Based on the authorÕs own experiences as a cadet at the exclusive United States Military Academy at West Point, Battle Dress is the brutally honest tale of seventeen-year-old Andi Davis, who views her acceptance at West Point as a chance to escape her dysfunctional family and prove to herself that she has what it takes to survive ÒThe Beast,Ó insider terminology for Basic Training. But nothing could have prepared Andi for the rigors that followÑor for the inner strength that she will need to succeed as a woman in a nearly all-male society. Compelling and powerful, but never militaristic, this is a tale of triumph that wonÕt fail to move readers.

Collecting the Good War "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."—Franklin Delano Roosevelt Hailed as "The Greatest Generation," the men and women who fought in World War II carried an unimaginable burden. Their date with destiny, both horrendous and heroic, shaped the world we know today. This newly expanded second edition of Warman's World War II Collectibles serves as a living tribute to these brave souls, as well as a guide to the remarkable and historical items that survived titanic battles. Brimming with expert collecting advice, detailed information and spectacular color images, this book is designed to provide perspective and guidance to the extraordinary world of World War II collectibles. This one-of-a-kind package features: • 1,100 full-color photos of collectibles from Allied and Axis forces • Coverage of uniforms, headgear, accouterments, medals, firearms, bayonets, knives, daggers, swords, and personal items • 3,000 listings with updated current-market prices • Helpful collecting advice, price and availability ratings, and reproduction alerts

Finalist for the 2016 PEN Center USA Award for Translation In 1809, at the age of eighteen, Henriette Faber enrolled herself in medical school in Paris—and since medicine was a profession prohibited to women, she changed her name to Henri in order to matriculate. She would spend the next fifteen years practicing medicine and living as a man. Drafted to serve as a surgeon in Napoleon's army, Faber endured the horrors of the 1812 retreat across Russia. She later embarked to the Caribbean and set up a medical practice in a remote Cuban village, where she married Juana de León, an impoverished local. Three years into their marriage, de León turned Faber in to the authorities, demanding that the marriage be annulled. A sensational legal trial ensued, and Faber was stripped of her medical license, forced to dress as a woman, sentenced to prison, and ultimately sent into exile. She was last seen on a boat headed to New Orleans in 1827. In this, his last published work, Antonio Benítez Rojo takes the outline provided by historical events and weaves a richly detailed backdrop for Faber, who becomes a vivid and complex figure grappling with the strictures of her time. Woman in Battle Dress is a sweeping, ambitious epic, in which Henriette Faber tells the story of her life, a compelling, entertaining, and ultimately triumphant tale. Praise for Woman in Battle Dress "Woman in Battle Dress by Antonio Benítez-Rojo, which has been beautifully translated from the Spanish by Jessica Ernst Powell, is the extraordinary account of an extraordinary person. Benítez-Rojo blows great gusts of fascinating fictional wind onto the all but forgotten embers of the actual Henriette Faber, and this blazing tale of her adventures as a military surgeon and a husband and about a hundred other fascinating things is both something we want and need to hear."—Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome "A picaresque novel starring an adventurous heroine, who caroms from country to country around the expanding Napoleonic empire, hooking up with a dazzling array of men (and women) as she goes. A wild ride!"—Carmen Boullosa, author of Texas: The Great Theft "As detailed as any work of history and as action filled as any swashbuckler, Woman in Battle Dress is not only Antonio Benítez Rojo's last and most ambitious book, but also his masterpiece. In this graceful English translation of Henriette Faber's autobiography—more than fiction, less than fact—American readers will have access to one of the most engaging novels to come out of Latin America in recent years."—Gustavo Pérez-Firmat, Columbia University Antonio Benítez-Rojo (1931–2005) was a Cuban novelist, essayist and short-story writer. He was widely regarded as the most significant Cuban author of his generation. His work has been translated into nine languages and collected in more than 50 anthologies. One of his most influential publications, La Isla que se Repite, was published in 1989 by Ediciones del Norte, and published in English as The Repeating Island by Duke University Press in 1997. Jessica Powell has translated numerous Latin American authors, including works by César Vallejo, Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Cardenal, Maria Moreno, Ana Lidia Vega Serova and Edmundo Paz Soldán. Her translation (with Suzanne Jill Levine) of Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo's novel Where There's Love, There's Hate, was published by Melville House in 2013. She is the recipient of a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship in support of her translation of Antonio Benítez Rojo's novel Woman in Battle Dress.

On November 28, 1973, the world's social elite gathered at the Palace of Versailles for an international fashion show. By the time the curtain came down on the evening's spectacle, history had been made and the industry had been forever transformed. This is that story. Conceived as a fund-raiser for the restoration of King Louis XIV's palace, in the late fall of 1973, five top American designers faced off against five top French designers in an over-the-top runway extravaganza. An audience filled with celebrities and international jet-setters, including Princess Grace of Monaco, the Duchess of Windsor, Paloma Picasso, and Andy Warhol, were treated to an opulent performance featuring Liza Minnelli, Josephine Baker, and Rudolph Nureyev. What they saw would forever alter the history of fashion. The Americans at the Battle of Versailles– Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, and Stephen Burrows – showed their work against the five French designers considered the best in the world – Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan of Christian Dior. Plagued by in-fighting, outsized egos, shoestring budgets, and innumerable technical difficulties, the American contingent had little chance of meeting the European's exquisite and refined standards. But against all odds, the American energy and the domination by the fearless models (ten of whom, in a groundbreaking move, were African American) sent the audience reeling. By the end of the evening, the Americans had officially taken their place on the world's stage, prompting a major shift in the way race, gender, sexuality, and economics would be treated in fashion for decades to come. As the curtain came down on The Battle of Versailles, American fashion was born; no longer would the world look to Europe to determine the stylistic trends of the day, from here forward, American sensibility and taste would command the world's attention. Pulitzer-Prize winning fashion journalist Robin Givhan offers a lively and meticulously well-researched account of this unique event. The Battle of Versailles is a sharp, engaging cultural history; this intimate examination of a single moment shows us how the world of fashion as we know it came to be.

Raising a family presented its own unique set of challenges in Service. The major portion of parenting would invariably fall on the wife, while the dashing soldier, sailor or airman would do just that – dash in and dash out. On the rare occasions when he did lend a hand, there would be the inevitable mix-up of tins of baby food with tins of brasso, diapers inside DMS boots, rattles, ribbons and rank badges and invariably that one essential item of uniform missing! Life in the Services, away from the place of work is a cheerful mix of trunks, government issue furniture, school uniforms, belts, cap badges, tins of shoe polish, webbing and the million other things that occupy a serviceman's house. While the profession of military service is a serious one, with risks to life and limb, it is a different world in the cantonments where they live. This is a book about the lighter side of life in the Services away from work, in the houses that they occupy for short periods before moving to another station on transfer, to take up new assignments, as seen through the eyes of a child, a wife and a serving officer. The book consists of several short stories spanning a period of around 75 years from pre-independence India to the present.