or saved at least 5 million. One would expect more from a divine being. But no matter. Like FDR the Black Jesus will create public works programs targeted at ‘infrastructure’ since according to his holiness only public money can ’save’ the US’ decrepit infrastructural system. However we have the added bonus of hundreds if not thousands of Greenie programs which will be added. Apparently since the state is the only actor which can build a road, it must de facto be the only actor who can love and nurture Mother Earth. So not only will the adoring and publicly paid legions of O’Messiah supporters be busy repairing roads, bridges and sewers, they will also be engaged in trimming bushes, planting flowers, hugging trees, and tenderly cleaning up rivers and streams. We should expect that the welfare created armies of the new Messiah, during the GlobaloneyWarmed summer months of massive climate change will be dancing naked and gaily in the pristine forests and meadows that they have ’saved’.

Not only will his holiness ’save and create 2.5 million jobs’, he will also save Mother Earth!

O Believers!

It is enough to make one drop to his knees, crying and driveling snot and thanking the divine presence for his prescience and massive intelligence in saving us from ourselves! Blessed be the new Jesus !

So let’s see. The Black Jesus will hire 2.5 million good little statists. He will pay them by either raising taxes on others, or by incurring more debt by selling debt instruments to largely foreign buyers [if any remain]; or he will simply print the money. So the 2.5 million ‘created’ jobs are not actually jobs per se but a massive welfare program paid by taxes, future obligations with interest, or through a devalued currency and hence a living standard reduction for all taxpayers. Nice.

Would it be any different if his holiness asked every American to go outside and dig holes for 6 months ? He could then claim to have created 300 million jobs overnight and saved the US economy. He could repay the labor of digging holes, by granting every American a welfare cheque for this ‘work’. This payment would come from sur taxation or debt. Is increasing taxes and debt creating jobs? Does an economy flourish when incentives to produce product and make a profit are diminished? Does real GDP actually grow when you print money or sell debt and hand over the proceeds in welfare payments?

O Believers!

The O’Messiah’s plan is plainly stupid. It is FDR statism. New Deals have always failed. Nazi Germany contrary to popular myth was a bankrupt state in 1939 thanks to nationalist socialist engineering. War in 1939 was inevitable. The Russian empire imploded as ‘New Deals’ destroyed capital, jobs and even morality. Now we have the Black Jesus, whom the media chants is ‘gonna save us’ [so eloquent] proffering the same nonsense. HE will create or save 2.5 million jobs? No he won’t. Like FDR he will destroy millions of jobs and with it millions of lives. And like FDR being an elitist Ivy league snot he won’t care a whit and will use deception and lies to justify big government and the expansion of state power.

C. Read
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/the-black-jesus-and-the-old-new-deal-to-create-25-million-jobs-675184.html

We are better situated to begin this article with the pioneers of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo which I quite believe is vital to what we are set to achieve.

Ohanaeze Ndiigbo was formed immediately after the Nigerian-Biafran War which ended in 1970 by seven men of Igbo extraction, namely Chief K. O. Mbadiwe, Dr. Akanu Ibiam, Chief Dennis Osadebe (notice that Chief Osadebe was from Anioma because we shall revert to him at the last paragraph of this article) Chief Ugochukwu, Dr. Pius Okigbo, and two other notable Igbo men. These men with absolute beliefs in the unity of the Igbo greatly began and advanced the course of bringing together and reshaping the destiny of the Igbo people, with the aim of making them one nation with one destiny.

Ohanaeze shortly after foundation moved on as one nation without any evidence of discrimination, every Igbo speaking area was counted as part of Igbo land, I guess the war situation which the people were just getting relief from was a major catalyst for this, because every Igbo speaking area felt the evils of the war masterly and gruesomely imposed on them by the Nigerian government and its ravaging federal troop, but decades later, something went wrong with Ohanaeze psyche towards Igbo from other parts of the country, discriminations set in, Ohanaeze became an umbrella for discrimination, a tool for determining minority and majority Igbo.

That Ndiigbo has not actually benefited from Ohanaeze is one issue, because it has really never done what it ought to, and the discriminations of the socio-cultural group which in many ways sees certain of their Igbo kinsmen from States other than South Eastern part of the country as another issue, all of these have effected the agenda of the group, leaving the group incapable of making any meaningful achievements.

The name OHANAEZE NDIIGBO is something of a misnomer, which needs to be redressed to perhaps sound as OHA NDIIGBO. The later as it sounds or expresses completely excludes the people, giving us the impression that chiefs and traditional rulers are more of paramount interest in the affairs of Ohanaeze than the general Igbo men and women. This is where I tend to disagree with Hon Emmanuel Okocha in an interview he granted BiafraNigeria world titled “Face-2- Face: Ohanaeze on the Hot Seat-Part 1”, in what he tried to justify as the necessity of chiefs and traditional rulers who must preside over Ohanaeze sessions.

The Association has been misnamed to preclude the generality of the Igbo speaking areas of Nigeria. I urge the newly elected executive to make drastic changes in the Association which must start from the name of the organization down to membership. OHA NDIIGBO would have made better sense, because the socio-cultural organization should represent the general and equal interest of the entire Igbo speaking people of Nigeria within and outside the country, and must not be seen as placing special emphasis on chief and traditional rulers of Igboland.

The problem of Ohanaeze begins with the refusal of the teeming number of Igbo people to acknowledge that the organization is being confronted with several problems which the people as a whole must battle. Most times, it baffles me to hear our Igbo brothers in clear remarks state that the Igbo have no problems and that the problems of the Igbo are not different from that of Nigeria as a whole, but these are wide apart in describing the Igbo who before the Nigerian-Biafran civil War were in the forefront in all endeavours in the polity of Nigeria. In Nigeria of today, if the Anioma are counted among the Igbo, then I would agree with my self that no ethnic group has contributed more towards the development of Nigeria than the Igbo. But what does it profit a group if while working, others are benefiting? This is where the Ohanaeze question comes in.

Comrade Uchenna Madu, Director of Information, MASSOB has this to say about Ohanaeze:

“Who are the Ohanaeze people and what do they stand for? Do you mean those people that hold meetings of Ndiigbo and speak English language all the way? Is it the Ohanaeze that some of the leaders go to look for contract in Aso Rock? Is it the Ohanaeze that cannot have one voice and speak for Ndiigbo? When they hold meetings, some of them would go to Aso Rockto tell them all that happened? When the North are together fighting for the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Niger Delta are gaining political mileage and winning all the amenities for their people, our own Ohanaeze would keep mum and watch the emperors in Aso Rock infiltrate their ranks, create disunity and sentence servitudes”

Today, Uchenna is still in prison with no sentence handed down on him, and Ohanaeze has done nothing about it.

The problems militating against Ohanaeze is too numerous to mention here but I know that any socio-cultural organization of this magnitude should posses the wherewithal to direct its people and lead them to the promised land with the abundant human resources and materials within its reach. Series of infightings have derailed the organization and has been most unfriendly to the cause of Ohanaeze. The Ojukwus, Ekwuemes and Okadigbos left nothing but legacies of leadership struggles not being able to enthrone any meaningful impact that I can point out in my article. Infighting in Ohanaeze is as old as the organization, quite typical of our people.

In the era of Justice Eze Ozobu Ohanaeze climaxed into many Igbo Historians have describes as a period bewilderment, this era highly polarized the organization and left it playing into the hands of many powers that be in Abuja. Ohanaeze rocked, and crash became very imminent, only a thin line separated the organization from near collapse because emperors in Abuja had the leeway the interfere in the activities of the organization with conspiracy from the members of the organization who jostled and wanted to win contracts and appointments from the federal Government of Ngeria to the detriment of the Igbo

Ohanaeze is like PDP the self-acclaimed biggest political party in Africa that lacks clear cut agenda for the people, thus studying the Group with a view to providing it with the way forward becomes the most difficult assignment any student of History or Political Science would encounters. With numerous cases in our court which has reduced the dwarf height of the umbrella group, Ohanaeze is supposed to a pressure group but all we see is an irrelevant organization with leaders trying to be careful in other not to draw further court cases. It therefore follows that a group like this cannot deliver to the people because of constant sabotage it is bound to experience.

Another gigantic problem of Ohanaeze is the situation whereby the organization has refused to carry along Igbo from other parts of the nation other than the South East. This is why I sometimes wonder if Ohanaeze is aware that there are still Igbo in Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Benue States not to mention Delta and Rivers States because these peoples are not included in the mainstream of Igbo affairs in Ohanaeze since they live across the River Niger.

This has not readily provided excuses for Afenifere, the Yoruba Socio-cultural organization which has continued to carry along the Yoruba speaking people in Kwara State. A situation like this will never occur in Igboland, for reasons beyond my comprehension. When most of us deny our Igbo ancestry, we do so not because we do not have full understanding of our history and where our forefathers took off from but because we tend to be rejected by Ohanaeze.

This article will provide evidences to back this up for those who dispute this to see reasons why the Igbo must move ahead in the Nigerian polity. “Icheoku wonders aloud why the Delta Igbo speaking areas of Ogwashi-UKU, Onitcha-Ugbo, Onitcha-Olona etc should not be included in any Associations articulated for the Igboman” (Ohanaeze Ndiigbo of Nigeria, which way forward? November 11, 2008) For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to remind Ohanaeze that Arewa Consultative Forum ha amongst its membership ethnic groups that cut across the northern part of country such as Hausa, Fulani, Birom, Tiv, Junku, Igbira, Gwari, Bornu, Kataf, zuru, Zango, Idoma, and the organization has performed so effectively well that we view the various ethnic groups as one ethnic groups.

Most times we are tempted to refer to all of them as Hausa, forgetting that linguistically they lack the knowledge of one another. We have been told of how Orji Kalu and Pat Utomi both approached Ohanaeze to declare their presidential ambitions to the Igbo socio-cultural organization but rather than welcome the ambition of Pat Utomi as a credible Igbo man from Delta state, and see him as one of their own, Ohanaeze members began to ask themselves whether Utomi was actually a proper Igbo man who could carry on with Igbo ticket or not.

Does this not amount to a denial of his ancestry? Ohanaeze members would not sham ignorance of the knowledge of the ancestral background of Ibusa from where Utomi hails, knowing that the Ibusa are from Isu as claimed by the oral account of the people. What Ohanaeze members had done to Utomi is that for anyone to properly claim to be an Igbo man, he must posses the South East Identity card. Ohanaeze is like a Hen that cannot gather her chicks, or has the intent of gathering only the chicks hatched at a particular location. What Ohanaeze has done to Utomi is absolute rejection, and other ethnic nationalities are laughing at us.

Ohanaeze should tell us in clear terms what it considers the definition of an Igboness or who an Igbo man is. We are obviously tired of being Igbo men and women only on papers. Incidentally Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, an Anioma injdigene from Delta State has been elected the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo, and already, as expected knocks and rejections is currently trailing his emergence. I expected this anyway.

Those against his election as the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo are contending that the leadership of Ndiigbo shouldn’t have emerged from a minority section of Igbo which is Anioma in Delta State (Sunday Independent, December 14, 2008) It grieves me so much when I hear the Igbo reject the Anioma people of Delta state as Igbo people because the Anioma is a well endowed region which should not be pushed around by any ethnic group. Towns and communities of Anioma cut across covering even Onitsha Mili (in Anambra state) The Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who today is the pride of the Igbo, Nigerians and Africa is an Anioma man.

Does Ohanaeze know this? If the members of Ohanaeze claim not to know this, then they are being disingenuous. Nnamdi Azikiwe hails from an Anioma community of Onitsha founded by the same Prince who was responsible for founding Onicha-Ugbo, Onicha-Olona, Parts of Agbor (Ika), Issele Uku, Issele-Mkpitime etc but the River Niger has naturally separated them from the rest of Anioma well concluded by the loss of Ekumeku wars.

All I am saying is that the Anioma people have abundant human materials capable of moving them upward developmentally, and in an ideal social environment free from what I call “presidency fixing” Pat Utomi is capable of winning an election, he therefore needs no support of Ohanaeze since there are still many Igbo men and women who believe him as one of their own. If Ohanaeze Ndiigbo rejects us and denies us as proper Igbo Igbo people, then we cannot reject ourselves because he who is rejected cannot reject himself, it is an Igbo adage.

Still on Uwechue.

“They further contend that Uwechue’s election would snowball into the ultimate collapse of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo since the president is not from the core five states of the South Eastern zone” (See same source quoted above) It beats my imagine why Ohanaze would readily disclaim us, I mean the whole lot of Igbo outside the South East but when an issue is political or requires population statistics and figure Ohanaeze tend to claim ownership of our region from Agbor-Aboh-Ukwuani down to Asaba. It is terrible, as no group whether labeled subgroup or not will not freely to play a second fiddle role. While oral accounts, folklores, History books, wikipedia.org record the ancestry of Igbo as extending beyond the confines of the South East it is not the same politically from the understanding of Ohanaeze.

I expect Ohanaeze to pointedly tell us that we are no longer considered as Igbo and as result cannot be trusted with the sensitive leadership of the socio-cultural organization for fear of betrayal rather than refer to us as minority Igbo. We are aware that many so-called Igbo people who are enjoying the political dividends using influence of the ethnic group never fought to defend the cause of Biafra as did the Anioma people.

We know them, we know many of them, we also know the roles our people played, commanding in the forefront of Biafran battles, where people who today refer to themselves as “core Igbo’ failed when the battle was fierce. We saw and experienced it, the massacres which started in Asaba, spread to Ibusa, Ogwashi-Uku, Ishiagu, Igbodo, Aboh, Ushisha, and Ubulu Kingdom, it touched us, the Anioma people, we lost the finest of our youths and people. Is it not for this reason that Asaba is today denied of reasonable number of youths they were naturally entitled to?

In Ibusa, the federal forces who entered the town defecated right inside churches in the town. We know these things, they seemed to be over, but they still ring in us because one is not expected to forget where the rain started beating her, if she does she becomes a fool who cannot tell her history to her children. We were gradually losing everything, Anioma towns and communities through state creations that followed. Ogbemudia used the opportunity to carve out our Igbankiri, an Anioma town which he carefully situated in Edo state; Ogbemudia till today will not claim Igbanke to be his hometown.

This is an affront, because no matter how small a community is its future should not be toyed with. Igbanke can today pass for the least developed territory in Edo state courtesy of the wonderful job executed by Ogbemudia, the same Ogbemudia who has not offered the Igbankiri people anything to console them. History will remember us in everything we do.

They want to see us as “Anioma calamity” Our Igbo brother by describing us minority Igbo and treating us as same, are helping our enemies to sink us, even as they deepen our problems. It is absurd that Ohanaeze reason that fake Igbo exist among us. We have no fakeness in us, we have been reduced enough, sustaining the highest genocide in Africa and cannot be further reduced to nothing.

The world does not see it to be so because we have no voice to speak for us. Has the “core Igbo” forgotten so soon, all we have suffered, and just how the name “Murtala Mohammed” became the most dreaded names in Asaba, Ibusa and Ogwashi-Uku? What Ohanaeze has told us by denying us our ancestry is that the Presidency of the socio-cultural organization is for Igbo people, and we are not Igbo. Kwa ya? If the Igbo people forget too soon, we do not because we have a lot to tell our children, children. This is a clear indication that Ohanaeze will not achieve anything because in the first instance, the so-called “core Igbo” do not believe in the ancestry of Uwechue, their new leader. He is therefore an alien in leadership.

Nothing is so puzzling as understanding the Blackman, only recently an Obama, a complete Blackman whose father hails from Keya in East Africa won the presidential election of USA, and Africans from our continent celebrated, the same Africans that cannot allow similar event to take place in its continent jubilated, prophesized and hailed Americans. Well a notable Igbo man in the person of Dr Ikedife defers from the dissenting views of his Igbo counterparts.

His position is recorded below:

Dr. Ikedife, the outgoing President-General will not accept that.

 “You know there is an organization called Arewa Consultative Forum for the Hausa and Fulanis. The person who headed them last was Chief Sunday Awoniyi, a pure and simple Christian Yoruba. He is a fringe northerner but their head…” He goes on: “The issue of being a core Igbo man man does not arise. There is no quarter Igbo or fractional Igbo. There are no fringe Igbo… They (Anioma people) are our brothers. Never mind that the vicissitude of politics has done a lot of things and the geography of River Niger makes it that they are distant from u, they are our brothers. The fact that they were part of western Nigeria before Midwest was created does not make them less Igbo. They are our brothers and we must continue to play along with them. Even if some of them are reluctant to identify with us. I think we must encourage them to associate with us” (Sunday Independent, December 14, 2008)

That Ohanaeze which we should have taken to mean an umbrella for the entire Igbo is discriminating against the rest of Igbo, telling us who should and should not be Igbo in the entire polity of Nigeria is disheartening because it will only encourage the Igbo from the other parts of the nation to flee. The feeling of these peoples is that they cannot entrust Ohanaeze with their fate since Ohanaeze has nothing but disclaim of their precious tribe. Ohanaeze must realize that the Anioma people are not desperate to identify with the cause group of Ohanaze. And the rejection, bad treatment and discriminatory manners of Anioma people will amount to nothing but distant in association of other Igbo from the other states of the federation.

In time to come I am only hoping that it does not become too late for Ohanaeze to realize the harm it has caused itself as I advise the group to restructure itself and incorporate every Igbo speaking part of Nigeria not minding dialects and many rivers dividing the ethnic group. I am not begging the “core Igbo” but I would have thought that the policy makers from this part of the country should have realized that only dialectical differences separate the vast people of the ethnic group and if Igwebuike was to be considered it will mean unity and not disunity.

It is particularly painful to me as I recall that Theodore Orji of Abia State was the only Governor from the South East geo-political zone that attended the election of the new national executive council of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, just because an Anioma man was to be elected the president-general of Ohanaeze considered to be the sole property of the “core Igbo” as they have come to identify themselves.

Theodore Orji, regretted the action of his colleagues who typically of them were absent and advised them thus:

“We should forget fighting each other, we should eschew violence and confusion and any day Ohanaeze Ndiigbo collapses, Ndiigbo are finished”

Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu who was also absent said thus:

“The major problem tearing the body apart is greed.” The Igbo need more lessons to learn in other to understand political dynamism of Nigeria. As an Igbo man which I am said to be having hailed from Ibusa in Delta State nothing would give me more pleasure than see an Igbo man emerge as the president of Nigeria come 2016, if only to shame those who believe that Ambassador Uwechue, an Anioma man has come to ruin or worsen the problems of Ohanaeze just because he is not a “core Igbo” man as they see us, and the enemies of Igbo nation whether within or outside the Igbo nation who believe that the Igbo must sink. But Ohanaeze Ndiigbo has a great role to play in this.

Finally in reference to my second paragraph above, I wish to remind my readers that Chief Dennis Osadebe, an Anioma man was one of the seven founders of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo as presently constituted, will it then be wise to deny his fellow Anioma kinsmen and Igbo from other states the leadership of the organization? This question is for Ohanaeze Ndiigbo.

Will a Socio-cultural organization that discriminates against its ancestral members of race grow? One however, must not fail to acknowledge that Ohanaeze has decided to walk in the right direction by appointing Amb. Ralph Uwechue from Delta State as the Presient-General of the organization, expectedly this will go a long in giving all sons and daughters a sense of belonging that we are all Igbo no matter where we comefrom.

Emeka Esogbue
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/uwechue-ohanaeze-ndiigbo-and-the-future-of-anioma-688316.html

Can anyone recommend some good war movies and books I can ask for for Christmas. I am interested in WW1, WW2, Korea (somewhat), Vietnam, and Iraq/Afghanistan. Anyone have any recommendation?
Also I would prefer the book be from American POV. Thanks again.
I would like to change, American or British POV.

We were Soldiers once (and young) Movie and book, I recommend the book as it is more in depth than the movie.
WWII- A bridge too far (movie)
The longest day (movie)
Band of Brothers (movie and book)
Saving Private Ryan (movie)
Vietnam- Dear mom (A snipers Vietnam) book
Platoon (movie)
Casualties of War (movie)
Apocalypse now (movie)

The compelling, if somewhat obscure, paintings in the caves of Lascaux around 14,000 BC and the birth of written language in the third or fourth millennium BC, are both significant milestones in the history of graphic design and other fields which hold roots to graphic design. 
The Book of Kells is a very beautiful and very early example of graphic design in a form that would be acceptable even today. The Book is a lavishly illustrated hand-written copy of the Christian Bible created by Celtic monks in the ninth century AD. 
Johann Gutenberg’s introduction of movable type in Europe made books widely available. The earliest books produced by Gutenberg’s press and others of the era (the Incunabula). Only through the design of Aldus Manutius did the book begin to have a structure that would became the benchmark by which the design of future books, even as late as the 20th century, would be judged. Graphic design of this era is called either Old Style (especially the typefaces which these early typographers used), or Humanist, after the predominant philosophical school of the time. 
Graphic design, after Gutenberg saw a gradual evolution rather than any significant change, in the late 19th century when, especially in the United Kingdom, an effort was made to create a firm division between the fine and the applied arts. 
From 1891 to 1896 William Morris’ Kelmscott Press published some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement, and made a very lucrative business of creating books of great stylistic refinement and selling them to the wealthy for a premium. Morris proved that a market existed for works of graphic design and helped pioneer the separation of design from production and from fine art. The work of the Kelmscott Press is characterized by its decadence and by its obsession with historical styles. This historicism was, however, historically important as it amounted to the first significant reaction to the stale state of nineteenth-century graphic design. Morris’ work, along with the rest of the Private Press movement, directly influenced Art Nouveau and is indirectly responsible for developments in early twentieth century graphic design in general. 
Piet Mondrian, born in 1872, is often called the father of graphic design. Although he was a fine artist (not a graphic designer) his use of grids inspired the basic structure of the modern advertising layout known also as the grid system, used commonly today by graphic designers. 
The term Graphic Design was first coined by U.S. book designer and type designer William Addison Dwiggins in the early 20th C. 
20th century 
Famous SS Normandie poster by Adolphe Muron Cassandre.Modern Design of the early 20th century, much like the fine art of the same period, was a reaction against the decadence of typography and design of the late 19th century. The hallmark of early modern typography is the sans-serif typeface. Early Modern (not to be confused with the other modern era of the 18th and 19th centuries) typographers such as Edward Johnston and Eric Gill after him were inspired by vernacular and industrial typography of the latter nineteenth century. The signage in the London Underground is a classic of this era and used a font designed by Edward Johnston in 1916. 
Jan Tschichold codified the principles of modern typography in his 1928 book, New Typography. He later repudiated the philosophy he espoused in this book as being fascistic, but it remained very influential. Tschichold, Bauhaus typographers such as Herbert Bayer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky are the fathers of graphic design as we know it today. They pioneered production techniques and stylistic devices used throughout the twentieth century. Although the computer has altered production forever, the experimental approach to design they pioneered has become more relevant than ever. 
The following years saw graphic design in the modern style gain widespread acceptance and application. A booming post-World War II American economy established a greater need for graphic design, mainly advertising and packaging. The emigration of the German Bauhaus school of design to Chicago in 1937 brought a “mass-produced” minimalism to America; sparking a wild fire of postmodern architecture and design. Notable names in mid-century modern design include Adrian Frutiger, designer of the typefaces Univers and Frutiger; Paul Rand, who, from the late 1930’s until his death in 1996, took the principles of the Bauhaus and applied them to popular advertising and logo design, helping to create a uniquely American approach to European minimalism while becoming one of the principal pioneers of the subset of graphic design known as corporate identity; and Josef Müller-Brockmann, who designed posters in a severe yet accessible manner typical of the 1950s and 1960s. 
The reaction to the increasing severity of graphic design was slow but inexorable. The origins of post-modern typography can be traced back as far as the humanist movement of the 1950s. Notable among this group is Hermann Zapf who designed two typefaces that remain ubiquitous Palatino (1948) and Optima (1952). By blurring the line between serif and sans-serif typefaces and re-introducing organic lines into typography these designs did more to ratify modernism than they did to rebel. 
An important point was reached in graphic design with the publishing of the First things first 1964 Manifesto which was a call to a more radical form of graphic design and criticized the ideas of value-free design. This was massively influential on a generation of new graphic designers and contributed to the founding of publications such as Emigre magazine. 
I Love New York campaign by Milton Glaser.Another notable designer of the latter 20th century is Milton Glaser who designed the unmistakable I Love NY ad campaign (1973), and a famous Bob Dylan poster (1968). Glaser took stylistic hints from popular culture from the 1960s and 70s. 
Advances in the early 20th century were largely inspired by technological advances in printing and also in photography. In the last decade of the same century, technology played a similar role, but this time it was the computer, and at first it was largely a step backwards. Zuzana Licko worked very early using computers for layout, in the days when computer memory was measured in kilobytes and typefaces were created using dots rather than lines. Together with her husband Rudy VanderLans they founded the pioneering Emigre magazine and the Emigre type foundry. They played with the extraordinary limitations of computers as something which, in itself, could provide creative freedom. Emigre magazine became the bible for digital design as the technology rapidly advanced to the point where the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. 
David Carson is, in a sense, the culmination of the movement against the restrictiveness of modern design—some of his designs for Raygun magazine are intentionally illegible, featuring typography designed to be visual rather than literary experiences. 
Soviet Constructivism 
Mainly in the 1920’s, in Soviet Russia, Soviet Constructivism applied ‘intellectual production’ in different spheres of production. The movement saw individualistic art as useless in revolutionary Russia and thus moved towards creating objects for utilitary purposes. They designed buildings, theater sets, posters, fabrics, clothing, furniture, logos, menus etc.

Vibhu Mallick
http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/what-is-the-graphic-design-history-698463.html