One Woman's Army, by Janis Karpinski with Steven Strasser

One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story, by Janis Karpinski with Steven Strasser
Miramax Books, 2005
242 pages. No index. 8 pages of color photos

Description
When Janos Karpinski first saw the photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, she felt the walls of her Baghdad office closing in on her. She recognized that the soldiers shown grinning over the naked, cowering Iraqi detainees served under her command. Military justice had already had swept up the seven MPs charged in the abuse case - and Karpinski soon learned that the system was about to turn on her.

Here is the inside story of the first female general ever to comman troops in a combat zone, and of how the scandal destroyed her career. It traces the rise of a groundbreaking woman from the Republican suburbs of New Jersey to a commanding position in a man's army.

Karpinski earned her general's insignia as a master parachutist, recipient of the Bronze Star in the first Gulf WAr,, and as the leader chosen for a special mission to train Arab women as a fighting force in the Middle East.

In Iraq, Karpinski and her 3,400 US soldiers faced the biggest challenge of all: rebuilding a civilian prison system left in shambles by SAddam Hussein. She describes the ordeal of serving in a violent landscape populated by US commanders flailing at a growing insurgency, and by the specter of the captive Saddam, who showed surprise at meeting a female general and refused to believe that Karpinski could be in charge of his incarceration. In the end, Karpinski accepts her share of responsibility for the abuses, but raises a larger question: why was she the most prominent target of the investigations?

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The photos
2. Saddam's torture palace
3. Adventurse with George
4. This woman's army
5. Playing with little guns
6. It's okay, I can suffer
7. Fort Bragg: Headquarters of machismo
8. Janis of Arabia
9. The Weekend Warrior
10. Gulf War I
11. Our very own chocolate chips
12. Get me an airplane, I'm going to Iraq
13. The Road to Baghdad
14. These are prisoners, Janis
15. The Incarceration cowboys
16. Actionable intelligence
17. Taking the Gloves off

Amelia Earhart, by Kathleen C. Winters

Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon, by Kathleen C. Winters
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
216 pages plus references, bibliography and index
Library: B EARHA,A

Description
When Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during an attempted around-the-world flight, she was at the height of her fame: Adored by the public, she counted celebrities and politicians among her many friends and was idolized by women across the globe. She remains a fondly remembered object of fascination today, as her mysterious disappearance continues to inspire fevered speculation and regular attempts to locate her crash site.

This nuanced and often surprising biography by acclaimed aviation historian Kathleen C. winters moves beyong the caricature of the spunky, preternaturally gifted pilot to give us a more complex portrait of Earhart.

Drawing on a wealth of interviews, flight records, and other extensive new evidence, this book traces Amelia's unconventional childhood as the daughter of a spendthrift railroad lawyer and recounts her growing passion for aviation, her rocky first flights, and the remarkable series of events that transformed her into a household name almost overnight.

It shows us a spirited adventuress and flawed heroine who was frequently reckless and lacked basic navigation skills, but who was also a canny manipulator of mass media. Even as other spectacular pilots went unnoticed by the public, Earhart and her husband - the publisher and impresario George Putnam-worked to establish her as an international celebrity, devising ever-more daring stants that culminated in her infamous last flight. Sympathetic yet unsentimental, and filled with gripping accounts of Earhart's exploits, this biography helps us to see a global icon with fresh eyes.

Bold Spirit, by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America, by Linda Lawrence Hunt
University of Idaho Press, 2003
260 pages, plus Notes, Bibliography and Index. B&W photos and illustrations scattered thoughout the book
Library: 973.87092 HUN


Description
Desperate. Determined. Unwaveringly confident. In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant named Helga Estby dares to cross 3500 miles of the American continent to win a $10,000 wager. On foot.

A mother of eight living children, she attempts to save her family's homestead in Eastern Washington after after the 1893 depression had ravaged the American economy. Fearing homelessness and family poverty, Helga responds to a wager from a mysterious sponsor, casts off the cultural corsets of Victorian femininity, and gambles her family's future by striking out with her eldest daughter, Clara, to try to be the first women to travel unescorted across the country: independent, audacious, alert, and armed with a Smith-and-Wesson revolver.

Leaving with only five dollars each and dressed in full-length skirts, they follow the railroads east as newspapers chronicle their adventures. Using wits, savvy, and guns to survive snowstorms, hunger, mountain lions, and the occasional thief, they visit Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, governors, mining towns, remote ranchers, politicians, and even President-elect William McKinley.

Accomplishing what was assumed impossible for women, they arrive in New York heralded by the city's popular newspapers for their astonishing achievement. But deep disappointment, betrayal, and heartbreaking news from home cause the remarkable story to become silenced among their family and friends.

Almost a century later, author Linda Hunt recreates Helga Estby's story in Bold Spirit: her culture and time, her abiding love of America, her resilient faith, and her challenge to Victorian constraints as she lived on the transitional edge of a new century of possibilities and of changing beliefs about women.

For many modern readers, enduring questions remain about what happens when stories go unspoken among us and what keeps family stories alive. Helga's is a rag-rug history, woven from discarded remnants and submerged details, a once-forgotten saga that sheds insight into women's history, and demonstrates the tenacious spirit of the human will.

Table of Contents
Foreword by Sue Armitage
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. On Foot to New York
2. Motherhood on a Minnesota Prairie
3. The Crucible Years
4. Surprises in Spokane Falls
5. Frontier Vices and the Move to Mica Creek
6. Financial Fears and a Family Death
7. The Wager
8. Undaunted by Rain, Sleet and Snow
9. Hot, Hungry and Hopeful
10. Night Terrors
11. "New Women's" Actions and Old Victorian Attitudes
12. An Electrifying Presidential Election
13. Earning their Own Way
14. A Rush to the Finish
15. The Impossible Happens
16. Heartbreak at the Mica Creek Homestead
17. Homeward Bound
18. Lost and Found
A reflection on the silencing of family stories
Notes
Bibliography
Index