In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency,” V. S.Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left onehundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concisemasterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of asociety traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured ina mythic vision of its past. Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his ownencounters with ordinary Indians–from a supercilious prince to anengineer constructing housing for Bombay’s homeless–Naipaulcaptures a vast, mysterious, and agonized continent inaccessible toforeigners and barely visible to its own people. He sees both theburgeoning space program and the 5,000 volunteers chanting mantrasto purify a defiled temple; the feudal village autocrat and theNaxalite revolutionaries who combined Maoist rhetoric with ritualmurder. Relentless in its vision, thrilling in the keenness of itsprose, India: A Wounded Civilization is a work of astonishinginsight an
At the age of thirty-three, Ekow Eshun—born in London toAfrican-born parents—travels to Ghana in search of his roots. Hegoes from Accra, Ghana’s cosmopolitan capital city, to the storiedslave forts of Elmina, and on to the historic warrior kingdom ofAsante. During his journey, Eshun uncovers a long-held secret abouthis lineage that will compel him to question everything he knowsabout himself and where he comes from. From the London suburbs ofhis childhood to the twenty-first century African metropolis,Eshun’s is a moving chronicle of one man’s search for home, and ofthe pleasures and pitfalls of fashioning an identity in thesevibrant contemporary worlds.
For the first time in decades, here, in a single volume, is afresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty, comprising some of the mostenigmatic figures ever to rule a country. Acclaimed historian G. J.Meyer reveals the flesh-and-bone reality in all its wildexcess. In 1485, young Henry Tudor, whose claim to the throne was so weakas to be almost laughable, crossed the English Channel from Franceat the head of a ragtag little army and took the crown from thefamily that had ruled England for almost four hundred years. Half acentury later his son, Henry VIII, desperate to rid himself of hisfirst wife in order to marry a second, launched a reign of terroraimed at taking powers no previous monarch had even dreamed ofpossessing. In the process he plunged his kingdom into generationsof division and disorder, creating a legacy of blood and betrayalthat would blight the lives of his children and the destiny of hiscountry. The boy king Edward VI, a fervent believer in reforming theEnglish church, died before
"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
Writing with passion and intelligence, Said retraces thePalestinian Hejira, its disastrous flirtation with Saddam Hussein,and its ambitious peace accord with Israel. Said demolishes Westernstereotypes about the Muslim world and Islam's illusions aboutitself, leaving a masterly synthesis of scholarship and polemicwith the power to redefine the debate over the Middle East.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Marine Corps’ ground campaignup the Tigris and Euphrates was notable for speed andaggressiveness unparalleled in military history. Little has beenwritten, however, of the air support that guaranteed the drive’ssuccess. Paving the way for the rush to Baghdad was “the hammerfrom above”–in the form of attack helicopters, jet fighters,transport, and other support aircraft. Now a former Marine fighterpilot shares the gripping never-before-told stories of the Marineswho helped bring to an end the regime of Saddam Hussein. As Jay Stout reveals, the air war had actually been in theplanning stages ever since the victory of Operation Desert Storm,twelve years earlier. But when Operation Iraqi Freedom officiallycommenced on March 20, 2003, the Marine Corps entered the fightwith an aviation arm at its smallest since before World War II.Still, with the motto “Speed Equals Success,” the separate air andground units acted as a team to get the job done. Drawing
As a senior foreign correspondent for The Times ofLondon, Janine di Giovanni was a firsthand witness to the brutaland protracted break-up of Yugoslavia. With unflinchingsensitivity, Madness Visible follows the arc of the wars inthe Balkans through the experience of those caught up in them:soldiers numbed by the atrocities they commit, women driven todespair by their life in paramilitary rape camps, civilians (diGiovanni among them) caught in bombing raids of uncertain origin,babies murdered in hate-induced rage. Di Giovanni’s searing memoir examines the turmoil of the Balkansin acute detail, and uncovers the motives of the leaders whocreated hell on earth; it raises challenging questions about ethnicconflict and the responsibilities of foreign governments in timesof mass murder. Perceptive and compelling, this unique work ofreportage from the physical and psychological front lines makes themadness of war wholly visible.
A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an UnnecessaryWar Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatestpresident in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grownto mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, anda monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom.But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? Whatif, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves,Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged thebloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire thatrivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J.DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history booksand overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend. Through extensive research and meticulous documentation,DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted hispolitical career to revolutionizing the American form of governmentfrom one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralize
The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotionalconnection between two of history’s towering leaders Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leadersof “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meachamexplores the fascinating relationship between the two men whopiloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucialfriendship, and a unique one—a president and a prime ministerspending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during thewar) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails,cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places asfar-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Teheran,talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command,their health, their wives, and their children. Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth andtwenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. Sons ofthe elite, students of history, politicians of the first rank, theysavored power. In their
From award-winning historian Leonard L. Richards, anauthoritative and revealing portrait of an overlooked harbinger ofthe terrible battle yet to come. When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, Americans of allstripes saw the potential for both wealth and power. Among the morecalculating were Southern slave owners. By making California aslave state, they could increase the value of their slaves—by 50percent at least, and maybe much more. They could also gainadditional influence in Congress and expand Southern economicclout, abetted by a new transcontinental railroad that would runthrough the South. Yet, despite their machinations, Californiaentered the union as a free state. Disillusioned Southerners wouldagitate for even more slave territory, leading to theKansas-Nebraska Act and, ultimately, to the Civil War itself.
At the end of 1618, a blazing green star soared across thenight sky over the northern hemisphere. From the Philippines to theArctic, the comet became a sensation and a symbol, a warning ofdoom or a promise of salvation. Two years later, as the Pilgrimsprepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, theatmosphere remained charged with fear and expectation. Men andwomen readied themselves for war, pestilence, or divineretribution. Against this background, and amid deep economicdepression, the Pilgrims conceived their enterprise of exile. Within a decade, despite crisis and catastrophe, they built athriving settlement at New Plymouth, based on beaver fur, corn, andcattle. In doing so, they laid the foundations for Massachusetts,New England, and a new nation. Using a wealth of new evidence fromlandscape, archaeology, and hundreds of overlooked or neglecteddocuments, Nick Bunker gives a vivid and strikingly originalaccount of the Mayflower project and the first decade of thePlymouth Colon
This is a book aboutGermans and Jews, about power and money. It is a book focused onBismarck and Bleichroder, Junker and Jew, statesman and banker,collaborators for over thirty years. The setting is that of aGermany where two worlds clashed: the new world of capitalism andan earlier world with its ancient feudal ethos; gradually a new andbroadened elite emerged, and Bismarck's tie with Bleichroderepitomized that regrouping. It is the story of the founding of thenew German Empire, in whose midst a Jewish minority rose toembattled prominence.
In this landmark work, one of the world’s most renownedEgyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, fromits birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption intothe Roman Empire—three thousand years of wild drama, boldspectacle, and unforgettable characters. Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavishpomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohsbut for the first time reveals the constant propaganda andrepression that were its foundations. Drawing upon forty years ofarchaeological research, Wilkinson takes us inside an exotic tribalsociety with a pre-monetary economy and decadent, divine kings whoruled with all-too-recognizable human emotions. Here are the years of the Old Kingdom, where Pepi II, made kingas an infant, was later undermined by rumors of his affair with anarmy general, and the Middle Kingdom, a golden age of literatureand jewelry in which the benefits of the afterlife became availablefor all, not just royalt
In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writerSteve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrationsof our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years.Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human Historyis a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on awide range of sources, including the latest genetic research,linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals thesurprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just hownaive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been"(Discover).Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining,for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius asforebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on theinvention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the originsof language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging andlucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how wethink about ourselves and our relations with others.
Renowned in her time for being the most beautiful woman inEurope, the wife of two kings and mother of three, Eleanor ofAquitaine was one of the great heroines of the Middle Ages. At atime when women were regarded as little more than chattel, Eleanormanaged to defy convention as she exercised power in the politicalsphere and crucial influence over her husbands and sons. In thisbeautifully written biography, Alison Weir paints a vibrantportrait of this truly exceptional woman, and provides new insightsinto her intimate world. Eleanor of Aquitaine lived a long life ofmany contrasts, of splendor and desolation, power and peril, and inthis stunning narrative, Weir captures the woman— and the queen—inall her glory. With astonishing historic detail, mesmerizingpageantry, and irresistible accounts of royal scandal and intrigue,she recreates not only a remarkable personality but a magnificentpast era.
The diplomatic origins, so-called, of the War are only thefever chart of the patient; they do not tell us what caused thefever. To probe for underlying causes and deeper forces one mustoperate within the framework of a whole society and try to discoverwhat moved the people in it. --Barbara W. Tuchman The fateful quarter-century leading up to the World War I was atime when the world of Privilege still existed in Olympian luxuryand the world of Protest was heaving in its pain, its power, andits hate. The age was the climax of a century of the mostaccelerated rate of change in history, a cataclysmic shaping ofdestiny. In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman concentrates on societyrather than the state. With an artist's selectivity, Tuchman bingsto vivid life the people, places, and events that shaped the yearsleading up to the Great War: the Edwardian aristocracy and the endof their reign; the Anarchists of Europe and America, who voicedthe protest of the oppressed; Germany, as portrayed thr
"An extraordinary work of history, imaginatively conceived,thoroughly researched and absorbingly written. William Leach allowsus to see the production of mass consumer culture and to see itwhole, in its richness and its poverty. It is a fascinating andtroubling tale, and Leach tells it with exceptional skill andsensitivity." --Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University "A major reinterpretation of our cultural experience, Land ofDesire is a brilliant, evocative, and highly readable study by anoriginal, honest and courageous historian who has seen to the heartof American commercial culture. In a society in debt to thelicentious 1980s and unfortunately still attempting to achievesocial justice though endless growth, this is requiredreading."--Mary O. Furner, University of California, SantaBarbara
In his writing, Borges always combined high seriousness with awicked sense of fun. Here he reveals his delight in re-creating (ormaking up) colorful stories from the Orient, the Islamic world, andthe Wild West, as well as his horrified fascination with knifefights, political and personal betrayal, and bloodthirsty revenge.Spark-ling with the sheer exuberant pleasure of story-telling, thiscollection marked the emergence of an utterly distinctive literaryvoice.
The myths of the ancient Greeks have inspired us for thousandsof years. Where did the famous stories of the battles of their godsdevelop and spread across the world? The celebrated classicistRobin Lane Fox draws on a lifetime’s knowledge of the ancientworld, and on his own travels, answering this question by pursuingit through the age of Homer. His acclaimed history explores how theintrepid seafarers of eighth-century Greece sailed around theMediterranean, encountering strange new sights—volcanic mountains,vaporous springs, huge prehistoric bones—and weaving them into themyths of gods, monsters and heroes that would become thecornerstone of Western civilization.