Books in Days That Shook the World series

In rich first-person narrative, Dogtown tells the strange, dark story of a wilderness ghost town that has enthralled artists, writers, and eccentrics—and of a brutal murder committed there. Documenting its history and lore, East explores the possibility that certain landscapes wield their own unique power. The area known as Dogtown—an isolated colonial ruin and the surrounding 3,600-acre woodland in historic seaside Gloucester, Massachusetts—has always exerted a powerful influence over artists, writers, eccentrics, and nature lovers. But its history is woven through with tales of hallucinations, pirates, ghost sightings, witches, drifters, and violence. A 1984 murder there continues to loom large in Gloucester’s collective psyche: a mentally disturbed local man crushed the skull of a schoolteacher as she walked the woods. In alternating chapters, East interlaces the story of this murder with Dogtown’s bizarre history. The colonial settlement was a haven for former slaves, prostitutes, and witches until it was abandoned 180 years ago. Since then, Dogtown has inspired various people, including a millionaire who carved Protestant precepts into its boulders; the Modernist painter Marsden Hartley, whom Dogtown saved from a crippling depression; the drug-addled poet Charles Olson; a coven of witches that still holds ceremonies there today; and the murderer, who spent much of his life in Dogtown’s woods. The murder tapped a vein of thinking that has quietly endured in Gloucester for centuries: some people rallied around Dogtown protectively, but others blamed it for the tragedy. In luminous, insightful prose, Dogtown tells an evocative tale of a community both haunted and bound together by its love of this strange, forgotten place and its denizens.

On 2 August 1990, at the instruction of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi tanks crossed the border to invade Kuwait. This book examines the lead up to this event by looking back at the history of this troubled region. It then dramatically retells the events of the day of the invasion and the shocked response of the world - which led to the Gulf War of 1991. Finally it looks at the legacy this invasion had both for Iraq and for the world as a whole, climaxing with the second Gulf War at the start of 2003.Moment-in-time panels which present first-hand accounts of the events bring a sense of immediacy to the history being recounted.

In the latest biography in the innovative 10 Days series, author David Colbert takes you through the ten most important days in the life of Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter. Her colorful canvases introduced the American and European art world to the cultures of her native country. Kahlo survived a serious bus accident and began painting to pass the time during her difficult recovery. Drawing on personal experiences, Kahlo used bright colors and vivid symbolism to reflect classic religious Mexican tradition and indigenous Mexican culture—along with images that reflected her often turbulent life.