Without fear of the unknown, an American college student from southern California decides to study abroad, or rather “south of the border” in Mexico City. She is confronted with a culture which she knows little about, but one that she soon learns to love. Her heart and mind will be stretched beyond the borders within which she was born, and the final task for her will be to understand why it all mattered so much.

Tony Cohan’s On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic. Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as—faced with the invasion of the town by tourists and an entire Hollywood movie crew, a magazine editor’s irresistible invitation, and his own incurable wanderlust—Cohan undertakes a richer, wider exploration of the country he has settled in. Told with the intimate, sensuous insight and broad sweep that captivated readers of On Mexican Time, Mexican Days is set against a changing world as Cohan encounters surprise and adventure in a Mexico both old and new: among the misty mountains and coastal Caribbean towns of Veracruz; the ruins and resorts of Yucatán; the stirring indigenous world of Chiapas; the markets and galleries of Oaxaca; the teeming labyrinth of Mexico City; the remote Sierra Gorda mountains; the haunted city of Guanajuato; and the evocative Mayan ruins of Palenque. Along the way he encounters expatriates and artists, shady operatives and surrealists, and figures from his past. More than an immensely pleasurable and entertaining travel narrative by one of the most vivid, compelling travel voices to emerge in recent years, Mexican Days is both a celebration of the joys and revelations to be found in this inexhaustibly interesting country and a searching investigation of the Mexican landscape and the grip it is coming to have in the North American imagination.

Shortlisted for the 2014 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize Shortlisted for a 2014 BC Book Prize Finalist for the Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing Just how, and why, did Vancouver Island get onto the map? How was knowledge of our immediate geography acquired and recorded? With 130 maps, dating between 1593 and 1915, this cartographic history tells the story of how Vancouver Island and the surrounding area came to be mapped. The book shows local cartographic milestones, marking progress in our knowledge through the island’s rich—although comparatively short—recorded history. However, the maps, by themselves and without context, cannot tell the whole story. The accompanying text reveals the motives, constraints, agendas, and intrigues that underpin their making. The narrative, roughly chronological, begins before the arrival of Europeans and concludes at the outset of the First World War and includes an introduction on the history and significance of map-making, as well as an afterword summarizing subsequent cartographic developments. Also included are an index, endnotes, a list of cartographic sources, and a glossary.

American Amphibious Warfare offers analysis of the early amphibious landing operations from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War. Through a case study approach, the operational and strategic significance of each action is analyzed and its impact on the development of the United States is assessed. By focusing on seven major campaigns, Gary J. Ohls provides readers with a richer appreciation of the origins of American amphibious warfare. For many Americans, the concept of amphibious warfare derives from the World War II model in which landing forces assaulted foreign shores and faced determined resistance. These actions usually resulted in very high casualty rates, yet they proved uniformly successful. The circumstances of geography coupled with the weapons and equipment available at that time dictated this type of warfare. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no such equipment or weapons existed for assaulting defended beaches. Commanders attempted to land their forces in areas where the resistance would be light or nonexistent. The initiative and maneuverability inherent in naval forces permitted the delivery of combat power to the point of attack faster that the land-based defenders could react. Ohls explains how amphibious traditions began in this era and shows how they compare with modern amphibious forces, particularly the tactics of today’s U.S. Marine Corps. The author makes a compelling case for a continuing tradition of American amphibious warfare learned and honed through a set of key battles and carried forward. Further, Ohls argues that the Marine Corps is the true inheritor of this warfare tradition formed in early America, concluding that weapons and equipment, coupled with new doctrine, actually allow modern forces to return to the sort of amphibious tactics and operations practiced more than two centuries ago. Both a work of history as well as an analysis of operational conflict, this study should please readers looking for a clearer understanding of U.S. amphibious operations. Since the concepts presented in this book continue to serve as excellent tools for both the professional officer and the analytical historian, American Amphibious Warfare as a whole provides a much-needed comprehensive history of naval and military warfare.

A fascinating encyclopedic survey of the Spanish-Cuban/American War, the Philippine War, and the small wars between 1899 and the end of the occupation of Haiti in 1934. The name changes themselves are instructive. The usage of "Spanish-American War" ignores the fact that the war in Cuba had been largely won by the Cuban revolutionaries before US intervention, hence the new title, Spanish-Cuban/American War. The use of "Philippine Insurrection" is replaced by Philippine War, since the Philippine forces had taken much of the islands from Spain before US ground forces arrived. And guerillas or revolutionaries have replaced "bandits," the term used by the US to discredit oppositional forces. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Philippine Duchesne has a message for today's world in which the rich seem to be growing richer and the poor to be growing poorer. It is a message of justice and love for all people. It was for this conviction that Philippine, a Religious of the Sacred Heart missionary, became the fourth United States saint in 1988. This book is a bold historical biography of a remarkable woman who struggled her entire life to enflesh God's love and care in human situations. It opens with a critical discussion and forthright examination of how class, gender, and race have been influential factors in the selection of saints, and then details Philippine's life with its many failures and many achievements. It shows how this wealthy woman who belonged to a politically prominent French family decided to dedicate her life and gifts to the poor. It examines her difficulties as Sacred Heart's first missionary in the new world and it tells how this courageous pioneer woman provided free education for those who had long been denied the privilege--young women, the poor, and native Americans. This eminently readable biography provides a clear and scholarly assessment of Duchesne's religious and social world that is ideal for students and professors of U.S. church history. It raises important questions about women, the poor, and marginalized groups in Duchesne's time that are still pertinent to ask today.