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Talty delves the deepest into the history and twisted personality of David Koresh.\" --Wall Street Journal\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe first comprehensive account of David Koresh's life, his road to Waco, and the rise of government mistrust in America, from a master of narrative nonfiction\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNo other event in the last fifty years is shrouded in myth like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Today, we remember this moment for the 76 people, including 20 children, who died in the fire; for its inspiration of the Oklahoma City bombing; and for the wave of anti-government militarism that followed. What we understand far less is what motivated the Davidians' enigmatic leader, David Koresh.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDrawing on first-time, exclusive interviews with Koresh's family and survivors of the siege, bestselling author Stephan Talty paints a psychological portrait of this infamous icon of the 1990s. Born Vernon Howell into the hyper-masculine world of central Texas in the 1960s, Koresh experienced a childhood riven with abuse and isolation. He found a new version of himself in the halls of his local church, and love in the fundamentalist sect of the Branch Davidians. Later, with a new name and professed prophetic powers, Koresh ushered in a new era for the Davidians that prized his own sexual conquest as much as his followers' faith. As one survivor has said, \"What better way for a worthless child to feel worth than to become God?\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn his signature immersive storytelling, Talty reveals how Koresh's fixation on holy war, which would deliver the Davidians to their reward and confirm himself as Christ, collided with his paranoid obsession with firearms to destructive effect. Their deadly, 51-day standoff with the embattled FBI and ATF, he shows, embodied an anti-government ethic that continues to resonate today.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNow, thirty years after that unforgettable moment, Koresh presents the tragedy at Waco--and the government mistrust it inspired--in its fullest context yet.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49513587015953,"sku":"CIN0358581281G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50468445552913,"sku":"CIN0358581281VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":53071344533777,"sku":"CIN0358581281LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0358581281.jpg?v=1751038814"},{"product_id":"good-assassin-book-stephan-talty-9781398103580","title":"The Good Assassin","description":"Before the Second World War, Herbert Cukurs was a world-famous aviator and a hero in his hometown of Riga, Latvia. 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Uncovering a little-known part of Holocaust history and telling the story of one of the most daring operations in the history of the Israeli intelligence community, The Good Assassin is a thrilling story of a forgotten monster and the twenty-year quest to bring him to justice, told by a master of narrative non-fiction.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516475613457,"sku":"GOR010886246","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49547948687633,"sku":"GOR012899711","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734999343377,"sku":"NGR9781398103580","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50379356602641,"sku":"CIN1398103586G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1398103586.jpg?v=1765620137"},{"product_id":"empire-of-blue-water-book-stephan-talty-9780743275392","title":"Empire of Blue Water","description":"Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, arrived in the New World in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. 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This is 'The County' - the 27th county of Ireland - a city cocooned in secrets, suspicion and blood feuds, where the residents will do anything to protect their own. And for Detective Absalom Kearney, this case is her one chance to prove to a community more fiercely secretive than ever, that even the most heinous of murderers can be stopped.  But as her investigation develops and the killer starts sending her cryptic messages, Absalom finds herself in a race not only to halt them but also to stop The County's residents exacting their own form of justice.   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A thrilling and fascinating adventure.\"--Caroline Alexander, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Endurance\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Bounty\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The passion and violence of the age of exploration and empire come to vivid life in this story of the legendary pirate who took on the greatest military power on earth with a ragtag bunch of renegades. 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When serial killer Marcus Flynn last haunted North Buffalo's streets, horror rippled in his wake. Though imprisoned, his legacy - and the mysterious fate of his last victim - lives on.   Now the monster who condemned innocents to death has escaped and is poised to strike again. In a city gripped by fear, homicide cop Absalom Kearney is the only one who can stop Hangman's second reign of terror.  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Though caught and imprisoned, the legacy of the 'Hangman' - and the mysterious fate of his last victim - lives on.  Homicide cop Abbie Kearney never witnessed the Hangman's reign of terror first-hand - until now. Because somewhere out there, a monster who condemned innocents to death has escaped, and he is poised to strike again.  In a city driven to its knees by fear, Abbie leads a desperate manhunt, tracking a relentless predator. As more victims are claimed, the tide of secrecy rises, and Abbie must step beyond the law in her search for the killer. 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The task before him was immense: to slip past a cordon of crack Chinese troops ringing his summer palace and, with an escort of 300, journey across the highest terrain in the world and over treacherous Himalayan passes to freedom--one step ahead of pursuing Chinese soldiers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMao Zedung, China's ruthless Communist dictator, had pinned his hopes for total Tibetan submission on controlling the impressionable Dalai Lama. So beloved was the young ruler--so identified with his country's essence--that for him to escape might mean perpetual resistance from a population unwilling to tolerate an increasingly brutal occupation. The Dalai Lama's minders sent word to the Tibetan rebels and CIA-trained guerrillas who waited on the route: \u003ci\u003e His Holiness must escape\u003c\/i\u003e--\u003ci\u003eat all costs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn many ways, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was unprepared for the epic journey awaiting him. Twenty-two years earlier, government search parties, guided by prophecies and omens, had arrived at the boy's humble peasant home and subjected the two-year-old to a series of tests. After being declared the reincarnation of Tibet's previous ruler, the boy was brought to Lhasa to learn the secrets of Buddhism and the ways of ultimate power. Forced in the ensuing two decades to cope with aching loneliness and often stifling ritual--and compelled to suppress his mischievous personality--Gyatso eventually proved himself a capable leader. But no previous Dalai Lama had ever taken on a million Communist Chinese soldiers bent on stamping out Tibetan freedom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTo keep his country's dream of independence alive by means of a government in exile, the young ruler would not only have to brave battalions of enemy soldiers and the whiteout conditions waiting on the slopes of the Himalayas' highest peaks, he'd have to overcome a different type of blindness: the na vet  intrinsic to his sheltered palace life and his position as leader of a people who considered violence deeply taboo. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis mind made up, the young Dalai Lama set off on his audacious journey to India while behind him a Chinese army rolled over Lhasa, its advance hunter patrols in fierce pursuit of the man they most coveted. The 14th's escape was an act of daring and defiance that represented Tibet's last hope, and so the world watched, transfixed, as the gentle monk's journey unfolded. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEmotionally powerful and irresistibly page-turning, \u003ci\u003eEscape from the Land of Snows\u003c\/i\u003e is simultaneously a portrait of the inhabitants of a spiritual nation forced to take up arms in defense of their ideals, and the saga of an initially childlike ruler who at first wore his monk's robes uncomfortably but was ultimately transformed by his escape into the towering figure the world knows today--a charismatic champion of free thinking and universal compassion. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51684930748689,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51684931928337,"sku":"CIN0307460959VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51842438267153,"sku":"CIN0307460959G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52960219037969,"sku":"GOR004078938","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0307460959.jpg?v=1750940952"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-stephan-talty.oembed?page=3","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}