The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History: The Story of the Monuments Men (Scholastic Focus)

The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History: The Story of the Monuments Men (Scholastic Focus)
Author: Robert M. Edsel
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2019-01-29
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1338251317

Robert M. Edsel brings the story of his #1 NYT bestseller for adults The Monuments Men to young readers for the first time in this dynamic, narrative nonfiction project packed with photos. Robert M. Edsel, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Monuments Men, brings this story to young readers for the first time in a sweeping, dynamic adventure detailing history's greatest treasure hunt.As the most destructive war in history ravaged Europe, many of the world's most cherished cultural objects were in harm's way. The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History recounts the astonishing true story of 11 men and one woman who risked their lives amidst the bloodshed of World War II to preserve churches, libraries, monuments, and works of art that for centuries defined the heritage of Western civilization. As the war raged, these American and British volunteers -- museum curators, art scholars and educators, architects, archivists, and artists, known as the Monuments Men -- found themselves in a desperate race against time to locate and save the many priceless treasures and works of art stolen by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men
Author: Robert M. Edsel
Publisher: Center Street
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2009-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1599952653

The book that serves as the basis for the acclaimed George Clooney major motion picture, The Monuments Men. At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuhrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised. In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture. Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis.

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis
Author: Robert M. Edsel
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 491
Release: 2013-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393240452

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Monuments Men: "An astonishing account of a little-known American effort to save Italy's…art during World War II." —Tom Brokaw When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. With the German army retreating up the Italian peninsula, orders came from the highest levels of the Nazi government to transport truckloads of art north across the border into the Reich. Standing in the way was General Karl Wolff, a top-level Nazi officer. As German forces blew up the magnificent bridges of Florence, General Wolff commandeered the great collections of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, later risking his life to negotiate a secret Nazi surrender with American spymaster Allen Dulles. Brilliantly researched and vividly written, the New York Times bestselling Saving Italy brings readers from Milan and the near destruction of The Last Supper to the inner sanctum of the Vatican and behind closed doors with the preeminent Allied and Axis leaders: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill; Hitler, Göring, and Himmler. An unforgettable story of epic thievery and political intrigue, Saving Italy is a testament to heroism on behalf of art, culture, and history.

The Secret

The Secret
Author: Byron Preiss
Publisher: ibooks
Total Pages: 1
Release: 2016-10-05
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN:

The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

The Oak Island Mystery

The Oak Island Mystery
Author: Patricia Fanthorpe
Publisher: Dundurn
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2012-03-10
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1459701062

The Oak Island mystery has been the world’s greatest and strangest treasure hunt, and after years of research the authors have finally solved the sinister with an answer that is challenging, controversial, and disturbing. In 1795 three boys discovered the top of an ancient shaft on uninhabited Oak Island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The boys began to dig, and what they uncovered started the world’s greatest and strangest treasure hunt but nobody knows what the treasure is. Two hundred years of courage, back-breaking effort, ingenuity, and engineering skills have failed to retrieve what is concealed there. Theories of what the treasure could be include Captain Kidd’s bloodstained pirate gold, an army payroll left by the French or British military engineers, priceless ancient manuscripts, the body of an Arif or other religious refugee leader, or the lost treasure of the Templars. The Oak Island curse prophesies that the treasure will not be found until seven men are dead and the last oak has fallen. That last oak has already gone, and six treasure hunters have been killed. After years of research, the authors have finally solved the sinister riddle of Oak Island, but their answer is challenging, controversial, and disturbing. Something beyond price still lies waiting in the labyrinth.

Treasure Hunt

Treasure Hunt
Author: Peter Earle
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2008-07-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780312380397

"By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, treasure hunting had become a professional occupation, with a new breed of diver emerging. Much of their time was spent salvaging the wrecks of English and Dutch East-Indiamen carrying treasure to finance business in Asia. Ever since, men have been prepared to risk life and fortune in the search for underwater riches."--BOOK JACKET.

Guide to the World's Greatest Treasures

Guide to the World's Greatest Treasures
Author: Michael Bradley
Publisher: Sterling
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008-08
Genre: Antiquities
ISBN: 9781402763090

Join some of the world's greatest explorers on a treasure hunt which crisscrosses the globe.

The Hunt for History

The Hunt for History
Author: Nathan Raab
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501198920

Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity. A box uncovered in a Maine attic with twenty letters written by Alexander Hamilton; a handheld address to Congress by President George Washington; a long-lost Gold Medal that belonged to an American President; a note that Winston Churchill wrote to his captor when he was a young POW in South Africa; paperwork signed and filled out by Amelia Earhart when she became the first woman to fly the Atlantic; an American flag carried to the moon and back by Neil Armstrong; an unpublished letter written by Albert Einstein, discussing his theory of relativity. Each day, people from all over the world contact Nathan Raab for help understanding what they have, what it might be worth, and how to sell it. The Raab Collection’s president, Nathan is a modern-day treasure hunter and one of the world’s most prominent dealers of historical artifacts. Most weeks, he travels the country, scours auctions, or fields phone calls and emails from people who think they may have found something of note in a grandparent’s attic. In The Hunt for History, “Raab takes us on a wild hunt and deliciously opens up numerous hidden crevices of history” (Jay Winik, author of April 1865)—spotting a letter from British officials that secured the Rosetta Stone; discovering a piece of the first electric cable laid by Edison; restoring a fragmented letter from Andrew Jackson that led to the infamous Trail of Tears; and locating copies of missing audio that had been recorded on Air Force One as the plane brought JFK’s body back to Washington. Whether it’s the first report of Napoleon’s death or an unpublished letter penned by Albert Einstein to a curious soldier, every document and artifact Raab uncovers comes with a spellbinding story—and often offers new insights into a life we thought we knew.

The Rape of Europa

The Rape of Europa
Author: Lynn H. Nicholas
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2009-12-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307739724

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award The real story behind the major motion picture The Monuments Men. The cast of characters includes Hitler and Goering, Gertrude Stein and Marc Chagall--not to mention works by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso. And the story told in this superbly researched and suspenseful book is that of the Third Reich's war on European culture and the Allies' desperate effort to preserve it. From the Nazi purges of "Degenerate Art" and Goering's shopping sprees in occupied Paris to the perilous journey of the Mona Lisa from Paris and the painstaking reclamation of the priceless treasures of liberated Italy, The Rape of Europa is a sweeping narrative of greed, philistinism, and heroism that combines superlative scholarship with a compelling drama.

The Curse of Oak Island

The Curse of Oak Island
Author: Randall Sullivan
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2018-12-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802189059

An in-depth look into the history of a Canadian island rumored to hold buried treasure and of centuries of failed attempts to claim the riches. Updated with new material from the author In 1795, a teenager discovered a mysterious circular depression in the ground on Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada, and ignited rumors of buried treasure. Early excavators uncovered a clay-lined shaft containing layers of soil interspersed with wooden platforms, but when they reached a depth of ninety feet, water poured into the shaft and made further digging impossible. Since then, the mystery of Oak Island’s “Money Pit” has enthralled generations of treasure hunters, including a Boston insurance salesman whose obsession ruined him; a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and film star Errol Flynn. Perplexing discoveries have ignited explorers’ imaginations: a flat stone inscribed in code; a flood tunnel draining from a man-made beach; a torn scrap of parchment; stone markers forming a huge cross. Swaths of the island were bulldozed looking for answers; excavation attempts have claimed two lives. Theories abound as to what’s hidden on Oak Island–pirates’ treasure, Marie Antoinette’s lost jewels, the Holy Grail, proof that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays–yet to this day, the Money Pit remains an enigma. The Curse of Oak Island is a fascinating account of the strange, rich history of the island and the intrepid treasure hunters who have driven themselves to financial ruin, psychotic breakdowns, and even death in pursuit of answers. And as Michigan brothers Marty and Rick Lagina become the latest to attempt to solve the mystery, as documented on the History Channel’s television show The Curse of Oak Island, Sullivan takes readers along to follow their quest firsthand. Praise for The Curse of Oak Island “Sullivan writes with open-minded balance, rendering the Oak Island story into a weirdly fascinating mystery.” —Booklist “A definitive read for fans of the History Channel television show. Sullivan delves deeper into the history, personalities, and theories presented only briefly on the show. . . . The book is incredibly well researched and the presentation . . . is very readable. If you’ve watched The Curse of Oak Island and were frustrated that snippets and possibilities were left tantalizingly unexplored, this is the book for you.” —Heather Cover, Homewood Library (Birmingham, Alabama) “Sullivan isn’t writing about Oak Island the TV show; his subject is Oak Island the place, largely as seen and imagined by the show’s viewers. So, if you’ve ever been more entranced by the show’s long trips into history and theoretical island encounters across history, Sullivan’s book probably needs to be on your Christmas list.” —Starcasm