The Eve Of Destruction

Of all the changes that have swept across America in the past century, perhaps none have been as swift or dramatic as those that transpired in the 1960s. The United States entered the decade still flush with postwar triumphalism, but left it profoundly changed: shaken by a disastrous foreign war and unhinged by domestic social revolutions and countercultural movements that would define the nation’s character, politics, and policies for decades to come. The prevailing understanding of the 1960s traces its powerful shockwaves to 1968, a year of violent protests and tragic assassinations. But in The First Year of the Sixties, esteemed historian James T. Patterson shows that it was actually in 1965 that America truly turned a corner and entered the new, tumultuous era we now know as “The Sixties.” In the early 1960s, America seemed on the cusp of a golden age. Political liberalism, national prosperity, and interracial civil rights activism promised positive change for many Americans. Although the nation had been shocked by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, America’s fundamental traditions and mores remained intact. It was a time of consensus and optimism, and popular culture reflected this continuity. Young people dressed and behaved almost exactly as they did in the 1950s, and if the music and hairstyles of the British Invasion worried some conservative parents, these concerns were muted. At the beginning of 1965, Americans saw no indication that the new year would be any different. In January, President Johnson proclaimed that the country had “no irreconcilable conflicts.” Initially, events seemed to prove him right. The economy continued to boom, and the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress passed a host of historic liberal legislation, from the Voting Rights Act to Medicare and Medicaid to expansions of federal aid for education and the war on poverty. But Patterson shows that, even amidst these reassuring developments, American unity was unraveling. Turmoil erupted in the American South and overseas in the spring of 1965, with state troopers attacking civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama and American combat troops rushing into Vietnam to protect American interests there. Many black leaders, meanwhile, were becoming disenchanted with nonviolence, and began advocating instead for African-American militancy. That summer, as anti-war protests reached a fever pitch, rioting exploded in the Watts area of Los Angeles; the six days of looting and fires that followed shocked many Americans and cooled their enthusiasm for the president’s civil rights initiatives, which—like his other “Great Society” programs—were also being steadily undermined by the costly and unpopular war in Vietnam. Conservative counterattacks followed, with Republicans like California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan—and even some disillusioned Democrats—criticizing the President for mismanaging the war and expanding the federal government past its manageable limits. As Patterson explains, this growing pessimism permeated every level of society. By the end of 1965 the national mood itself had darkened, as reflected in a new strain of anti-establishment rock music by artists like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane. Their songs and lyrics differed dramatically from the much more staid recordings of contemporary acts like Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews, and the Supremes, reflecting an alienation from mainstream American culture shared by an increasing number of young Americans. In The First Year of the Sixties, James T. Patterson traces the transformative events of this critical year, showing how 1965 saw an idealistic and upbeat nation derailed by developments both at home and abroad. An entire generation of Americans—as well as the country&r

Class is in, but Evangeline Hollis is struggling to get through the requisite training to be a full-fledged Mark. When her class goes on a field trip to an abandoned military base, passing the course isn't just a matter of pride...it's a matter of life and death. There's a demon hidden among them, killing off Eve's classmates one by one. In Eve of Destruction, as the body count mounts, a ragtag team of cable TV ghost hunters unwittingly stumbles into the carnage. Now keeping the Mark system secret competes with the need to keep the "paranormal researchers" alive. With Cain on assignment and Abel on an investigation, Eve must fly solo on her hunt to stop a killer before he strikes again. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Eve Erixour is a mercenary with a past no one would envy and more enemies than anyone should have. Death stalks her relentlessly. So when she gains the attention of a League assassin, she considers it par for the course. But Jinx Shadowbourne isn’t after Eve. Someone has it in for him and his brethren. High-ranking assassins are falling, and Jinx is convinced one of their own is selling them out. He’s on the trail of his key suspect when fate throws him headfirst into Eve’s life. Now the two of them have to find the League leak and plug it or neither one of them will live to face another enemy, and the ones they love, and the universe at large, will be left alone to face a power-crazed madman.

"Though the story takes place in the '80s, it feels eerily timely."—Bustle Arkansas, 1984: The town of Griffin Flat is known for almost nothing other than its nuclear missile silos. MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction—is a fear every local lives with and tries to ignore. Unfortunately that’s impossible now that film moguls have picked Griffin Flat as the location for a new nuclear holocaust movie, aptly titled The Eve of Destruction. When sixteen-year-old Laura Ratliff wins a walk-on role (with a plus-one!) thanks to a radio call-in contest, she is more relieved than excited. Mingling with Hollywood stars on the set of a phony nuclear war is a perfect distraction from being the only child in her real nuclear family—which has also been annihilated. Her parents are divorced, and her mother has recently remarried. Her father, an officer in the Strategic Air Command, is absent . . . except when he phones at odd hours to hint at an impending catastrophe. But isn’t that his job? Laura’s only real friend is her new stepbrother, Terrence. She picks him as her plus-one for the film shoot, enraging her fair-weather friends. But their anger is nothing compared to what happens on set after the scripted nuclear explosion. Because nobody seems to know if a real nuclear bomb has detonated or not.

On October 6, 1973—Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar—the Arab world launched a bold and ingeniously conceived surprise attack against Israel. After three days of intense, bloody combat, an unprepared Israel was fighting for survival, while the Arabs, with massive forces closing in on the Jewish heartland, were poised to redeem the honor lost in three previous wars. Based on declassified Israeli government documents and revealing interviews with soldiers, generals, and intelligence operatives on both sides of the conflict, The Eve of Destruction weaves a suspenseful, eye-opening story of war, politics, and deception. It also tells the moving human tale of the men and women who fought to maintain love and honor as their lives and destinies were swept up in the Yom Kippur War.

'It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered' - US President Harry S. Truman Truman evidently understood the terrifying power of atomic weaponry, but no one could have realised its full potential when he ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Those military attacks, along with the disasters at the Fukashima and Chernobyl nuclear reactors, might immediately spring to mind at the mention of nuclear destruction, but the vast majority of the events recorded in this book are entirely unknown to most people. This book records the facts - many of them still shrouded in secrecy - which show a worrying truth: we have teetered precariously on the brink of Armageddon far more frequently than the general public realises. Since that first and last atomic war in 1945, there have been a terrifying number of nuclear accidents and mishaps, from the careless or accidental to the genuinely intentional and only narrowly averted. Despite the catastrophic nature of any nuclear conflict, we have come to the very borders of such a situation ten times since the 1960s. Most people know about the Cuba Missile Crisis, and a few about Operation Able Archer in 1984, which, if anything, was even more frightening than Cuba, but there have been eight other occasions that might easily have toppled over into outright war. These were potential conflicts; but there have been other accidents, such as the reactor meltdown at the nuclear generating plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979, or the 'Palomares Incident' in 1966, when a USAF B-52 bomber crashed after a mid-air collision, dropping four hydrogen bombs on Spanish soil . . . Eve of Destruction is a warning from history - recent history. It is a call to sit up and listen, and to take note of the very real danger of nuclear catastrophe. It is a timely and important book because, after all, the future of our planet has to concern us all.

As I mingled among my fellow graduates, my view of the future did not extend much beyond the following day, when I would be heading to the beach. College in the fall was too far in the future to contemplate now. The only days that held relevance were the next ninety-nine, which would fashion what I hoped to be my best summer yet. So begins The Eve of Destruction, David Dickey's coming-of-age tale about the summer of 1965, a tranquil time when the country rested unwittingly on the brink of a cultural revolution. Follow eighteen-year-old Dane, Woody, and the crew around their Southern California neighborhoods as they experience the ups and downs of friendship and young love, and wrestle with some of life's basal choices. Join them on misadventures and general teenage mischief as they seek revelry and endure summer jobs. With music, cars, and popular culture of the decade woven into the backdrop, The Eve of Destruction is a nostalgic story about the 1960's and a worthy ode to the Boomer generation.

Magneto rules Genosha! And he'll cross any line to forge it into the mutant utopia he craves - including taking on the Avengers! Meanwhile, Phoenix and Iceman are recruited into a time-hopping mission through the X-Men's history - and Beast finally discovers a cure for the Legacy virus! But saving millions requires one fi nal sacrifice, and soon the team will mourn the loss of a beloved friend. Elsewhere, Cyclops has resurfaced, still conjoined with Apocalypse! Can Phoenix and Cable save his soul? And when Magneto finally decides to strike, can the X-Men - scattered by recent events - somehow scrape together an all-new team powerful enough to defeat their greatest foe? COLLECTING: MAGNETO: DARK SEDUCTION 1-4; UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) 390-393, ANNUAL 2000; X-MEN (1991) 110-113; X-MEN FOREVER (2001) 1-6; X-MEN: DECLASSIFIED 1; X-MEN UNLIMITED (1993) 30-33; X-MEN: THE SEARCH FOR CYCLOPS 1-4