Sun Tzu's Art of War , compiled more than two thousand yearsago, is a study of the anatomy of organizations in conflict. It isperhaps the most prestigious and influential book of strategy inthe world today. Now, this unique volume brings together theessential versions of Sun Tzu's text, along with illuminatingcommentaries and auxiliary texts written by distinguishedstrategists. The translations, by the renowned translator ThomasCleary, have all been published previously in book form, except forThe Silver Sparrow Art of War, which is available here for thefirst time. This comprehensive collection contains: The Art of War: This edition of Sun Tzu's text includes theclassic collection of commentaries by eleven interpreters. Mastering the Art of War: Consisting of essays by two prominentstatesmen-generals of Han dynasty China, Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji,this book develops the strategies of Sun Tzu's classic into acomplete handbook of organization and leadership. It draws onepisodes from Chinese his
At the end of World War II, long before an Allied victory wasassured and before the scope of the atrocities orchestrated byHitler would come into focus or even assume the name of theHolocaust, Allied forces had begun to prepare for its aftermath.Taking cues from the end of the First World War, planners had begunthe futile task of preparing themselves for a civilian healthcrisis that, due in large part to advances in medical science,would never come. The problem that emerged was not widespreaddisease among Europe’s population, as anticipated, but massivedisplacement among those who had been uprooted from home andcountry during the war. Displaced Persons, as the refugees would come to be known, were notcomprised entirely of Jews. Millions of Latvians, Poles,Ukrainians, and Yugoslavs, in addition to several hundred thousandGermans, were situated in a limbo long overlooked by historians.While many were speedily repatriated, millions of refugees refusedto return to countries that were forever changed by the wa
A war that started under questionable pretexts. A presidentwho is convinced of his country’s might and right. A military andpolitical stalemate with United States troops occupying a foreignland against a stubborn and deadly insurgency. The time is the 1840s. The enemy is Mexico. And the war is one ofthe least known and most important in both Mexican and UnitedStates history—a war that really began much earlier and whoseconsequences still echo today. Acclaimed historian David A. Clarypresents this epic struggle for a continent for the first time fromboth sides, using original Mexican and North Americansources. To Mexico, the yanqui illegals pouring into her territories ofTexas and California threatened Mexican sovereignty and security.To North Americans, they manifested their destiny to rule thecontinent. Two nations, each raising an eagle as her standard,blustered and blundered into a war because no one on either sidewas brave enough to resist the march into it. In Eagles and Empi
At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousandAmericans loyal to the British cause fled the United States andbecame refugees throughout the British Empire. This groundbreakingbook offers the first global history of the loyalist exodus toCanada, the Caribbean, Sierra Leone, India, and beyond. Followingextraordinary journeys like the one of Elizabeth Johnston, a youngmother from Georgia, who led her growing family to Britain,Jamaica, and Canada, questing for a home; black loyalists such asDavid George, who escaped from slavery in Virginia and went on tofound Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone; andMohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant, who tried to find autonomy forhis people in Ontario, Liberty’s Exiles challengesconventional understandings about the founding of the United Statesand the shaping of the postrevolutionary world. Based on originalresearch on four continents, this book is at once an intimatenarrative history and a provocative new analysis—a story about thepast that
Going beyond even the expertise of archaeologists andhistorians, world-class engineer Craig B. Smith explores theplanning and engineering behind the incredible Great Pyramid ofGiza. How would the ancient Egyptians have developed their buildingplans, devised work schedules, managed laborers, solved specificdesign and engineering problems, or even improvised on the job? Theanswers are here, along with dazzling, one-of-a-kind colorphotographs and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations of tools,materials, and building techniques the ancient masters used. In hisforeword to the book, Egypt's Undersecretary of State for the GizaMonuments Zahi Hawass explains the importance of understanding theGreat Pyramid as a straightforward construction project.
Mining newspaper files and the deep archives and journalisticexpertise of the Newseum, an interactive museum of news located inWashington, D.C., Outrage, Passion and Uncommon Sense examinesdecisive issues and events in U.S. history through the nation'seditorial pages. Approximately fifty editorials are reprinted hereon topics ranging from suffrage and race to war and politics—evenChristmas—with probing analysis by Gartner. "Editorials are the soul of the newspaper," Gartner says in thebook's introduction. "Maybe the heart and the soul. And, on a goodnewspaper that knows and understands and loves its hometown, or itshome country, the editorial is the heart and the soul of the town,or the nation, as well." Readers will also see a visual account of the era throughtwo-color illustrations, showcasing editorial cartoons, photographsand typographic details from period newspapers. Outrage, Passionand Uncommon Sense is a vital, significant collection that portraysthe undeniable influence one edi
A source of endless fascination and speculation, the subjectof countless biographies, novels, and films, Elizabeth I is nowconsidered from a thrilling new angle by the brilliant younghistorian Tracy Borman. So often viewed in her relationships withmen, the Virgin Queen is portrayed here as the product of women—themother she lost so tragically, the female subjects who worshippedher, and the peers and intimates who loved, raised, challenged, andsometimes opposed her. In vivid detail, Borman presents Elizabeth’s bewitching mother,Anne Boleyn, eager to nurture her new child, only to see her takenaway and her own life destroyed by damning allegations—which taughtElizabeth never to mix politics and love. Kat Astley, the governesswho attended and taught Elizabeth for almost thirty years, inviteddisaster by encouraging her charge into a dangerous liaison afterHenry VIII’s death. Mary Tudor—“Bloody Mary”—envied her youngersister’s popularity and threatened to destroy her altogether. Andanimosity dr
In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famousmoment in American military history, James Bradley has captured theglory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six menwho raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind theimmortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage andindomitable will of America. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at IwoJima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortarfire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled tothe island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscapeof hell itself, they raised a flag. Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerfulaccount of six very different young men who came together in amoment that will live forever. To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or thewar. But after his death at age seventy, his family discoveredclosed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers ,James Bradley draws on those documents
Henry David Thoreau was just a few days short of histwenty-eighth birthday when he built a cabin on the shore of WaldenPond and began one of the most famous experiments in living inAmerican history. Apparently, he did not originally intend to writea book about his life at the pond, but nine years later, in Augustof 1854, Houghton Mifflin's predecessor, Ticknor and Fields,published Walden;or, a Life in the Woods. At the time the book waslargely ignored, and it took five years to sell out the firstprinting of two thousand copies. It was not until 1862, the year ofThoreau's death, that the book was brought back into print. Sincethen it has never been out of print. Published in hundreds ofeditions and translated into virtually every modern language,it hasbecome one of the most widely read and influential books everwritten, not only in this country but throughout the world. On the one hundred and fiftiethanniversary of the original publication of Walden, Houghton Mifflinis proud to present the most bea
This handsomely illustrated volume commemorates AbrahamLincoln’s 200th birthday and gives rare insight into the Presidentwho shook the world—and whose words and example endure today innations from Siberia to Mexico to Pakistan. This is the officialbook of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM)in Springfield, Illinois that has welcomed more than one millionvisitors since its 2005 opening. Using the exhibition halls as a launching point, this book offersstories, anecdotes, and never-before-seen images and artifacts fromthe museum’s vault. It positions Lincoln as a man of his century, atime ripe with Industrial Revolution, travel and culture,abolition, and war. Worldwide events figure into the story:Britain’s emergence as a democracy, Russia’s freeing of the serfs,Japan’s opening to foreign trade, Germany’s unity underBismarck. Every page reflects the humor, integrity, and unique style ofleadership that made Abe Lincoln a legend. Quote boxes reveal hissayings
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, PulitzerPrize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the greatuntold stories of American history: the decades-long migration ofblack citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities,in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus ofalmost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkersoncompares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples inhistory. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gainedaccess to new data and official records, to write this definitiveand vividly dramatic account of how these American journeysunfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this storythrough the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, whoin 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi forChicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in oldage, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senateseat; sh
In this deeply researched and clearly written book, thePulitzer Prize–winning historian Alan Taylor tells the rivetingstory of a war that redefined North America. During the earlynineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggleover the legacy of the American Revolution. Soldiers, immigrants,settlers, and Indians fought in a northern borderland to determinethe fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweepthe British from Canada? Or would the British empire contain,divide, and ruin the shaky American republic? In a world of double identities, slippery allegiances, and porousboundaries, the leaders of the republic and of the empire struggledto control their own diverse peoples. The border dividedAmericans—former Loyalists and Patriots—who fought on both sides inthe new war, as did native peoples defending their homelands.Serving in both armies, Irish immigrants battled one another,reaping charges of rebellion and treason. And dissident Americansflirted with seces
The distinguished historian of the Jewish people, Howard M.Sachar, gives us a comprehensive and enthralling chronicle of theachievements and traumas of the Jews over the last four hundredyears. Tracking their fate from Western Europe’s age of mercantilism inthe seventeenth century to the post-Soviet and post-imperialistIslamic upheavals of the twenty-first century, Sachar applies hisrenowned narrative skill to the central role of the Jews in many ofthe most impressive achievements of modern civilization: whether inthe rise of economic capitalism or of political socialism; in thediscoveries of theoretical physics or applied medicine; in “higher”literary criticism or mass communication and popularentertainment. As his account unfolds and moves from epoch to epoch, fromcontinent to continent, from Europe to the Americas and the MiddleEast, Sachar evaluates communities that, until lately, have beenunderestimated in the perspective of Jewish and world history—amongthem, Jews of Sephardic
Traces the rise ot empire of this city from its 5th centurybeginnings all the way through until 1797 when Napolean put an endto the thousand year-old Republic. 32 pages of black and whitephotos, 4 maps and charts.
Instead of the dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullientcountry, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty andtechnology--a strikingly fresh view of Louis XVI's France. A NewYork Times bestseller in hardcover. 200 illustrations.
Mann is well aware that much of the history he relates isnecessarily speculative, the product of pot-shard interpretationand precise scientific measurements that often end up beingradically revised in later decades. But the most compelling of hiseye-opening revisionist stories are among the best-founded: thestories of early American-European contact. To many of those whowere there, the earliest encounters felt more like a meeting ofequals than one of natural domination. And those who came later andfound an emptied landscape that seemed ripe for the taking, Mannargues convincingly, encountered not the natural and unchangingstate of the native American, but the evidence of a suddencalamity: the ravages of what was likely the greatest epidemic inhuman history, the smallpox and other diseases introducedinadvertently by Europeans to a population without immunity, whichswept through the Americas faster than the explorers who broughtit, and left behind for their discovery a land that held only ashadow of the
History comes alive in this engaging and lavishly illustratedchronicle, which spans world events and people from ancient timesto the 21st century. The voices of the great and humble speak to usthrough songs, documents, edicts, poetry, letters, menus, and evengraffiti, revealing each era's conflicts, daily life, arts,science, religion, and enduring influence. Interactive designfocuses on the tangible artifacts of history, and magnificentillustrations—including period art, archival photographs, andexpertly rendered scenes of long-ago events—bring vivid immediacyand eye appeal to every colorful spread. With its unique emphasison voices from the past, its competitive price point, and itsinviting, innovative design, Eyewitness to History is poised to beTHE pick for value-minded customers looking for an absorbing takeon world history.
THE CIA IN ITS GLORY DAYS and the mad confidence that led todisaster in Vietnam are the subjects of Roger Warner's prizewinninghistory, Shooting at the Moon: The CIA's War in Laos (firstpublished as Back Fire, Simon Schuster, 1995). For a fewyears in the early 1960s the CIA seemed to be running a perfectcovert war in Laos - quiet, inexpensive, just enough arms to helpMeo tribesmen defend their home territory from the Communist PathetLao. Then the big American war next door in Vietnam spilled acrossthe border. How the perfect covert war ballooned into sorrow anddisaster is the story Roger Warner tell in Shooting at the Moon,awarded the Cornelius Ryan Award for 1995's Best Book on ForeignAffairs by the Overseas Press Club. Warner describes his characters with a novelist's touch -soldiers and diplomats busy with war-making; CIA field officersfrom bareknuckle warriors to the quiet men pulling strings in theshadows; and above all the Meo as they realized they had been leddown the garden path.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National BookAward Based on hitherto unexamined sources: interviews with ex-slaves,diaries and accounts by former slaveholders, this "rich andadmirably written book" (Eugene Genovese, The New York TimesBook Review ) aims to show how, during the Civil War and afterEmancipation, blacks and whites interacted in ways that dramatizednot only their mutual dependency, but the ambiguities and tensionsthat had always been latent in "the peculiar institution."
Churchill's six-volume history of World War II -- the definitivework, remarkable both for its sweep and for its sense of personalinvolvement, universally acknowledged as a magnificent historicalreconstruction and an enduring work of literature. From Britian'sdarkest and finest hour to the great alliance and ultimate victory,the Second World War remains the pivotal event in our century.Churchill was not only its greatest leader, but the free world'smost eloquent voice of defiance in the face of Nazi tyranny. Hisepic account of those times, published in six volumes, won theNobel Prize in 1953.
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 WereSoldiers Once . . . 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 their comradesand never gave up--makes a vivid portrait of war at its mostinspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway, theonly journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, haveinterviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the NorthVietnamese co
In her lauded biography England’s Mistress, Kate Williamspainted a vivid and intimate portrait of Emma Hamilton, the loverof English national hero Lord Horatio Nelson. Now, with the samekeen insight and gift for telling detail, Williams provides agripping account of Queen Victoria’s rise to the throne and herearly years in power—as well as the tragic, little-known story ofthe princess whose demise made it all possible. Toward the end of the eighteenth century,monarchies across Europe found themselves in crisis. With mad KingGeorge III and his delinquent offspring tarnishing the realm, theEnglish pinned their hopes on the only legitimate heir to thethrone: the lovely and prudent Princess Charlotte, daughter of thePrince of Wales and granddaughter of the king. Sadly, those dreamsfaded when, at age twenty-one, she died after a complicatedpregnancy and stillbirth. While a nation grieved, Charlotte’spower-hungry uncles plotted quickly to produce a new heir. Only theDuke of Kent proved successful