Albert: King of the Belgians

Book Description

This work contains an authorized biography of King Albert I, the son of Philip, Count of Flanders. Albert succeeded his uncle, Leopold II, on the throne, and served in the army and Senate. King Albert reaffirmed the neutrality of Belgian and refused to allow the German troops free passage through his country. He led the Belgian army in the retreat to Flanders, as well as leading the Belgian and French troops in the final Allied offensive. King Albert is known for introducing a new monetary system to Belgium and his reconstruction after the war. Illustrated.

Albert and the Belgians,: Portrait of a king,

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Albert and the Belgians,: Portrait of a king,
Charles d' Ydewalle
Manufacturer: W. Morrow & company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Albert and the Belgians: Portrait of a King
Charles Translated By Phyllis Megroz D'ydewalle
Manufacturer: William Morrow and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O82SVC

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Albert and the Belgians: Portrait of a King
Charles D'Ydewalle
Manufacturer: Wm. Morrow & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H7CX4M

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ALBERT KING OF THE BELGIANS
CHARLES D'YDEWALLE
Manufacturer: METHUEN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RWGCV2

Albert King of the Belgians in the Great War : His military activities and experiences set down with his approval

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Albert King of the Belgians in the Great War : His military activities and experiences set down with his approval
Emile Joseph Galet
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Albert The Soldier-King: Being the Life Story of Belgium's Beloved Ruler (Famous Leaders Series)

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Albert The Soldier-King: Being the Life Story of Belgium's Beloved Ruler (Famous Leaders Series)
King of the Belgians) Shumway, Harry Irving Albert
Manufacturer: L.C. Page & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000K5OZFQ

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Albert, King of the Belgians
Charles d' Ydewalle
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00086LSZM

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Albert: King of the Belgians
Evelyn Graham
Manufacturer: Dodd, Mead
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GW6FU6

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Elisabeth
Wanda Z. Larson
Manufacturer: University Press of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1573090921

Book Description

In this major re-examination of her public and private life, Wanda Larson recreates and interprets one of the most interesting of 20th century lives. Queen Elisabeth of Belgium was not only a predominant factor in Belgium life through two world wars, she was one of her generation's most brilliant musical organizers and patrons. Elisabeth has had a profound influence on contemporary piano competitions and she was crucial in the revival of Vivaldi, Mahler and others. The author discusses the historical context for this unusual life seen against the backdrop of her Bavarian Wittelsbach ancestors, her "accidental" queenship, her popularity with her people and, most of all, her refusal to give up her musical career despite enormous family pressure.

Amazon.com

Alison Hargreaves perished with five others in 1995 in a hurricane-force storm on her descent from the summit of K2, the world's second highest peak. Only 33 years old, she'd successfully scaled Everest five months earlier without the aid of oxygen--the first woman to do so. Drawing on Hargreaves's diaries and interviews with family members and acquaintances, British journalist-climbers David Rose and Ed Douglas trace her evolution from an energetic teenager who dreams of being the best female climber in the world to the person she is on her ascent of K2: a driven woman criticized in the British press for egotism and a lack of good judgment (she did, after all, climb the famously difficult Eigerwand in the Alps during the second term of pregnancy). "It eats away at me--wanting the children and wanting K2," she wrote in her journal. "I feel like I'm being pulled in two. Maybe they'd be happier if Mum was around but maybe summiting K2 would help make a better future for them."

Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and David Breashears's IMAX documentary Everest have made the travails of high-altitude climbing irresistible entertainment for outdoors enthusiasts and armchair travelers alike. But in all the stories of hubris, superhuman endurance, and courage, rarely does a woman claim the spotlight and rarely are the hard domestic realities of the climber's life explored. Regions of the Heart breaks with this tendency. The authors re-create Hargreaves's complicated career by examining her hard-working middle-class English background, her marriage to a much older man who lives vicariously through her achievements, her rejection of more practical pursuits for the rush of climbing, her persistent fear of failure, and her financial insecurity; all these factors ultimately add up to her fatal decision to climb K2 despite worsening conditions and her two young children at home. "Going on the mountain was not the difficulty for her. Mountains were the one place she felt confident about what to do. Going home meant finally resolving her relationship with [her husband] and surviving as a single mother," the authors write. Less a tale of adventure and more an honest picture of one woman's struggle for fulfillment, Regions of the Heart puts into perspective Alison Hargreaves's choice of the mountain over life. --Rebecca Wright

Book Description

By any standard, Alison Hargreaves was a world-class mountaineer. In May 1995, she reached the summit of Mount Everest without support or bottled oxygen. No other woman and few men had climbed the mountain in such a strong style, and the accomplishment made Hargreaves an international climbing star. Less than three months later she was dead, killed by a sudden, violent storm shortly after struggling to the top of K2, second in height to Everest but a more dangerous challenge. In the emotional public reaction to this tragedy, her triumphs were suddenly eclipsed by controversy.

Instead of eulogies, her death was greeted by anger: How dare the mother of two young children risk her life and her family's future on so deadly an undertaking? Was her lifelong passion for climbing a badge of courage or the mark of supreme irresponsibility? Should she be remembered as a superlative mountaineer or as an immature and selfish woman? It was a bitter end to an extraordinary and misunderstood career.

In Regions of the Heart, David Rose and Ed Douglas set the record straight, presenting a thoughtful, compelling portrait of Hargreaves that restores her reputation while acknowledging her shortcomings and lapses of judgement. They show us a woman who found freedom and fulfillment on the steep faces of some of the world's most forbidding mountains, a wife trapped in an increasingly troubled marriage, and a mother who sought literally to climb her way to financial security -- a desperate gamble for which she would ultimately pay with her life.

Short-listed for the prestigious Banff Mountain Literature grand prize, Regions of the Heart is a story of unparalleled adventure and a vivid glimpse of the intensely competitive, always perilous world of men and women who are never more than a single step away from death. Readers will finish this book both saddened and inspired, with a new understanding of Alison Hargreaves and the true challenges she struggled bravely to overcome.

Customer Reviews:

A surprisingly interesting story.......2002-10-22

When I first read the description of this book, I was only slightly intrigued but since I was running out of Himalayan mountaineering reading material, I decided to give it a try. As a mother, my first impression of a woman with young children risking her life by climbing was negative. This was somewhat hypocritical for me since I believe that women should be given an equal chance, particularly in athletic pursuits, and, as the book points, many male mountaineers are fathers. After reading about her circumstances and what she went through in her marriage physically, mentally, and financially, I understood her drive and came to see that climbing had become a necessity for her financially. As a working mother, I completely sympathized with her pull to provide for her family and yet have the time to spend with her children. Only for a climber, the stakes are greater. This woman suffered so many tough breaks in her personal and climbing life, and was later vilified for being a reckless mother instead of being respected for her amazing performances. With so many accomplishments under her belt, I was surprised that I'd never heard of her before. While it wasn't the best book I've ever read, I did find it hard to put down.

A tragic book about a driven person.......2001-03-08

This book does a good job of illustrating the tragedy inherent to competitive climbing. Hargreaves appears to have been a decent, determined, moderately talented climber, who pushed herself far beyond the point where she was actually enjoying the sport because of her need to make a living and her competitive surroundings. I usually dislike biographies, but found this one quite readable. While the authors do dumb down climbing terminology, they give evocative and gripping descriptions of the sport. This book saddened me, not only in its depiction of someone whose inspiration turned into her doom, but in its revelation of pervasive sexism in the way Hargreaves was viewed. While I don't think a woman who is still breast feeding should be free soloing, as she did (under the pressure of a relationship with an utter ne'er-do-well), the media suggestion that she was somehow a "bad mother" or "bad woman" because she climbed dangerous routes while having young children at home is preposterous. She was, in fact, financially supporting her children by doing so. This is an interesting book, worth reading.

TRIUMPH TOO QUICKLY FOLLOWED BY TRAGEDY..........2001-02-24

Alison Hargreaves was probably one of the most enigmatic climbers of this century. Isolated from the mountaineering community at large for the better part of her career, it was not until she climbed Everest without support and without supplementary oxygen that she got the recognition she so craved. Her solo ascent of Everest without oxygen was the first ever such summit by a woman.

Her need for that recognition was twofold. She seemed to lack personal self-esteem, as a result of her marriage to a man who was emotionally and physically abusive. She also seemed to have a lack of confidence, at times, in her innate ability as a climber, needing validation from the mountaineering community, a validation which seemed to be long in coming. Yet, it was only on the mountains that she felt in control, because her personal life was so out of control. Indecisive about what to do about her unhappy marriage, the mountains gave her hope that she would be able to secure herself and her children financially and free herself from the bondage of an unhappy union.

When she triumphed on Everest, and her future as a climber of reknown seem assured, she almost immediately set out on expedition under pressure from her husband to summit K2, leaving behind her two beloved young children. While she ultimately met with success and reached the summit of K2, she descended head long into a storm with gale force winds. Sadly, she never got off the mountain, consigned to the environs of K2 for all time.

Her death created a maelstrom of controversy at the time, over the idea of a mother with two small children having put herself so at risk of leaving them motherless. Sadly, it was women journalists who spearheaded this sentiment, threatening to destroy Ms. Hargreaves' reputation in death. This was clearly a double standard, as many who die while climbing are men who are fathers to small children. Yet, in death they are not pilloried for having left their children fatherless. Rather, they are often heralded for their daring and courage in attempting to scale new heights.

This book chronicles Ms. Hargreaves' life and her love of climbing. It attempts to paint a balanced portrait of a woman so little known to the world at large, but who made mountaineering history just before her death. It explores her personal life, not only as a wife and mother, but as a person for whom climbing was her life's blood. The author attempts to understand her approach to climbing, as well as her exploits, and ground them in the context out of which they arose. It is the story of an ordinary woman who just before her death made herself extraordinary. Although the author recounts Ms. Hargreaves' life in a somewhat prosaic manner, it is definitely a book well worth reading.

A PAGE-TURNER.......2000-09-17

An excellent psychological profile!

All Too Human.......2000-09-05

An honest, decent book about a British woman mountaineer (killed in 1995 in a storm after summiting K2 without supplemental oxygen) whose failings and unhappiness at low altitude contrasted sharply with her successes and bravery at altitude. Hargreaves' personal and financial suffering, particularly her bad marriage to a sick, lazy man, seemed the result of all-too-human bad judgment on the ground. Although the authors clearly understand climbing and the forces that drive people to climb, I felt the authors focused too much on Hargreaves' bad personal life and not enough on the technical aspects of climbing, which I had expected to read when I bought the book. The authors have dumbed-down their accounts of climbing to reach a broader audience. However, their treatment of the colorful history of climbing, particularly in Great Britain and the Alps, was well done. I did note several glaring, but probably minor, factual errors. All in all, a decent read about an interesting person who perhaps sought to achieve in climbing all that she lacked in her personal life.

REGIONS OF THE HEART: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ALISON HARGREAVES.

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REGIONS OF THE HEART: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ALISON HARGREAVES.
David and Ed Douglas. Rose
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140286748

Product Description

Chapters by Raymond Borde, Freddy Buache, Gerard Camy, Raymond Chirat, Francis Courtade. Preface by Raymon Chirat.

Une histoire economique du cinema francais: 1895-1995 : regards franco-americains (Champs visuels)

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Une histoire economique du cinema francais: 1895-1995 : regards franco-americains (Champs visuels)

Manufacturer: Harmattan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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L Age Moderne Du Cinema Francais (Histoire du cinema francais)

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L Age Moderne Du Cinema Francais (Histoire du cinema francais)
Frodon
Manufacturer: Editions Flammarion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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City System Map Set (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Accessory)
Ed Greenwood , and Jeff Grubb
Manufacturer: TSR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0880386002

Book Description

"Lean Thinking" has dominated product development and project management for over a decade. Now, however, a six-year study by MIT's International Motor Vehicle Program led by Michael Cusumano and Kentaro Nobeoka finds that, in order to dramatically improve product portfolios, Toyota and other leading companies are moving beyond single-project management on which lean thinking is based. In Thinking Beyond Lean, Cusumano and Nobeoka show that single-project management can produce isolated hit products and "fat" designs that contain few common components and many unnecessary parts and features. As a result, in this era of slowing growth and falling profits, leading companies are maximizing their investment by utilizing a groundbreaking concept the authors call "multi-project management." Drawing on a data base of 210 automobile products and detailed case studies from Toyota, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Renault, and Fiat, the authors demonstrate how product development teams can share engineers and key common components but retain separate designers to maintain distinctive product features. The result: multi-project management has brought these companies huge savings in development and production costs.

Cusumano and Nobeoka's findings will be required reading for every company that makes more than one product. Taking up where The Machine That Changed the World left off, Thinking Beyond Lean will change the way leaders do business now and in the future.

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