Best History Books

Readers of Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think seeking engagement for all reading groups can gain further insight with this essential resource as a guide to aid your discussions. New York Times bestselling book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think is written by the global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling. He defines factfulness as 'the stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.' In Factfulness, Rosling, a Professor of International Health, offers a radically new explanation to the simple questions about global trends. He explains why this happens. He also reveals the ten instincts that collectively distort our perspective. Bill Gates says that Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think is "one of the most important books I've ever read." Gates says that this book is "an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world." In this comprehensive look into Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, you'll be equipped to prepare with the following: Discussion aid which includes a wealth of prompts and information Overall plot synopsis and author biography Thought-provoking discussion questions for a deeper examination Creative exercises to foster alternate "if this was you" discussions And much more! Note to readers: This is a companion guide based on Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. This is meant to enhance and aid your reading experience, not to replace it. We strongly encourage you to purchase the original book before purchasing this unofficial companion guide.

Here is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power. Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince . . . a king . . . a president. When, in 1512, Machiavelli was removed from his post in his beloved Florence, he resolved to set down a treatis...

Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979the year the book appearedAmericans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his ...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, NonFiction, Geography, History, International lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever the man who, in simulated airtoair combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft the F15 and F16. Sti...

James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. In the era of Trump, what can we learn from his struggle"Searing, provocative, and ultimately hopeful . . . Begin Again challenges, illuminates, and points us toward if not a more perfect union then at least a more just on...

A bank of clouds was assembling on the notsodistant horizon, but journalistmountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless moreincluding Krakauer'sin guiltridden disarray, would also pro...

Pulitzer Prizewinning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.In the first fulllength biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scanda...

By the author of "The Sign and the Seal". This book describes the quest for the whereabouts, nature and few surviving traces of a lost civilization that was destroyed long ago and obliterated from human memory, long before any of the cultures of historical antiquity rose to prominence. While Hancock does not believe that this civilization was Atlan...

Hardly a week passes without some highprofile court case that features intellectual property at its center. But how did the belief that one could own an idea come about And how did that belief change the way humankind lives and works William Rosen, author of Justinian's Flea, seeks to answer these questions and more with The Most Powerful Idea i...

The Road to Wigan Pier authored by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was an autobiographical novel by the author written in those days of his life that we say struggling days. He was moving around from one city to the other and it were those days when he left his job at the Booklovers' Corner. A photograph taken by the esteemed photographer 'Ceridw...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, NonFiction, Philosophy, Technology, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, Leadership, NonFiction, Philosophy, Business lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

James Boswell was a prominent Scottish biographer, lawyer, and diarist during the late 18th century. Boswell wrote many books and his biography on the great English writer Samuel Johnson is one of the greatest ever written. The Life of Samuel Johnson was published in 1791 and was highly influential in the development of the modern biography....

Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated ...

Each chapter of Creasy's strategy book dissects a different battle. The fifteen chapters are: I THE BATTLE OF MARATHONII DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE, B.C. 413III THE BATTLE OF ARBELA, B.C. 331IV THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS, B.C. 207V VICTORY OF ARMINIUS OVER THE ROMAN LEGIONS UNDER VARUS, A.D. 9VI THE BATTLE OF CHALONS, A.D. 451V...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, NonFiction, American, History, Politics lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of one of the most brilliantly organized social justice campaigns in history the fight to free the slaves of the British Empire. In early 1787, twelve men a printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slavery came together in...

There was a time, not too long ago, when the typewriter and notebook ruled, and the computer as an everyday tool was simply a vision. Revolution in the Valley traces this vision back to its earliest roots: the hallways and backrooms of Apple, where the groundbreaking Macintosh computer was born. The book traces the development of the Macintosh, fro...

This downanddirty romp through Hollywood in the 1970s introduces the young filmmakersCoppola, Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, Altman, and Beattyand recreates an era that transformed American culture forever....

In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26yearold Ernst Gombrich was invited by a publishing acquaintance to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

The works of James Baldwin constitute one of the major contributions to American literature in the twentieth century, and nowhere is this more evident than in The Price of the Ticket, a compendium of nearly fifty years of Baldwin's powerful nonfiction writing. With truth and insight, these personal, prophetic works speak to the heart of the experie...

New York Times Bestseller Edgar Award winner for Best Fact CrimeThe Day of the Locust meets The Devil in the White City and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this juicy, untold Hollywood story: an addictive true tale of ambition, scandal, intrigue, murder, and the creation of the modern film industry.By 1920, the movies had suddenly become...

A vibrant celebration of President Obama, this perfect commemorative book provides a valuable record of his historical presidency. In January 2017, Barack Obama concluded two terms of his historic presidency. Through stunning images by White House photographers and beyond, as well as notable essays and quotes from a broad spectrum of people, Obama ...

From the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Black Flags, the thrilling unknown story of America's mission in Syria: to find and destroy Syria's chemical weapons and keep them out of the hands of the Islamic StateIn August 2012, Syrian president Bashar alAssad was clinging to power in a vicious civil war. When secret intelligence revealed that the di...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, NonFiction, Philosophy, History, Politics lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

An astonishing work of cultural criticism, this book is widely recognized as a brilliant and devastating challenge to conventional views of literature, anthropology, religion, and psychoanalysis. In its scope and itnerest it can be compared with Freud's Totem and Taboo, the subtext Girard refutes with polemic daring, vast erudition, and a persuasiv...

William Lee Miller?s ethical biography is a fresh, engaging telling of the story of Lincoln?s rise to power. Through careful scrutiny of Lincoln?s actions, speeches, and writings, and of accounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into the moral development of a great politician ? one who made the choice to go into politics, and ultim...

These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire. Selected from Plutarch's Roman Lives, they include prominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles in Roman history, such as sold...

In the last sixty years, Israel has faced seven different wars. During that time, the country has been under immense scrutiny and been the recipient of false accusations. This leaves the public with many questions: Does Israel want peace with the Arab nations How do Islamic views affect IsraelUsing a number of sources, Mitchell G. Bard uncovers I...

In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. Praised as "a miracle of readability and scholarly authority," (Jonathan Mirsky) The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history....

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten millionall the while shrewdly c...

The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeill challenges the SpenglerToynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history....

In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later, it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutionsThis is the story ...

A sweeping and original work of economic history by Michael Lind, one of Americas leading intellectuals, Land of Promise recounts the epic story of Americas rise to become the worlds dominant economy. As ideological free marketers continue to square off against Keynesians in Congress and the press, economic policy remains at the center of political...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNew York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2015New York Times: Dwight Garner?s Best Books of 2015Washington Post: 10 Best Books of 2015Los Angeles Times: 31 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015Marie Claire: Best Books of 2015Vanity Fair: Best Book Gifts of 2015At once incendiary and icy, mischievous and provocative, celebratory and el...

?Think the Gucci name is all about logos and loafers This gripping book about the empire and murder of Maurizio Gucci...reveals the ugly truth behind fashion?s most fabulous family.??GlamourNamed one of the best books of the year by the Economist, House Of Gucci tells the remarkable story of the power of the Gucci Dynasty and their famed luxury go...

Packed With Magnificent Material On Southern California's Galaxy of Person Alities, This Book Provides Insights Into Subjects Ranging From The Origins Hollywood To The Flowering of InternationalStyle Architecture,. and It Does That By Looking At Personalities As Diverse As Helen Hunt Jackson To Aimee Semple McPherson, Huntington The Finan Cier To ...

You can't spell truth without Ruth.Only Ruth Bader Ginsburg can judge me.The Ruth will set you free.Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame?she was just trying to make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer's searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. Notorious ...

Now a special 30thanniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put down."Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the s...

Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous. The Times (London)Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentiethcentury magic called the planned economy, which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism cou...

In 1859, Bernhard Riemann, a littleknown thirtytwo year old mathematician, made a hypothesis while presenting a paper to the Berlin Academy titled ?On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity.? Today, after 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, the Riemann Hypothesis remains unsolved, with a onemilliondollar prize ea...

A biography of the only president to be elected to nonconsecutive terms reveals a tough, honest, courageous leader who took responsibility for his actions and wasn't afraid to take on corruption where he saw it....

In this vivid narrative, Pulitzer Prize?winning historian Alan Taylor tells the riveting story of a war that redefined North America. In the early nineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution. In this second confrontation, soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians fought to determine ...

The neverbeforetold story of the computer scientists and the NSA, Pentagon, and White House policymakers who invented and employ the wars of the present and future the cyber wars where every country can be a major power player and every hacker a mass destroyer, as reported by a Pulitzer Prizewinning security and defense journalist.In June 1983...

The Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea for over 60 years. Most of that period has found the country suffering under mature Stalinism characterized by manipulation, brutality and tight social control. Nevertheless, some citizens of Kim Jong Il's regime manage to transcend his tyranny in their daily existence. This book describes that difficult but f ...

Few stories from the "greatest generation" are as unforgettable or as little known as that of the 10th Mountain Division. Today a versatile light infantry unit deployed around the world, the 10th began in 1941 as a crew of civilian athletes with a passion for mountains and snow. In this vivid history, adventure writer Peter Shelton follows th...

"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C." H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion) Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning new analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an allout and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. F...

Secret conversations at Hitler's headquarters from July 1941 to November 1944 were all recorded for posterity. This book documents those conversations where Hitler talked freely of his aims, his early life, and his plans for world conquest....

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, History, American, Revolutions lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

In this lavishly illustrated book bestselling author Christopher Winn takes you on a captivating journey around London. Travelling through the villages and districts that made up the world's must dynamic metropolis, I Never Knew That About London unearths the hidden gems of legends, firsts, inventions, adventures and birthplaces that shape the city...

Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the crosscurrents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wideranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the int...

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Paris was known for isolated monuments but had not yet put its brand on urban space. Like other European cities, it was still emerging from its medieval past. But in a mere century Paris would be transformed into the modern and mythic city we know today.Though most people associate the signature characte...

The French Revolution is an historical event unlike any other. It is more than just a topic of intellectual interest: it has become part of a moral and political heritage. But after two centuries, this central event in French history has usually been thought of in much the same terms as it was by its contemporaries. There have been many accounts of...

To this day, Japan's modern ascendancy challenges many assumptions about world history, particularly theories regarding the rise of the west and why the modern world looks the way it does. In this engaging new history, Brett L. Walker tackles key themes regarding Japan's relationships with its minorities, state and economic development, and the use...

A graphic adaptation of a 100yearold diary brings World War I history to lifeOne winter morning, Barroux was walking down a street in Paris when he made an extraordinary find: the real diary of a soldier in World War I. Barroux rescued the diary from the trash and illustrated the soldier's words. In this striking black and white graphic novel ad...

William Shakespeare lived at a remarkable time?a period we now recognize as the first phase of the Scientific Revolution. New ideas were transforming Western thought, the medieval was giving way to the modern, and the work of a few key figures hinted at the brave new world to come: the methodical and rational Galileo, the skeptical Montaigne, and?a...

"Takes readers into the maelstrom and shows nature's splendid and dangerous havoc at its utmost".October 1991. It was "the perfect storm"a tempest that may happen only once in a centurya nor'easter created by so rare a combination of factors that it could not possibly have been worse. Creating waves ten stories high and winds of 120 miles an ho...

Since its publication in 1996, Holy Land has become an American classic. In "quick, translucent prose" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times) that is at once lyrical and unsentimental, D. J. Waldie recounts growing up in Lakewood, California, a prototypical postWorld War II suburb. Laid out in 316 sections as carefully measured as a grid of tract hous...

During World War II a community called Manzanar was created in the high mountain desert country of California. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese Americans. Among them was the Wakatsuki family, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston...

With a thrilling, fastpaced narrative, awardwinning journalist Douglas Perry vividly captures the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal and gave Chicago its most famous story. The Girls of Murder City recounts two scandalous, sexfueled murder cases and how an intrepid "girl reporter" named Mau...

I couldn't play on the same playground as the white kids. I couldn't go to their schools. I couldn't drink from their water fountains. There were so many things I couldn't do. In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, thousands of African American children volunteered to march for their civil rights after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. They protes...

?[A] welljudged and hugely readable book . . . few are as entertaining.??Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times ?A. J. Baime is a master. His reporting and storytelling are woven to hypnotic effect. This is history and humanity in lush, vivid color.??Doug Stanton, author of The Odyssey of Echo Company Heroes are often defined as ordinary characters who...

For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental europe. Twentyfive years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people understand themselvesNeil MacGregor argues that, uniquely for any European country, no coherent, overarching narrative of Germany's hist...

In August 1945 Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian leaders of the Nazi regime. G.M. Gilbert, the prison psychologist, had an unrivaled firsthand opportunity to watch and question the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he encouraged Göering, Speer, Hess, ...

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first African American child to integrate a New Orleans school with this story of living legend and civil rights activist Ruby Bridges!The year is 1960, and sixyearold Ruby Bridges and her family have recently moved from Mississippi to New Orleans in search of a better life. When a judge orders Ruby to attend...

Winner of the GuggenheimLehrman Prize in Military HistoryThe Society of Military History 2015 Distinguished Book Award RecipientWinner of the Wolfson History PrizeBritish Army Military Book of the Year For Germany and AustriaHungary the First World War started with high hopes for a rapid, decisive outcome. Convinced that right was on their side a...

Based on Evan Wright's National Magazine Awardwinning story in Rolling Stone, this is the raw, firsthand account of the 2003 Iraq invasion that inspired the HBO(R) original miniseries. Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the twentythree Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into ope...

This is the story of Jane Addams, the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, who transformed a poor neighborhood in Chicago by opening up her house as a community center.This title has Common Core connections....

?During the first two months of 1917 Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later the Bolsheviks stood at the helm. They were little known to anybody when the year began, and their leaders were still under indictment for state treason when they came to power. You will not find another such sharp turn in history especially if you remember...

The former editorinchief of Details and Star adventures into the fascinating "brave new world" of cannabis, tracing its history and possible future as he investigates the social, medical, legal, and cultural ramifications of this surprisingly versatile plant.Pot. Weed. Grass. Mary Jane. We all think we know what cannabis is and what we use it for...

Through concise text and richly detailed black and white illustrations we come to know the philosophy of life and death in ancient Egypt....

Greenland: a remote, mysterious island five times the size of California but with a population of just 56,000. The ice sheet that covers it is 700 miles wide and 1,500 miles long, and is composed of nearly three quadrillion tons of ice. For the last 150 years, explorers and scientists have sought to understand Greenlandat first hoping that it wou...

Reyner Banham examined the built environment of Los Angeles in a way no architectural historian before him had done, looking with fresh eyes at its manifestations of popular taste and industrial ingenuity, as well as its more traditional modes of residential and commercial building. His construct of "four ecologies" examined the ways Angelenos rela...

In a stirring chronicle, Doreen Rappaport brings to light the courage of countless Jews who organized to sabotage the Nazis and help other Jews during the Holocaust.Under the noses of the military, Georges Loinger smuggles thousands of children out of occupied France into Switzerland. In Belgium, three resisters ambush a train, allowing scores of J...

Somme, July 1916. For almost seventy years the very name of the battle has epitomised all the horror and hardship of the First World War. There was hardly a family in the land who had not seen at least one son join up in the heady innocence and enthusiasm that swept the country in 1914. The Battle of the Somme was their baptism of fire. A hundred a...

With a postscript describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan, The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and most relentless military training in the world.What does it take to become a Navy SEAL What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep In The Warrior Elite, former N...

The Corpse Walker introduces us to regular men and women at the bottom of Chinese society, most of whom have been battered by life but have managed to retain their dignity: a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, and a Falung Gong practitioner, among others. By asking challenging questions with ...

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America...

Making use of every possible contemporary source diaries, memoirs, advice books, government papers, almanacs, even the Register of Patents Liza Picard presents an enthralling picture of how life in London was really lived in the 1600s: the houses and streets, gardens and parks, cooking, clothes and jewellery, cosmetics, hairdressing, housework,...

This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abs...

To some it's the classic "gateway drug," to others it is a harmless way to relax, or provide relief from pain. Some fear it is dangerous and addictive, while others feel it should be decriminalized. Whatever the viewpoint, cannabis incites debate at every level, and the effect it has on every corner of the globe is undeniable.In this comprehensive ...

From Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, authors of the PEN Center USA awardwinning Dallas 1963, comes a madcap narrative about Timothy Leary's daring prison escape and run from the law. On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an exHarvard professor with a genius I.Q. studies a twelvefoot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months e...

"The most important book by one of the outstanding military authorities of our time." ? Library Journal This is the classic book on war as we know it. During his long life, Basil H. Liddell Hart was considered one of the world's foremost military thinkersa man generally regarded as the "Clausewitz of the 20th century." Strategy is a seminal wor...

More American children recognize Super Mario, the hero of one of Nintendo's video games, than Mickey Mouse. The Japanese company has come to earn more money than the big three computer giants or all Hollywood movie studios combined. Now Sheff tells of the Nintendo invasiona tale of innovation and cutthroat tactics....

The dinosaurs. Sixtysix million years ago, the Earth?s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet?s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200millionyearlong story as never before.In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and ph...

In 1802, JeanFrancois Champollion was eleven years old. That year, he vowed to be the first person to read Egypt?s ancient hieroglyphs. Champollion?s dream was to sail up the Nile in Egypt and uncover the secrets of the past, and he dedicated the next twenty years to the challenge.James Rumford introduces the remarkable man who deciphered the anci...

Paul Revere's midnight ride is a legendary event in American history yet it has been largely ignored by scholars, and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious study of this event what led to it, what really happened, what followed uncovering a truth more remarkable than the ...

On April 24, 1895, Captain Joshua Slocum set out on a threeyear journey to circumnavigate the world alone by boat. Crossing the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in his sloop, the Spray, Slocum visited South Africa, South America, and Australia before returning home as the first man to successfully sail around the world solo. Slocum's memoir tells of pi...

Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London?the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee...

?David M. Potter?s magisterial The Impending Crisis is the single best account to date of the coming of the Civil War.? ?Civil War History?The magnum opus of a great American historian.? ?NewsweekNow in a new edition for the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, David Potter?s Pulitzer Prizewinning history of antebellum America offers an indispensib...

An important new translation of a fundamental work of Brazilian literatureWritten by a former army lieutenant, civil engineer, and journalist, Backlands is Euclides da Cunha's vivid and poignant portrayal of Brazil's infamous War of Canudos. The deadliest civil war in Brazilian history, the conflict during the 1890s was between the government and t...

Emma Donoghue examines how desire between women in English literature has been portrayed, from schoolgirls and vampires to runaway wives, from crossdressing knights to contemporary murder stories. She looks at the work of those writers who have addressed the "unspeakable subject," examining whether samesex desire is freakish or omnipresent, holy ...

Originally published in 1961, this classic work remains the most comprehensive history of the many and important roles played by African Americans during the American Revolution. With this book, Benjamin Quarles added a new dimension to the military history of the Revolution and addressed for the first time the diplomatic repercussions created by t...

The New York Times best selling book that takes you inside SEAL Team Six ? the covert squad that killed Osama Bin Laden. SEAL Team Six is a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and counterinsurgency. In this dramatic, behindthescenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin takes readers deep inside the world of Navy SEALS and Special Forces...

Most Australians live in cities and cling to the coastal fringe, yet our sense of what an Australian is ? or should be ? is drawn from the vast and varied inland called the bush. But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living from the land, Don Watson explores t...

The first collection of seminal writings on a movement that is rapidly changing the face of American politics, The Libertarian Reader links some of the most fertile minds of our time to a centuriesold commitment to freedom, selfdetermination, and opposition to intrusive government. A movement that today counts among its supporters Steve Forbes, N...

Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel have touted and promoted Chicago as a "world class city." The skyscrapers kissing the clouds, the billiondollar Millennium Park, Michelinrated restaurants, pristine lake views, fabulous shopping, vibrant theater scene, downtown flower beds and stellar Architecture, tell one story. Yet, swept under the rug i...