In this perfect companion to London: The Biography ,Peter Ackroyd once again delves into the hidden byways of history,describing the river's endless allure in a journey overflowing withcharacters, incidents, and wry observations. Thames: TheBiography meanders gloriously, rather like the river itself. Inshort, lively chapters Ackroyd writes about connections between theThames and such historical figures as Julius Caesar and Henry VIII,and offers memorable portraits of the ordinary men and women whodepend upon the river for their livelihoods. The Thames as a sourceof artistic inspiration comes brilliantly to life as Ackroydinvokes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Turner, Shelley, and other writers,poets, and painters who have been enchanted by its many moods andcolors.
Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking,spellbinding” ( New York Times ), “wildly improbable butentirely true” ( Entertainment Weekly ), and, quite simply,“the best book ever written” ( Boston Globe ). In his newbook, Operation Mincemeat , he tells an extraordinary storythat will delight his legions of fans. In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliantintelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple andcomplicated— Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazisinto thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southernEurope by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as theNazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligenceofficer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different.Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was anaristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were theperfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corp
“An elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field,which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution overthe last three decades but never loses contact with the older,classic questions that we have been arguing about for over twohundred years.” -Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers A magnificent account of the revolution in arms and consciousnessthat gave birth to the American republic. When Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of theUnited States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution.He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the UnitedStates, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values ofthe American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-ourcommitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being ofordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era.Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americansthat they were a special people with a special destiny to lead theworld toward liberty.
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.
