Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton reexamines the Salemwitch trials in this startlingly original, meticulously researched,and utterly riveting study. In 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear, and notsolely of satanic afflictions. Horrifyingly violent Indian attackshad all but emptied the northern frontier of settlers, and manytraumatized refugees—including the main accusers of witches—hadfled to communities like Salem. Meanwhile the colony’s leaders,defensive about their own failure to protect the frontier, ponderedhow God’s people could be suffering at the hands of savages. Struckby the similarities between what the refugees had witnessed andwhat the witchcraft “victims” described, many were quick to see avast conspiracy of the Devil (in league with the French and theIndians) threatening New England on all sides. By providing thisessential context to the famous events, and by casting her net wellbeyond the borders of Salem itself, Norton sheds new light on oneof the most pe

The epic story of the collision between one of nature’ssmallest organisms and history’s mightiest empire During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinianreigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa.It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classicalworld of Justinian had been plunged into the medieval and modernEurope was born. At its height, five thousand people died every day inConstantinople. Cities were completely depopulated. It was thefirst pandemic the world had ever known and it left its indeliblemark: when the plague finally ended, more than 25 million peoplewere dead. Weaving together history, microbiology, ecology,jurisprudence, theology, and epidemiology, Justinian’s Flea is aunique and sweeping account of the little known event that changedthe course of a continent.

“Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring theAmerican economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929—33. Truthto tell–as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt–the NewDeal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added tounemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costlygovernment. Powell’s analysis is thoroughly documented, relying onan impressive variety of popular and academic literature bothcontemporary and historical.” – Milton Friedman , Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution “There is a critical and often forgotten difference betweendisaster and tragedy. Disasters happen to us all, no matter what wedo. Tragedies are brought upon ourselves by hubris. The Depressionof the 1930s would have been a brief disaster if it hadn’t been forthe national tragedy of the New Deal. Jim Powell has proventhis.” – P.J. O’Rourke , author of Parliament of Whores and Eat theRich “The material laid out in this book desperat

A companion book to The History Channel specialseries of ten one-hour documentaries 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America pinpoints pivotaldays that transformed our nation. For the series and the book, TheHistory Channel challenged a panel of leading historians, includingauthor Steven M. Gillon, to come up with some less well-known buthistorically significant events that triggered change in America.Together, the days they chose tell a story about the greatdemocratic ideals upon which our country was built. You won’t find July 4, 1776, for instance, or the attack on FortSumter that ignited the Civil War, or the day Neil Armstrong setfoot on the moon. But January 25, 1787, is here. On that day, theragtag men of Shays’ Rebellion attacked the federal arsenal inSpringfield, Massachusetts, and set the new nation on the path to astrong central government. January 24, 1848, is also on the list.That’s when a carpenter named John Marshall spotted a fewglittering flakes of gold in a California riverbed.

Less than 100 years after its creation as a fragile republic,the United States more than quadrupled its size, making it theworld's third largest nation. No other country or sovereign powerhad ever grown so big so fast or become so rich and sopowerful. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Kluger chronicles thisepic achievement in a compelling narrative, celebrating the energy,daring, and statecraft behind America's insatiable land hungerwhile exploring the moral lapses that accompanied it. Comprehensiveand balanced, Seizing Destiny is a revelatory, often surprisingreexamination of the nation's breathless expansion, dwelling onboth great accomplishments and the American people's tendency toconfuse opportunistic success with heaven-sent entitlement thatcame to be called manifest destiny.

Paul Cartledge, one of the world’s foremost scholars ofancient Greece, illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander(356-323 BC), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, andfounder of a new world order. Alexander's legacy has had a major impact on military tacticians,scholars, statesmen, adventurers, authors, and filmmakers.Cartledge brilliantly evokes Alexander's remarkable political andmilitary accomplishments, cutting through the myths to show why hewas such a great leader. He explores our endless fascination withAlexander and gives us insight into his charismatic leadership, hiscapacity for brutality, and his sophisticated grasp ofinternational politics. Alexander the Great is an engagingportrait of a fascinating man, and a welcome balance to the myths,legends, and often skewed history that have obscured the realAlexander.

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing fromByzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forestsof northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy tothe final moments of a millennial city under siege…. Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificentempire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than athousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer andHerodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, wouldnever have survived. Yet very few of us have any idea of theenormous debt we owe them. The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifyingideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats ofdaring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of themissionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against greatodds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas tothe Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs. Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age ofIslamic lear

For the first time in a generation, here is a bold new accountof the Battle of the Marne, a cataclysmic encounter that preventeda quick German victory in World War I and changed the course of twowars and the world. With exclusive information based on newlyunearthed documents, Holger H. Herwig re-creates the dramaticbattle and reinterprets Germany’s aggressive “Schlieffen Plan” as acarefully crafted design to avoid a protracted war against superiorcoalitions. He paints a fresh portrait of the run-up to the Marneand puts in dazzling relief the Battle of the Marne itself: theFrench resolve to win, and the crucial lack of coordination betweenGermany’s First and Second Armies. Herwig also provides stunningcameos of all the important players, from Germany’s Chief ofGeneral Staff Helmuth von Moltke to his rival, France’s JosephJoffre. Revelatory and riveting, this is the source on thisseminal event.

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of theAmerican Civil War. This well-rounded selection of Abraham Lincoln's finest speechescombines the classic and obscure, the lyrical and historical, andthe inspirational and intellectual to present a historical arcmarking periods of the Civil War-crisis, outbreak, escalation,victory, and Reconstruction. Addressing the conflict's multipleaspects-the issue of slavery, state versus federal power, themeaning of the Constitution, civic duty, death, and freedom-thiselegant keepsake collection will make a wonderful inspirationalgift for professed Lincoln fans, Civil War buffs, and lovers ofrhetorical genius.

The Hellenistic Age chronicles the years 336 to 30 BCE, aperiod that witnessed the overlap of two of antiquity’s greatcivilizations, the Greek and the Roman. Peter Green’s remarkablyfar-ranging study covers the prevalent themes and events of thosecenturies: the Hellenization, by Alexander’s conquests, of animmense swath of the known world; the lengthy and chaotic partitionof this empire by rival Macedonian bands; the decline of thecity-state as the predominant political institution; and, finally,Rome’s moment of transition from republican to imperial rule. It isa story of war and power-politics, and of the developing fortunesof art, science, and statecraft, spun by an accomplished classicistwith an uncanny knack for infusing life into the distant past, andapplying fresh insights that make ancient history seem alarminglyrelevant to our own times. “Spectacular . . . [filled with] Mr. Green’s criticalacumen.” –The Wall Street Journal “Green draws upon a li

More than one million Americans have served in Iraq andAfghanistan, but fewer than 500 from this group have earned aSilver Star, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, Distinguished ServiceCross, or the Medal of Honor. These Americans have demonstratedextraordinary courage under fire—in the worst of circumstances.They come from all branches of the military. They also come fromall over the country and all walks of life, representing the entirespectrum of races and creeds. But what unites them are their deeds of consummate bravery,beyond the call of duty. Heroes Among Us tells theseextraordinary true stories of valor, honor and sacrifice.

In Patton, Montgomery, Rommel , one of Britain's mostaccomplished military scholars presents an unprecedented study ofthe land war in the North African and European theaters, as well astheir chief commanders—three men who also happened to be the mostcompelling dramatis personae of World War II. Beyond spellbinding depictions of pivotal confrontations at ElAlamein, Monte Cassino, and the Ardennes forest, author-scholarTerry Brighton illuminates the personal motivations and historicalevents that propelled the three men's careers: how Patton's,Montgomery's, and Rommel's Great War experiences helped to moldtheir style of command—and how, exactly, they managed to applytheir arguably megalomaniacal personalities (and hithertounrecognized political acumen and tact) to advance their careersand strategic vision. Opening new avenues of inquiry into the lives and careers of threemen widely profiled by scholars and popular historians alike,Brighton definitively answers numerous lingering and controversialquestion

In these essays, about a quarter of them previouslyunpublished, Eric Hobsbawm reflects upon the theory, practice anddevelopment of history and its relevance to the modern world. Thesewide-ranging papers reflect Professor Hobsbawm's lifelong concernwith the relations between past, present and future. They deal,among many other subjects, with the problems of writing history,its abuses and the historian's responsibilities; with the historyof society and 'history from below'; with Marx and currenthistorical trends or fashions; with Europe, the Russian Revolutionand the descent into a world-wide barbarism that, increasing formost of the twentieth century, threatens to destroy thecivilisation we have inherited from the European Enlightenment ofthe eighteenth century. These essays reveal a passionate belief inthe importance of studying history, as well as displaying theincisive analysis, the breadth of allusion and the distinctiveviewpoint for which this great historian is justly famous.

Xenophon's "History" recounts nearly fifty turbulent years ofwarfare in Greece between 411 and 362 BC. Continuing the story ofthe Peloponnesian War at the point where Thucydides finished hismagisterial history, this is a fascinating chronicle of theconflicts that ultimately led to the decline of Greece, and thewars with both Thebes and the might of Persia. An Athenian bybirth, Xenophon became a firm supporter of the Spartan cause, andfought against the Athenians in the battle of Coronea. Combininghistory and memoir, this is a brilliant account of the triumphs andfailures of city-states, and a portrait of Greece at a time ofcrisis.