The fascinating autobiography of Dick Carter who won the Fastnet Race in his first go at boat design. This and his other highly innovative designs established a new look and ingenious technological concepts for racing yachts that seem routine today, such as separated rudders, trim tabs, internal mast halyards, oversize headsails and lifting keels.

Dick Carter, the enfant terrible of ocean racing the in 1960s and 1970s suddenly disappeared from sailboat racing is 1975. Many of his colleagues thought he was dead. Dick Carter has now reemerged with the definitive autobiography of sailboat racing in that period, one of the most productive and innovative eras. Carter designed and sailed such world-renowned boats as Rabbit, Tina, Red Rooster, and ¿the monster¿ Vendredi Trerize (¿Friday the 13th ). Now he¿s back with a great story of boast and sailing.

Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of the Pentagon, its vital mission, and what it takes to lead it. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the single largest institution in America: the Department of Defense. The D.O.D. employs millions of Americans. It owns and operates more real estate, and spends more money, than any other entity. It manages the world’s largest and most complex information network and performs more R&D than Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined. Most important, the policies it carries out, in war and peace, impact the security and freedom of billions of people around the globe. Yet to most Americans, the dealings of the D.O.D. are a mystery, and the Pentagon nothing more than an opaque five-sided box that they regard with a mixture of awe and suspicion. In this new book, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter demystifies the Pentagon and sheds light on all that happens inside one of the nation’s most iconic, and most closely guarded, buildings. Drawn from Carter’s thirty-six years of leadership experience in the D.O.D., this is the essential book for understanding the challenge of defending America in a dangerous world—and imparting a trove of incisive lessons that can guide leaders in any complex organization. In these times of great disruption and danger, the need for Ash Carter’s authoritative and pragmatic account is more urgent than ever.

In his private journals, Franklin Archibald Dick, a St. Louis attorney, Union officer, and provost marshal general, wrote of his concerns about keeping Missouri pro-Union during the turbulent Civil War years. His firsthand perspective of important historical events include the early Camp Jackson incident when he was Captain Nathaniel Lyon's assistant adjutant general, and when he served as Missouri's provost marshal general under Major General Samuel Curtis. Dick was troubled by the slow progress and terrible cost of the war. For him, the divided city of St. Louis was heartbreaking, and his journal entries changed from early optimism to later doubts about his future due to the war and his loyalty to the Union. After the war, Franklin Dick practiced law with Montgomery Blair, President Lincoln's postmaster general.

After being forced from his meager family farm in Texas in 1871, thirteen-year-old Ben Curtis witnesses some of the excitement and cruelty of the Old West--on a cattle drive, in a frontier town, and on a buffalo hunt.

Collins presents the behind-the-scenes account of tumultuous upheavals in the oil industry between 1995-2002 as industry seeks to gain access to vital petroleum resources overseas.