This acclaimed book on the Wright Brothers takes the readerstraight to the heart of their remarkable achievement, focusing onthe technology and offering a clear, concise chronicle of preciselywhat they accomplished and how they did it. This book deals withthe process of the invention of the airplane and how the brothersidentified and resolved a range of technical puzzles that othershad attempted to solve for a century. Step by step, the book details the path of invention (includingthe important wind tunnel experiments of 1901) which culminated inthe momentous flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the first majormilestone in aviation history. Enhanced by original photos,designs, drawings, notebooks, letters and diaries of the WrightBrothers, Visions of a Flying Machine is a fascinating book thatwill be of interest to engineers, historians, enthusiasts, oranyone interested in the process of invention.

“What is the scene or incident in European history that youwould like to have witnessed-and why?” In this companion to I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty HistoriansBring to Life the Dramatic Events that Changed America , some ofour finest historical writers now turn their attention to Europe,with lively and detailed accounts of some of the most dramaticevents in history. Guided by peerless scholars such as PaulKennedy, John Keegan, Ross King, Freeman Dyson, and KatherineDuncan-Jones, readers will be transported to the signing of MagnaCarta, the Versailles Conference, the German surrender in WWII onLuneburg Heath, and other key turning points in the drama ofEuropean history. These essays encompass two millenia and an entirecontinent, addressing issues of politics, law, religion, peace andwar, science and the arts, and social change, all telescoped intofinely observed narratives. The result is an historical pageant ofcharacters and episodes that will attract and delight all readersof history.

In this gripping memoir, the daughter of a man who conspiredto assassinate Hitler tells the story of three generations of herfamily and offers unparalleled insight into the German experiencein the last century. On August 15, 1944, Major Hans Georg Klamroth was tried fortreason for his part in the July Plot to kill Hitler. Eleven dayslater, he was executed. His youngest daughter, Wibke Bruhns, wassix years old. Decades later, watching a documentary about theevents of July 20, she saw images of her father in court suddenlyappear on-screen. “I stare at this man with the empty face. I don'tknow him. But I can see myself in him.” How could her familysuccumb to Nazi sympathies? And what made her father finallyrenounce Hitler?

Infinitely readable and absorbing, Bruce Catton's The CivilWar is one of the best-selling, most widely read general historiesof the war available in a single volume. Newly introduced by thecritically acclaimed Civil War historian James M. McPherson, TheCivil War vividly traces one of the most moving chapters inAmerican history, from the early division between the North and theSouth to the final surrender of Confederate troops. Catton'saccount of battles is carefully interwoven with details about thepolitical activities of the Union and Confederate armies anddiplomatic efforts overseas. This new edition of The Civil War is amust-have for anyone interested in the war that dividedAmerica.

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.

Robert V. Brulle, who flew seventy ground support missionswith the 366th Fighter Group, links his daily experiences in thecockpit not only with the battles in which he participated but alsowith events in the wider European theater. Combining anecdotes fromhis personal diary, research in US and German records, andinterviews with participants from both sides, Brulle details acombat career that began just after D-Day, when he flew columncover for Allied troops as they chased the German military out ofFrance. He then describes the brutal, six-week Hürtgen Forestcampaign, during which his fighter group lost 15 pilots and 18aircraft. He also tells how the otherwise bitterly fought Battle ofthe Bulge provided the 366th with an opportunity to successfullyengage 60 Luftwaffe airplanes in a dogfight directly over theirairfield. Angels Zero combines both personal and historical detail tovividly re-create a lesser-known aspect of the air war inEurope.

Encyclopedic and panoramic in its scope, this fascinating workchronicles the rich spiritual, political, and cultural institutionsof Arab history through 13 centuries.

Now in its third edition, this classic study has been updatedfor the first time in more than twenty years. Chaim Herzog, former President of Israel, was involved in everyconflict involving Israel and its Arab neighbors from before the1948 War of Independence. The Arab-Israeli Wars is Herzog’sacclaimed history of Israel’s fight since 1947 to preserve herexistence against repeated attacks. Revised after his death byfriend and colleague General Shomo Gazit, this new edition alsocovers the events of the past twenty years, including the pulloutfrom Lebanon, both intifadas, the first Gulf War, the Oslo Process,and beyond. Riveting, informative, and comprehensive, thisauthoritative account tells the story of Israel’s struggle tosurvive but gives a clear picture of the people and politics thatcontinue to shape the destiny of this crucial region.

Paul Kriwaczek begins this illuminating and immenselypleasurable chronicle of Yiddish civilization during the Romanempire, when Jewish culture first spread to Europe. We see theburgeoning exile population disperse, as its notable diplomats,artists and thinkers make their mark in far-flung cities and founda self-governing Yiddish world. By its late-medieval heyday, thiseconomically successful, intellectually adventurous, and self-awaresociety stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Kriwaczektraces, too, the slow decline of Yiddish culture in Europe andRussia, and highlights fresh offshoots in the New World.Combiningfamily anecdote, travelogue, original research, and a keenunderstanding of Yiddish art and literature, Kriwaczek gives us anexceptional portrait of a culture which, though nearlyextinguished, has an influential radiance still.

Only now can the full scope of the war in the Pacific be fullyunderstood. Historian Ronald Spector, drawing on newly declassifiedintelligence files, an abundance of British and American archivalmaterial. Japanese scholarship and documents, and research andmemoirs of scholarly and military men, has written a stunning,complete and up-to-date history of the conflict.

In AD 476 the Roman Empire fell–or rather, its western halfdid. Its eastern half, which would come to be known as theByzantine Empire, would endure and often flourish for anothereleven centuries. Though its capital would move to Constantinople,its citizens referred to themselves as Roman for the entireduration of the empire’s existence. Indeed, so did its neighbors,allies, and enemies: When the Turkish Sultan Mehmet II conqueredConstantinople in 1453, he took the title Caesar of Rome, placinghimself in a direct line that led back to Augustus. For far too many otherwise historically savvy people today, thestory of the Byzantine civilization is something of a void. Yet formore than a millennium, Byzantium reigned as the glittering seat ofChristian civilization. When Europe fell into the Dark Ages,Byzantium held fast against Muslim expansion, keeping Christianityalive. When literacy all but vanished in the West, Byzantium madeprimary education available to both sexes. Students debated themerits

Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has rippedthrough this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur Warof 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of thosesix days of fighting. Michael B. Oren’s magnificent Six Days ofWar, an internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the firstcomprehensive account of this epoch-making event. Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’sgrasp of fact and motive, Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fastaction on the battlefields and the political shocks thatelectrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan andGamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose andtoppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn;daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in amatter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the MiddleEast and in the world. A towering work of history and anenthral

In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler’s armywas beaten and expected the bloodshed to end by Christmas. Yet aseries of mistakes and setbacks, including the Battle of the Bulge,drastically altered this timetable and led to eight more months ofbrutal fighting. With Armageddon , the eminent militaryhistorian Max Hastings gives us memorable accounts of the greatbattles and captures their human impact on soldiers and civilians.He tells the story of both the Eastern and Western Fronts, raisingprovocative questions and offering vivid portraits of the greatleaders. This rousing and revelatory chronicle brings to life thecrucial final months of the twentieth century’s greatest globalconflict.

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 this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff uncovers theextraordinary stories of collectors who lived on the frontiers ofthe British Empire in India and Egypt, tracing their exploits totell an intimate history of imperialism. Jasanoff delves beneaththe grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance to lookat the British Empire through the eyes of the people caught up init. Written and researched on four continents, Edge ofEmpire enters a world where people lived, loved, mingled, andidentified with one another in ways richer and more complex thanprevious accounts have led us to believe were possible. And as thisbook demonstrates, traces of that world remain tangible—andtopical—today. An innovative, persuasive, and provocative work ofhistory.

I Wish I’d Been There brings together twenty of ourmost distinguished historians’ responses to the question “Whatscene or incident in American history would you most liked to havewitnessed—and why?” The answers illuminate crucial moments in ourpast and give readers a front-row seat at some of Americanhistory’s most dramatic events.The Salem witch trials, the raid onHarper’s Ferry, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the votingrights march on Selma, the beginnings of the Vietnam War—all ofthese and more are vividly recreated here by a stellar list ofcontributors, including Mary Beth Norton, Joseph Ellis, CarolBerkin, Geoffrey Ward, Robert Dallek, Jay Winik, Robert Cowley,Carolyn Gilman, and William Leuchtenburg, among other luminaries ofthe profession. With imagination, insight, and vivid detail, IWish I’d Been There is an engaging tour through key events inAmerican history. If she could be a fly on the wall at a pivotal moment inAmerican history, Mary Beth Norton would ha

Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "A superb panorama of life inAmerica from the first settlements on through the white hot days ofthe Revolution." - Bruce Lancaster, Saturday Review

When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the CivilWar, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lostits philosophical moorings and looked eastward to “Old Japan,” withits seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance andperspective. Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as amore cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, inthe course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to aninternational power. This great wave of historical and culturalreciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified duringthe late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-lifepersonalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures promptedpilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific. In The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knitgroup of nineteenth-century travelers—connoisseurs, collectors, andscientists—who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving OldJapan. As Benfey writes, “A sense of urgency impelled them, forthe

A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force,this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into acrippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps thefirst writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychiclandscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.

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.

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.

This streamlined revision of the breakthrough bestseller byrenowned child-development expert Dr. Harvey Karp will do even moreto help busy parents survive the “terrible twos” andbeyond.... In one of the most revolutionary advances in parenting of thepast twenty-five years, Dr. Karp revealed that toddlers often actlike uncivilized little cavemen, with a primitive way of thinkingand communicating that is all their own. In this revised edition ofhis parenting classic, Dr. Karp has made his innovative approacheasier to learn—and put into action—than ever before. Combining his trademark tools of Toddler-ese and the Fast-FoodRule with a highly effective new green light/yellow light/red lightmethod for molding toddler behavior, Dr. Karp provides fastsolutions for today’s busy and stressed parents. As you discoverways to boost your child’s good (green light) behavior, curb hisannoying (yellow light) behavior, and immediately stop hisunacceptable (red light) behavior you will learn how t

The experience of war has affected every generation in thetwentieth and twenty-first centuries, and every soldier has a storyto tell. Since the year 2000, the Veteran's History Project, a newpermanent department of the Library of Congress, has beencollecting and preserving the memories of veterans. In addition tomore than 50,000 recorded oral histories, the Veteran's HistoryProject has amassed thousands of letters, photographs, scrapbooks,and invaluable mementos from nearly a century of warfare. In the first book to showcase the richness and depth of thiscollection, Voices of War tells a compelling, emotional, history ofthe experience of war, weaving together veterans' stories from inWorld Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Thestories are organized thematically into sections-from signing up tocoming home, generations of veterans recall individual experiencesthat together tell the extraordinary story of America at war.Letters, photographs, sketches and paintings enrich the compellingoral hi