When he was a student in Paris, Truong Nhu Tang met Ho ChiMinh. Later he fought in the Vietnamese jungle and emerged as oneof the major figures in the "fight for liberation" -- and one ofthe most determined adversaries of the United States. He became theVietcong's Minister of Justice, but at the end of the war he fledthe country in disillusionment and despair. He now lives in exilein Paris, the highest level official to have defected from Vietnamto the West. This is his candid, revealing and unforgettableautobiography.

With a post* describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan,The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and mostrelentless military training in the world. What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented,intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, coldwater, and days without sleep? In The Warrior Elite, former NavySEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young meninto warriors. SEAL training is the distillation of the humanspirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men withcharacter, courage, and the burning desire to win at all costs, menwho would rather die than quit.

In this lively narrative history, Robert H. Patton, grandsonof the World War II battlefield legend, tells a sweeping tale ofcourage, capitalism, naval warfare, and international politicalintrigue set on the high seas during the American Revolution. Patriot Pirates highlights the obscure but pivotal roleplayed by colonial privateers in defeating Britain in the AmericanRevolution. American privateering-essentially legalizedpiracy-began with a ragtag squadron of New England schooners in1775. It quickly erupted into a massive seaborne insurgencyinvolving thousands of money-mad patriots plundering Britain'smaritime trade throughout Atlantic. Patton's extensive researchbrings to life the extraordinary adventures of privateers as theyhammered the British economy, infuriated the Royal Navy, andhumiliated the crown.

There are many heroes of the civil rights movement—men andwomen we can look to for inspiration. Each has a unique story, apath that led to a role as leader or activist. Death of Innocenceis the heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring story of one suchhero: Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till—an innocentfourteen-year-old African-American boy who was in the wrong placeat the wrong time, and who paid for it with his life. His outragedmother’s actions galvanized the civil rights movement, leaving anindelible mark on American racial consciousness. Mamie Carthan was an ordinary African-American woman growing upin 1930s Chicago, living under the strong, steady influence of hermother’s care. She fell in love with and married Louis Till, andwhile the marriage didn’t last, they did have a beautiful baby boy,Emmett. In August 1955, Emmett was visiting family in Mississippi when hewas kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two whitemen and brutally murdered. His crime: a

Descubre el verdadero significado de las profecías más famosasde todos los tiempos. Su nombre se ha convertido en un sinónimo de clarividencia:Nostradamus, astrólogo del rey de Francia, el adivino más famoso dela historia occidental. Pero el significado verdadero de susprofecías ha pasado desapercibido, oculto en un código alquímicosecreto. Conocido como el lenguaje verde, era entendido solamentepor un pu?ado de eruditos ocultos medievales, y se ha perdido porsiglos—hasta este momento. David Ovason pasó cuarenta a?os trabajando en este lenguaje,permitiéndole finalmente romper el código secreto de Nostradamus.En este libro, Ovason revela con un análisis línea por línea, lasescrituras ocultas del gran astrólogo, demostrando que sus fechas ydetalles son más exactos de los que cualquier erudito anterior harealizado. Como maestro de las tradiciones astrológicas arcanaspracticadas por Nostradamus, Ovason proporciona la cuenta másexacta y más profunda escrita nunca acerca de

During the American Revolution, thousands of slaves fled fromtheir masters to find freedom with the British. Having emancipatedthemselves--and with rhetoric about the inalienable rights of freemen ringing in their ears--these men and women struggledtenaciously to make liberty a reality in their lives. This alternative narrative includes the stories of dozens ofindividuals--including Harry, one of George Washington'sslaves--who left America and forged difficult new lives infar-flung corners of the British Empire. Written in the besttradition of history from the bottom up, this pathbreaking workwill alter the way we think about the American Revolution.

In the fall of 1965 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz sent a youngjournalist named Elie Wiesel to the Soviet Union to report on thelives of Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain. “I would approachJews who had never been placed in the Soviet show window by Sovietauthorities,” wrote Wiesel. “They alone, in their anonymity, coulddescribe the conditions under which they live; they alone couldtell whether the reports I had heard were true or false—and whethertheir children and their grandchildren, despite everything, stillwish to remain Jews. From them I would learn what we must do tohelp . . . or if they want our help at all.” What he discovered astonished him: Jewish men and women, young andold, in Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad, Vilna, Minsk, and Tbilisi,completely cut off from the outside world, overcoming their fear ofthe ever-present KGB to ask Wiesel about the lives of Jews inAmerica, in Western Europe, and, most of all, in Israel. They havescant knowledge of Jewish history or current events; they celebrat

My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever readbefore, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age inthe controversial war that defined a generation. In anastonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of dutyin Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the firsttime about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to becomea classic. Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out ofcollege and expecting a stateside assignment, when his ordersarrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, hetried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eightmore-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radiolocations. He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh anddrink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fearof war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radiotransmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidderrealized that he would spend hi

The acclaimed author of A Prayer for the Dying bringsall his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of tragedyand heroism-the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. Halfway through a midsummer afternoon performance, RinglingBrothers Barnum and Bailey Circus's big top caught fire. The tenthad been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline; inseconds it was burning out of control, and more than 8,000 peoplewere trapped inside. Drawing on interviews with hundreds ofsurvivors, O'Nan skillfully re-creates the horrific events andilluminates the psychological oddities of human behavior understress: the mad scramble for the exits; the hero who tossed dozensof children to safety before being trampled to death. Brilliantly constructed and exceptionally moving, The CircusFire is history at its most compelling.

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.

Georges Duby, one of this century's great medieval historians,has brought to life with exceptional brilliance and imaginationWilliam Marshal, adviser to the Plantagenets, knightextraordinaire, the flower of chivalry. A marvel of historicalreconstruction, William Marshal is based on a biographical poemwritten in the thirteenth century, and offers an evocation ofchivalric life -- the contests and tournaments, the rites of war,the daily details of medieval existence -- unlike any we have everseen. An enchanting and profoundly instructive book....Owing in signalpart to the imaginative scholarship of Georges Duby, darkness ismore and more receding from the Dark Ages." George Steiner New Yorker "A small masterpiece of its genre....It is a splendid story andProfessor Duby tells it splendidly....Duby has reconstructed aliving picture of a particular sector of society at a crucialmoment, at the brink of great change. The vividness, the intimacy,and the historical perception with which he presents his picture ofth

What ties Americans to one another? What unifies a nation ofcitizens with different racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds?These were the dilemmas faced by Americans in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries as they sought ways to bind the newly UnitedStates together. In A is for American, award-winning historian Jill Leporeportrays seven men who turned to language to help shape a newnation’s character and boundaries. From Noah Webster’s attempts tostandardize American spelling, to Alexander Graham Bell’s use of“Visible Speech” to help teach the deaf to talk, to Sequoyah’sdevelopment of a Cherokee syllabary as a means of preserving hispeople’s independence, these stories form a compelling portrait ofa developing nation’s struggles. Lepore brilliantly explores thepersonalities, work, and influence of these figures, seven mendriven by radically different aims and temperaments. Through thesesuperbly told stories, she chronicles the challenges faced by ayoung country trying to unify

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.

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“Dray captures the genius and ingenuity of Franklin’s scientificthinking and then does something even more fascinating: He showshow science shaped his diplomacy, politics, and Enlightenmentphilosophy.” –Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An AmericanLife Today we think of Benjamin Franklin as a founder of Americanindependence who also dabbled in science. But in Franklin’s day,the era of Enlightenment, long before he was an eminent statesman,he was famous for his revolutionary scientific work. Pulitzer Prizefinalist Philip Dray uses the evolution of Franklin’s scientificcuriosity and empirical thinking as a metaphor for America’sstruggle to establish its fundamental values. He recounts howFranklin unlocked one of the greatest natural mysteries of his day,the seemingly unknowable powers of lightning and electricity. Richin historical detail and based on numerous primary sources,Stealing God’s Thunder is a fascinating original look at one of ourmost beloved and complex founding fathers

In this lively and engaging history, Stephen Puleo tells thestory of the Boston Italians from their earliest years, when alargely illiterate and impoverished people in a strange landrecreated the bonds of village and region in the cramped quartersof the North End. Focusing on this first and crucial Italianenclave in Boston, Puleo describes the experience of Italianimmigrants as they battled poverty, illiteracy, and prejudice;explains their transformation into Italian Americans during theDepression and World War II; and chronicles their rich history inBoston up to the present day.

From the bestselling and PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author ofNetherland, a fascinating, personal, and beautifully crafted familyhistory. Joseph O'Neill's grandfathers--one Turkish, one Irish--were bothimprisoned for suspected subversion during the Second World War.The Irish grandfather, a handsome rogue from a family of smallfarmers, was an active member of the IRA. O'Neill's othergrandfather, a debonair hotelier from the tiny and threatenedTurkish Christian minority, was interned by the British inPalestine on suspicion of being an Axis spy. With intellect, compassion, and grace, O'Neill sets the storiesof these individuals against the history of the last century's mostinhuman events.

Nathaniel Tripp grew up fatherless in a house full of women,and he arrived in Vietnam as a just-promoted second lieutenant inthe summer of 1968 with no memory of a man’s example to guide andsustain him. The father missing from Tripp’s life had gone off towar as well, in the navy in World War II, but the terrors were toomuch for him, he disgraced himself, and after the war ended hecould not bring himself to return to his wife and young son. Tripptells of how he learned as a platoon leader to become something ofa father to the men in his care, how he came to understand thestrange trajectory of his mentally unbalanced father’s life, andhow the lessons he learned under fire helped him in the raising ofhis own sons.

Few historians have ever captured the drama, excitement, andtragedy of the Civil War with the headlong elan of Edwin Bearss,who has won a huge, devoted following with his extraordinarybattlefield tours and eloquent soliloquies about the heroes,scoundrels, and little-known moments of a conflict that stillfascinates America. Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg: these hallowedbattles and more than a dozen more come alive as never before, richwith human interest and colorful detail culled from a lifetime ofstudy. Illustrated with detailed maps and archival images, this 448-pagevolume presents a unique narrative of the Civil War's most criticalbattles, translating Bearss' inimitable delivery into print. As heguides readers from the first shots at Fort Sumter to Gettysburg'sbloody fields to the dignified surrender at Appomattox, hisengagingly plainspoken but expert account demonstrates why hestands beside Shelby Foote, James McPherson, and Ken Burns in thefront rank of modern chroniclers of the Civil War, as