"A comprehensive look at WMD's antecedents, from flamethrowersof the Peloponnesian War to plague-bearing booby traps.... Rich andentertaining." -Newsweek Featuring a new introduction by the author. Flamethrowers, poison gases, incendiary bombs, the large-scalespreading of disease... are these terrifying agents and implementsof warfare modern inventions? Not by a long shot. Weapons ofbiological and chemical warfare have been in use for thousands ofyears, and Greek Fire, Poison Arrows Scorpion Bombs, AdrienneMayor's fascinating exploration of the origins of biological andunethical warfare draws extraordinary connections between themythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the accounts ofHerodotus and Thucydides, and modern methods of war andterrorism. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows Scorpion Bombs will catapultreaders into the dark and fascinating realm of ancient war andmythic treachery-and their devastating consequences.
The Middle East is the birthplace of ancient civilizations,but most of the modern states that occupy its territory today areof recent origin, as are many key concepts of communal andindividual identity and loyalty that the peoples of the region nowconfront. In The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, eminentMiddle East historian Bernard Lewis elucidates the critical role ofidentity in the domestic, regional, and international tensions andconflicts of the Middle East today. Examining religion, race and language, country, nation, andstate, Lewis traces the rapid evolution of the identities of theMiddle Eastern peoples, from the collapse of the centuries-oldOttoman Empire in 1918 to today's clash of old and new allegiances.He shows how, during the twentieth century, imported Western ideassuch as liberalism, fascism, socialism, patriotism, and nationalismhave transformed Middle Easterners' ancient notions of community,their self-perceptions, and their aspirations.＝ To this fascinating hist
In 1942, a dashing young man who liked nothing so much as aheated game of poker, a good bottle of scotch, and the company of apretty girl hopped a merchant ship to England. He was Robert Capa,the brilliant and daring photojournalist, and Collier's magazinehad put him on assignment to photograph the war raging in Europe.In these pages, Capa recounts his terrifying journey through thedarkest battles of World War II and shares his memories of the menand women of the Allied forces who befriended, amused, andcaptivated him along the way. His photographs are masterpieces --John G. Morris, Magnum Photos' first executive editor, called Capa"the century's greatest battlefield photographer" -- and hiswriting is by turns riotously funny and deeply moving. From Sicily to London, Normandy to Algiers, Capa experienced someof the most trying conditions imaginable, yet his compassion andwit shine on every page of this book. Charming and profound,Slightly Out of Focus is a marvelous memoir told in words andpictur
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force,this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into acrippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps thefirst writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychiclandscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.
"It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us intotrouble," nineteenth-century humorist Josh Billings remarked. "It’sthe things we know that just ain’t so." In this bold New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author andtalk-radio host Michael Medved zeroes in on ten of the biggestfallacies that millions of Americans believe about our country–inspite of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. The Big Lies exposed and dissected include: ? America was founded on genocide against Native Americans. ? The United States is uniquely guilty for the crime of slaveryand built its wealth on stolen African labor. ? Aggressive governmental programs offer the only remedy foreconomic downturns and poverty. ? The Founders intended a secular, not Christian, nation. Each of the ten lies is a grotesque, propagandisticmisrepresentation of the historical record. Medved’s witty,well-documented rebuttal supplies the ammunition necessary to fireback the next time
Each year, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps selects onebook that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading byall Marines. The Commandant's choice for 1993 was We Were SoldiersOnce . . . and Young. In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry,under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopterinto a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediatelysurrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later,only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped topieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray andAlbany constituted one of the most savage and significant battlesof the Vietnam War. How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for theircomrades and never gave up--makes a vivid portrait of war at itsmost inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway,the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, haveinterviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the Nort
The winner of Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize and abestseller there for months, this wonderfully readable biographyoffers a rich, rollicking picture of late-eighteenth-centuryBritish aristocracy and the intimate story of a woman who for atime was its undisputed leader. Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt ofDiana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In1774, at the age of seventeen, Georgiana achieved immediatecelebrity by marrying one of England's richest and most influentialaristocrats, the Duke of Devonshire. Launched into a world ofwealth and power, she quickly became the queen of fashionablesociety, adored by the Prince of Wales, a dear friend ofMarie-Antoinette, and leader of the most important salon of hertime. Not content with the role of society hostess, she used herconnections to enter politics, eventually becoming more influentialthan most of the men who held office. Her good works and social exploits made her loved by themultitudes
Victor David Hanson, author of the highly regarded classic TheWestern Way of War, presents an audacious and controversial theoryof what contributes to the success of military campaigns. Examining in riveting detail the campaigns of three brilliantgenerals who led largely untrained forces to victory overtyrannical enemies, Hanson shows how the moral confidence withwhich these generals imbued their troops may have been assignificant as any military strategy they utilized. Theban generalEpaminondas marched an army of farmers two hundred miles to defeattheir Spartan overlords and forever change the complexion ofAncient Greece. William Tecumseh Sherman led his motley army acrossthe South, ravaging the landscape and demoralizing the citizens inthe defense of right. And George S. Patton commanded the recentlyformed Third Army against the German forces in the West, nearlycompleting the task before his superiors called a halt. Intelligentand dramatic, The Soul of Battle is narrative history at it’s best
Tutankhamun has mesmerized the world ever since HowardCarter's dramatic discovery of his treasure-filled tomb in theValley of the Kings in 1922, a fascination fanned anew by thecurrent world tour of the spectacular artifacts buried with him, apriceless trove that casts a spell on everyone who sees them. In this richly illustrated book, Egypt's leading archaeologistchronicles the Boy King and the royal dynasty that bred him. Andwhat a dynasty! Tut's grandfather, the Sun King Amenhotep III,married queen Tiye before they reached their teens, then ruled for40 years. Their heretical son, Akhenaten, abandoned Egypt'spantheon to worship a single god; his wife Nefertiti is stillremembered as one of history's legendary beauties. Tutankhamunascended the throne as a child and died before the age of twenty,but the splendor of his brief reign and the sensational unearthingof his tomb have made him the most famous of all thepharaohs. Zahi Hawass brings these fabled figures and their tumultuous,astonishin
Explores problems of community and the search for a nationalidentity. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize.
Here is the crucial summer of 1944 as seen by both sides, fromthe British spy, code-named “Garbo,” who successfully misled theNazis about the time and place of the D-day landings, to the poorplanning for action after the assault that forced the allies tofight for nine weeks “field to field, hedgerow to hedgerow.” Heretoo are the questionable command decisions of Montgomery,Eisenhower, and Bradley, the insatiable ego of Patton. Yet,fighting in some of the most miserable conditions of the war, theallied soldiers used ingenuity, resilience, and raw courage todrive the enemy from France in what John Keegan describes as “thebiggest disaster to hit the German army in the course of the war.”Normandy is an inspiring tribute to the common fighting men of fivenations who won the pivotal campaign that lead to peace andfreedom.
Turkey, write journalists Nicole and Hugh Pope in this well-madenarrative history, is a land that defies easy categorization, amelange of elements "European, Western, Eastern, Islamic,fascistic, anarchic" that has always been something of an enigma tooutsiders. After decades of stagnation, it is now emerging as anation of central importance in Eurasian geopolitics, as it was inthe days of the Ottoman Empire. The authors describe the growth ofthe modern Turkish state in the aftermath of World War I, when thatempire, defeated by the Allied powers, splintered into some 30independent states. Led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his so-calledYoung Turks, the postwar state sought to curb the growth of Islamicfundamentalism, to introduce some measure of democracy into aformerly autocratic system, and to secure a place for Turkey in theconstellation of world powers. They were only partly successful;Atatürk, the authors contend, "led Turkey on the path ofWesternization, but left it stranded half-way to fulldemocratizat
National Bestseller New York Times Editors’ Choice Winner of the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize Silver Medalist for the Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations Finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award For six months in 1919, after the end of “the war to end allwars,” the Big Three—President Woodrow Wilson, British primeminister David Lloyd George, and French premier GeorgesClemenceau—met in Paris to shape a lasting peace. In this landmarkwork of narrative history, Margaret MacMillan gives a dramatic andintimate view of those fateful days, which saw new politicalentities—Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Palestine, among them—born out ofthe ruins of bankrupt empires, and the borders of the modern worldredrawn.
In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the OttomanEmpire, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island ofRhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic clashbetween rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterraneanand the center of the world. In Empires of the Sea, acclaimedhistorian Roger Crowley has written a thrilling account of thisbrutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for thesoul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity thatranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar. Crowley conjures upa wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriorsstruggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery andgalley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality. Empires ofthe Sea is a story of extraordinary color and incident, andprovides a crucial context for our own clash ofcivilizations.
On a summer day in 1941 in Nazi-occupied Poland, half of thetown of Jedwabne brutally murdered the other half: 1,600 men,women, and children-all but seven of the town's Jews. In thisshocking and compelling study, historian Jan Gross pieces togethereyewitness accounts as well as physical evidence into acomprehensive reconstruction of the horrific July day rememberedwell by locals but hidden to history. Revealing wider truths aboutJewish-Polish relations, the Holocaust, and human responses tooccupation and totalitarianism, Gross's investigation sheds lighton how Jedwabne's Jews came to be murdered-not by faceless Nazis,but by people who knew them well.
In this intimate narrative journey, Hoffman returns to herPolish homeland and five other countries--Hungary, Romania,Bulgaria, and the two nations of the former Czechoslovakia--tovividly portray a landscape in the midst of change. "Alert andintuitive."--The Washington Post. Author readings.
Most of us rally around the glory of the Allies' victory overthe Nazis in World War II. The story is often told of how the goodfight was won by an astonishing array of manpower and stunningtactics. However, what is often overlooked is how the intersectionbetween Adolf Hitler's influential personality and his militarystrategy was critical in causing Germany to lose the war. With an acute eye for detail and his use ofclear prose, acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander goesbeyond counterfactual "What if?" history and explores for the firsttime just how close the Allies were to losing the war. Usingbeautifully detailed, newly designed maps, How Hitler Could HaveWon World War II exquisitely illustrates the important battles andhow certain key movements and mistakes by Germany were crucial indetermining the war's outcome. Alexander's harrowing study showshow only minor tactical changes in Hitler's military approach couldhave changed the world we live in today. How Hitler Could Have Won World War II u
"The first general treatment of women in the ancient world toreflect the critical insights of modern feminism. Though muchdebated, its position as the basic textbook on women's history inGreece and Rome has hardly been challenged."--Mary Beard, TimesLiterary Supplement. Illustrations.
With Mussolini ’s Italy , R.J.B. Bosworth—the foremostscholar on the subject writing in English—vividly brings to lifethe period in which Italians participated in one of the twentiethcentury’s most notorious political experiments. Il Duce’s Fascistswere the original totalitarians, espousing a cult of violence andobedience that inspired many other dictatorships, Hitler’s firstamong them. But as Bosworth reveals, many Italians resisted itsideology, finding ways, ingenious and varied, to keep Fascism fromtaking hold as deeply as it did in Germany. A sweeping chronicle ofstruggle in terrible times, this is the definitive account ofItaly’s darkest hour.
The secret diaries of a twenty-three-year-old White Russianprincess who worked in the German Foreign Office from 1940 to 1944and then as a nurse, these pages give us a unique picture ofwartime life in that sector of German society from which the 20thof July Plot -- the conspiracy to kill Hitler -- was born.
In this pioneering study of the ways in which the firstsettlers defined the power, prerogatives, and responsibilities ofthe sexes, one of our most incisive historians opens a window ontothe world of Colonial America. Drawing on a wealth of contemporarydocuments, Mary Beth Norton tells the story of the Pinion clan,whose two-generation record of theft, adultery, and infanticide mayhave made them our first dysfunctional family. She reopens the caseof Mistress Ann Hibbens, whose church excommunicated her forarguing that God had told husbands to listen to their wives. Andhere is the enigma of Thomas, or Thomasine Hall, who livedcomfortably as both a man and a woman in 17th century Virginia.Wonderfully erudite and vastly readable, Founding Mothers Fathers reveals both the philosophical assumptions and intimatedomestic arrangements of our colonial ancestors in all their rigor,strangeness, and unruly passion. "An important, imaginative book. Norton destroys our nostalgicimage of a 'golden age' of family
When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730sheld a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats theycould lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funnythat they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomimesome twenty times? Why in the eighteenth-century version of LittleRed Riding Hood did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did theanonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept anexhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? Theseare some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton answers inthis classic work of European history in what we like to call TheAge of Enlightenment.
