The First Wave

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of Against All Odds, returns with an utterly immersive, adrenaline-driven account of D-Day combat. “Meet the assaulters: pathfinders plunging from the black, coxswains plowing the whitecaps, bareknuckle Rangers scaling sheer rock . . . Fast-paced and up close, this is history’s greatest story reinvigorated as only Alex Kershaw can.”—Adam Makos, New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead and A Higher Call Beginning in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, The First Wave follows the remarkable men who carried out D-Day’s most perilous missions. The charismatic, unforgettable cast includes the first American paratrooper to touch down on Normandy soil; the glider pilot who braved antiaircraft fire to crash-land mere yards from the vital Pegasus Bridge; the brothers who led their troops onto Juno Beach under withering fire; as well as a French commando, returning to his native land, who fought to destroy German strongholds on Sword Beach and beyond. Readers will experience the sheer grit of the Rangers who scaled Pointe du Hoc and the astonishing courage of the airborne soldiers who captured the Merville Gun Battery in the face of devastating enemy counterattacks. The first to fight when the stakes were highest and the odds longest, these men would determine the fate of the invasion of Hitler’s fortress Europe—and the very history of the twentieth century. The result is an epic of close combat and extraordinary heroism. It is the capstone Alex Kershaw’s remarkable career, built on his close friendships with D-Day survivors and his intimate understanding of the Normandy battlefield. For the seventy-fifth anniversary, here is a fresh take on World War II's longest day. Praise for The First Wave: “Masterful... readers will feel the sting of the cold surf, smell the acrid cordite that hung in the air, and duck the zing of machine-gun bullets whizzing overhead. The First Wave is an absolute triumph.”—James M. Scott, bestselling author of Target Tokyo “These pages ooze with the unforgettable human drama of history's most consequential invasion.”—John C. McManus, author of The Dead and Those About to Die

Why did the world's nations fight the Covid-19 pandemic in such different ways and with such varying results?

With the world distracted by war, the secret organization the Golden Tree plans on taking over and Doc Savage joins forces with the Spirit, Batman, and others in trying to stop it.

Based on extensive interviews and archival material, The First Wave tells the story of the opposition in Singapore in its critical first thirty years in Parliament. Democratisation has been described to occur in waves. The first wave of a democratic awakening in post-independence Singapore began with J. B. Jeyaretnam’s victory in the Anson by-election of 1981. That built up to the 1984 general election, the first of many to be called a “watershed”, in which Chiam See Tong was also elected in Potong Pasir. After their successes in 1991, the opposition began dreaming of forming the government. But their euphoria was short-lived. Serious fault lines in the leading Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rose to the surface almost immediately after the opposition victories of 1991, and the party was wiped out of Parliament by 1997. The opposition spent the next decade experimenting with coalition arrangements, to work their way back to victory.

The European maritime explorers who first visited the bays and beaches of Australia brought with them diverse assumptions about the inhabitants of the country, most of them based on sketchy or non-existent knowledge, contemporary theories like the idea of the noble savage, and an automatic belief in the superiority of European civilisation. Mutual misunderstanding was almost universal, whether it resulted in violence or apparently friendly transactions. Written for a general audience, The First Wave brings together a variety of contributions from thought-provoking writers, including both original research and creative work. Our contributors explore the dynamics of these early encounters, from Indigenous cosmological perspectives and European history of ideas, from representations in art and literature to the role of animals, food and fire in mediating first contact encounters, and Indigenous agency in exploration and shipwrecks. The First Wave includes poetry by Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal poet Ali Cobby Eckermann, fiction by Miles Franklin award-winning Noongar author Kim Scott and Danielle Clode, and an account of the arrival of Christian missionaries in the Torres Strait Islands by Torres Strait political leader George Mye.

The enduring cultural phenomenon of comic book heroes was invented in the late 1930s by a talented and hungry group of artists and writers barely out of their teens, flying by the seat of their pants to create something new, exciting, and above all profitable. The iconography and mythology they created flourishes to this day in comic books, video, movies, fine art, advertising, and practically all other media. Supermen! collects the best and the brightest of this first generation, including Jack Cole, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Lou Fine, Fletcher Hanks, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Basil Wolverton.

A romance novel of two infectious disease physicians that travel the world fighting the pandemic. They suffer trauma and experience around the world while trying to have a romantic relationship that is plagued by their past experiences and the trial and tribulations of life during a pandemic.

On 12 March 2020 Manitoba confirmed its first case of COVID-19. One week later, a province-wide state of emergency was declared, ushering in a new sense of urgency and rarely used government powers to protect Manitobans from the devastating global reach of the novel coronavirus. The wide-ranging impacts of the pandemic have touched every facet of Manitoba society and provincial responsibility, including health, economic development, social services, and government operations. COVID-19 has challenged the conventional policy-making process––complicating agenda setting and policy formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation––while governments have been under pressure to make swift decisions in life-and-death matters. New programs must address urgent and shifting health and economic realities, but also anticipate future waves of COVID-19 and potentially significant repercussions for future governments. "COVID-19 in Manitoba: Public Policy Responses to the First Wave" seeks to understand how Manitoba fared during the first months of the pandemic, with twenty-seven chapters that address key aspects of the pandemic and discuss how government policy can help lay the foundation for resiliency in the midst a continuing public-health crisis. This open-access volume is an essential resource for citizens and policy-makers alike, as it identifies policy gaps and successes of Manitoba’s early COVID response and points to strategies to prepare for future waves of the pandemic.