In this rich and engrossing account, John and Abigail Adamscome to life against the backdrop of the Republic’s tenuous earlyyears. Drawing on over 1,200 letters exchanged between the couple, Ellistells a story both personal and panoramic. We learn about the manyyears Abigail and John spent apart as John’s political career senthim first to Philadelphia, then to Paris and Amsterdam; theirrelationship with their children; and Abigail’s role as John’sclosest and most valued advisor. Exquisitely researched andbeautifully written, First Family is both a revealing portrait of amarriage and a unique study of America’s early years.
A battle is like just. The frenzy passes. Consequence remains." Such are the observations made and ill-gotten lessons learned in this fic tional autobiographical narrative of breathtaking range and power.Ross Leckie not only presents a vivid re-creation of the great strug gle o.f the Punic wars and the profoundly bloody battle for Rome,but succeeds in bringing the almost mythical figure of Hannibal to life. Introspective, educated on the Greeks, but steeped in animus for Rome, Hannibal has never been presented quite like this.
From Midnight to Dawn presents compelling portraitsof the men and women who established the Underground Railroad andtraveled it to find new lives in Canada. Evoking the turmoil andcontroversies of the time, Tobin illuminates the historic eventsthat forever connected American and Canadian history by giving usthe true stories behind well-known figures such as Harriet Tubmanand John Brown. She also profiles lesser-known but equally heroicfigures such as Mary Ann Shadd, who became the first black femalenewspaper editor in North America, and Osborne Perry Anderson, theonly black survivor of the fighting at Harpers Ferry. Anextraordinary examination of a part of American history, FromMidnight to Dawn will captivate readers with its tales of hope,courage, and a people’s determination to live equally under thelaw.
Nominated for the National Book Award, this book is set incolonial Massachusetts where, in 1704, a French and Indian warparty descended on the village of Deerfield, abducting a Puritanminister and his children. Although John Williams was eventuallyreleased, his daughter horrified the family by staying with hercaptors and marrying a Mohawk husband.
Sherman's March is the vivid narrative of General William T.Sherman's devastating sweep through Georgia and the Carolinas inthe closing days of the Civil War. Weaving together hundreds ofeyewitness stories, Burke Davis graphically brings to life thedramatic experiences of the 65,000 Federal troops who plunderedtheir way through the South and those of the anguished -- and oftendefiant -- Confederate women and men who sought to protectthemselves and their family treasures, usually in vain. Dominatingthese events is the general himself -- "Uncle Billy" to his troops,the devil incarnate to the Southerners he encountered.
This provocative work challenges traditional accounts ofMeriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition across thecontinent and back again. Uncovering deeper meanings in theexplorers’ journals and lives, Exploring Lewis and Clark exposes their self-perceptions and deceptions, and how theyinteracted with those who traveled with them, the people theydiscovered along the way, the animals they hunted, and the landthey walked across. The book discovers new heroes and brings oldones into historical focus. Thomas P. Slaughter interrogates the explorers’ dreams, how theywrote and what they aimed to possess, their interactions withanimals, Indians, and each other, their sense of themselves asleaders and men, and why they feared that they had failed theirnation and President. Slaughter’s Lewis and Clark are moreconfused, frightened, courageous, and flawed than in previousaccounts. They are more human, their expedition more dramatic, andthus their story is more revealing about our own relationships tohistory
In 1787, the beautiful Lucia is married off to AlviseMocenigo, scion of one of the most powerful Venetian families. Buttheir life as a golden couple will be suddenly transformed whenVenice falls to Bonaparte. We witness Lucia's painful series ofmiscarriages and the pressure on her to produce an heir; herimpassioned affair with an Austrian officer; the glamour and strainof her career as a hostess in Vienna; and her amazing firsthandaccount of the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. With his brave andarticulate heroine, Andrea di Robilant has once again reachedacross the centuries, and deep into his own past, to bring historyto rich and vivid life on the page.
A powerful wartime saga in the bestselling tradition of Flags of Our Fathers, Brothers in Arms recounts theextraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the firstall-black armored unit to see combat in World War II.
Throughout history, the Balkans have been a crossroads, a zoneof endless military, cultural, and economic mixing and clashingbetween Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism andOrthodoxy. In this highly acclaimed short history, Mark Mazowersheds light on what has been called the tinderbox of Europe, whosetroubles have ignited wider wars for hundreds of years. Focusing onevents from the emergence of the nation-state onward, The Balkansreveals with piercing clarity the historical roots of currentconflicts and gives a landmark reassessment of the region’shistory, from the world wars and the Cold War to the collapse ofcommunism, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the continuingsearch for stability in southeastern Europe.
This brief and illuminating account of the ideas of worldorder prevalent in the Elizabethan age and later is anindispensable companion for readers of the great writers of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Shakespeare and the Elizabethandramatists, Donne and Milton, among many others. The basic medievalidea of an ordered Chain of Being is studied by Professor Tillyardin the process of its various transformations by the dynamic spiritof the Renaissance. Among his topics are: Angels; the Stars andFortunes; the Analogy between Macrocosm and Microcosm; the FourElements; the Four Humours; Sympathies; Correspondences; and theCosmic Dance—ideas and symbols which inspirited the minds andimaginations not only of the Elizabethans but of all men of theRenaissance.
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters wasplaying cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendouscrash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like arunaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. Athird firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window-"Ohmy God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons ofmolasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging itscontents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outsettraveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even thebrick fire station. The number of dead wasn't known for days. Itwould be years before a landmark court battle determined who wasresponsible for the disaster.
Drawing from Smith's own personal journals, this concisebiography paints a rich and detailed portrait of one of America'smost intriguing founding fathers. Historian John Thompson guides usthrough annotated selections of Smith's most important andcompelling writings, adding authoritative perspective andcommentary to round out the picture. The volume includes some ofthe earliest primary source accounts of life in colonial Virginia,including excerpts from Proceedings of the English Colony ofVirginia (1612), Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), and The TrueAdventures and Observations of Captain John Smith (1630). Readers share eyewitness accounts of Smith's capture andimprisonment by the Indians, his explorations of the Chesapeake Bayregion, and various other adventures and exploits in the New World.We get a firsthand look at Smith's pivotal role in the founding andgovernance of colonial Jamestown and his attempts to establishtrade relationships with the Native Americans. We also learn thereal facts behind Smi
In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story ofcourage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefullydocuments--and exposes--one of the worst racial massacres inAmerican history. Whitaker's important book commemorates a legalstruggle, "Moore v. Dempsey, " that paved the way for the civilrights era, and tells too of a man, Scipio Africanus Jones, whosename surely deserves to be known by all Americans. "Whitaker has ... placed the massacre and the Supreme Courtdecision in their full legal and historical context. At the sametime, he has revived the story of a great African-American lawyer,Scipio Africanus Jones." --"New York Times Book Review"
In the spring of 2003, acclaimed journalist Anne Nivat set offfrom Tajikistan on a six-month journey through the aftermath of theAmerican invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Nivatfelt compelled to meet and write about the lives of everydaypeople, whom she allows to speak in their own voices, in their ownwords--words of hope, sadness, anger, and, above all, theuncertainty that fills their everyday lives. Her new Preface forthe paperback edition looks at the situation in Iraq today.
A madman brutally murders two men-both with ties to an uglysecret shared by Lieutenant Eve Dallas' new husband, Roarke.
