A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair

By Paul Foos,

Book cover of A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War

Book description

The dark side of Manifest Destiny; The Mexican-American War (1846-48) found Americans on new terrain. A republic founded on the principle of armed defense of freedom was now going to war on behalf of Manifest Destiny, seeking to conquer an unfamiliar nation and people. Through an examination of rank-and-file soldiers,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I hate books that make history bloodless and gloss over the often-ugly events that made the world what it is today. This is a short book with a lot of emotional energy, mostly in the form of burning outrage and irony.

I also really enjoyed how he made the voices of the American soldiers the central part of this book.

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Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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