The veteran Wall Street Journal science reporterMarilyn Chase’s fascinating account of an outbreak of bubonicplague in late Victorian San Francisco is a real-life thriller thatresonates in today’s headlines. The Barbary Plague transports us to the Gold Rush boomtown in 1900, at the end of thecity’s Gilded Age. With a deep understanding of the effects onpublic health of politics, race, and geography, Chase shows how onecity triumphed over perhaps the most frightening and deadly of allscourges.

In his writing, Borges always combined high seriousness with awicked sense of fun. Here he reveals his delight in re-creating (ormaking up) colorful stories from the Orient, the Islamic world, andthe Wild West, as well as his horrified fascination with knifefights, political and personal betrayal, and bloodthirsty revenge.Spark-ling with the sheer exuberant pleasure of story-telling, thiscollection marked the emergence of an utterly distinctive literaryvoice.

Ernest Furgurson, author of Ashes of Glory and Chancellorsville 1863 , brings his talents to a pivotal andoften neglected Civil War battle–the fierce, unremitting slaughterat Cold Harbor, Virginia, which ended the lives of 10,000 Unionsoldiers. In June of 1864, the Army of the Potomac attacked heavilyentrenched Confederate forces outside of Richmond, hoping to breakthe strength of Robert E. Lee and take the capital. Facing almostcertain death, Union soldiers pinned their names to their uniformsin the forlorn hope that their bodies would be identified andburied. Furgurson sheds new light on the personal conflicts thatled to Grant’s worst defeat and argues that it was a watershedmoment in the war. Offering a panorama rich in detail and revealinganecdotes that brings the dark days of the campaign to life, NotWar But Murder is historical narrative as compelling as anynovel.

By the world-renowned novelist, playwright, critic, and authorof Wizard of the Crow, an evocative and affecting memoir ofchildhood. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 in rural Kenya to a fatherwhose four wives bore him more than a score of children. The manwho would become one of Africa’s leading writers was the fifthchild of the third wife. Even as World War II affected the lives ofAfricans under British colonial rule in particularly unexpectedways, Ngugi spent his childhood as very much the apple of hismother’s eye before attending school to slake what was thenconsidered a bizarre thirst for learning. In Dreams in a Time of War, Ngugi deftly etches a bygone era,capturing the landscape, the people, and their culture; the socialand political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war; andthe troubled relationship between an emerging Christianized middleclass and the rural poor. And he shows how the Mau Mau armedstruggle for Kenya’s independence against the British informed noton

Until World War II aircraft had played only a minor role incombat, but with the RAF and Luftwaffe fiercely dueling in theBattle of Britain it was apparent that air superiority would be thedeciding factor in the war. The Eighth Air Force quickly grew fromits first modest effort into the mightiest aerial armada inhistory, eventually launching thousand-plane raids. WhileFortresses and Liberators attacked factories, fuel supplies, andtransportation networks, Lightnings, Thunderbolts, and Mustangsshot enemy fighters from the skies. But the road to victory was paved with sacrifice. From itsinaugural mission on July 4, 1942, until V-E Day, the Eighth AirForce lost more men than did the entire United States Marine Corpsin all its campaigns in the Pacific. The Mighty Eighth chroniclesthe testimony of the pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunnerswho daily put their lives on the line. Their harrowing accountsrecall the excitement and terror of dogfights against Nazi aces,maneuvering explosive-laden aircr

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.

When Green Beret Lieutenant James N. Rowe was captured in 1963in Vietnam, his life became more than a matter of stayingalive. In a Vietcong POW camp, Rowe endured beri-beri, dysentery, andtropical fungus diseases. He suffered grueling psychological andphysical torment. He experienced the loneliness and frustration ofwatching his friends die. And he struggled every day to maintainfaith in himself as a soldier and in his country as it appeared tobe turning against him. His survival is testimony to the disciplined human spirit. His story is gripping.

Demonstrates how the colonies developed into the first nationcreated under the influences of nationalism, modern capitalism andProtestantism.

Paris - Underground BY ETTA SHIBER. Contents include: I Escapefrom Europe i II Flight from Paris 13 III The English Pilot 22 IVRunning the Gauntlet 31 V They Are Here 37 VI Plans for Escape 51VII William Escapes 57 VIII A Trip to Doullens 67 IX Ten T

In 1971 a young French ethnologist named Francois Bizot wastaken prisoner by forces of the Khmer Rouge who kept him chained ina jungle camp for months before releasing him. Four years laterBizot became the intermediary between the now victorious KhmerRouge and the occupants of the besieged French embassy in PhnomPenh, eventually leading a desperate convoy of foreigners to safetyacross the Thai border. Out of those ordeals comes this transfixing book. At its centerlies the relationship between Bizot and his principal captor, a mannamed Douch, who is today known as the most notorious of the KhmerRouge’s torturers but who, for a while, was Bizot’s protector andfriend. Written with the immediacy of a great novel, unsparing inits understanding of evil, The Gate manages to be at oncewrenching and redemptive.

Here is an oral history of the Vietnam War by thirty-threeAmerican soldiers who fought it. A 1983 American Book Awardnominee.

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and SebastianJunger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventurein which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a greathistorical mystery–and make history themselves. For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was morethan a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents,braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigatingthrough wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselvesto their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than oncein the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers wereprepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in thefrigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: aWorld War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wastelandof twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried underdecades of accumulated sediment. No identifying marks were visible on

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

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

An analysis of the Civil War, drawing on letters and diariesby more than one thousand soldiers, gives voice to the personalreasons behind the war, offering insight into the ideology thatshaped both sides. Reprint. PW.

There were no dry runs for Seawolves in Vietnam. They put their lives on the line—every time. In the Viet Cong-infested Mekong Delta, where smallSEAL teams were always outgunned and outnumbered, discovery broughtswift, deadly consequences— and a radio call for backup from theUnited States Navy’s very best: the Seawolves. The whir ofapproaching rotor blades signaled their arrival as they torethrough the jungle at treetop level, gunners hanging off the skids,shooting M-60s, raining down their lethal mix of high explosivesand incendiary death. Seawolf Dan Kelly describes the origins of this extraordinaryoutfit. Put through a training program unlike any other, these menemerged to perform unparalleled feats of courage. The stories ofthese elite warriors capture America’s real heroes in all theirguts and glory, and demonstrate why the Seawolves are known as themost successful and most decorated unit in the Vietnam War.

In this classic study, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James M.McPherson deftly narrates the experience of blacks--former slavesand soldiers, preachers, visionaries, doctors, intellectuals, andcommon people--during the Civil War. Drawing on contemporaryjournalism, speeches, books, and letters, he presents an eclecticchronicle of their fears and hopes as well as their essentialcontributions to their own freedom. Through the words of theseextraordinary participants, both Northern and Southern, McPhersoncaptures African-American responses to emancipation, the shiftingattitudes toward Lincoln and the life of black soldiers in theUnion army. Above all, we are allowed to witness the dreams of adisenfranchised people eager to embrace the rights and the equalityoffered to them, finally, as citizens.

November 11, 1918. The final hours pulsate with tension asevery man in the trenches hopes to escape the melancholydistinction of being the last to die in World War I. The Alliedgenerals knew the fighting would end precisely at 11:00 A.M, yet inthe final hours they flung men against an already beaten Germany.The result? Eleven thousand casualties suffered–more than duringthe D-Day invasion of Normandy. Why? Allied commanders wanted topunish the enemy to the very last moment and career officers saw afast-fading chance for glory and promotion. Joseph E. Persico puts the reader in the trenches with theforgotten and the famous–among the latter, Corporal Adolf Hitler,Captain Harry Truman, and Colonels Douglas MacArthur and GeorgePatton. Mainly, he follows ordinary soldiers’ lives, illuminatingtheir fate as the end approaches. Persico sets the last day of thewar in historic context with a gripping reprise of all that led upto it, from the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke, FranzFerdinand

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.

Part of the briefing included familiarizing the men with theenemy uniforms. Private Robert “Lightnin” Hayes had thisrecollection to add: “I remember the day we were assembled in atent for the first time and an officer told us where we were goingto jump. He then paused to watch our reactions. There was a sandtable near by with a facsimile of the terrain on which we weregoing to drop. There were tw...

September 17, 1944. Thousands of Screaming Eagles–101stAirborne Division paratroopers–descend from the sky over Holland,dropping deep behind German lines in a daring daylight mission toseize and secure the road leading north to Arnhem and the Rhine.Their success would allow the Allied army to advance swiftly intoGermany. The Screaming Eagles accomplish their initial objectiveswithin hours, but keeping their sections of “Hell’s Highway” opentakes another seventy-two days of fierce round-the-clock fightingagainst crack German troops and tank divisions. Drawing on interviews with more than six hundred paratroopers,George E. Koskimaki chronicles, with vivid firsthand accounts, thedramatic, never-before-told story of the Screaming Eagles’ valiantstruggle. Hell’s Highway also tellsof the Dutch citizens andmembers of the underground who were liberated after five years ofNazi oppression and never forgot America’s airborne heroes. Thisrenowned force risked their lives for the freedom of a

The First Battle is a graphic account of the first major clashof the Vietnam War. On August 18, 1965, regiment fought regiment onthe Van Tuong Peninsula near the new Marine base at Chu Lai. On theAmerican side were three battalions of Marines under the command ofColonel Oscar Peatross, a hero of two previous wars. His opponentwas the 1st Viet Cong Regiment commanded by Nguyen Dinh Trong, aveteran of many fights against the French and the South Vietnamese.Codenamed Operation Starlite, this action was a resounding successfor the Marines and its result was cause for great optimism aboutAmerica's future in Vietnam. Those expecting a book about Americansin battle will not be disappointed by the detailed de*ions ofhow the fight unfolded. Marine participants from private to colonelwere interviewed during the book's research phase. The battle isseen from the mud level, by those who were at the point of thespear. But this is not just another war story told exclusively fromthe American side. In researching the book, t

From the deadly shores of North Africa to the invasion ofSicily to the fierce jungle hell of the Pacific, the contributionof the World War II Ranger Battalions far outweighed their numbers.They were ordinary men on an extraordinary mission, experiencingthe full measure of the fear, exhaustion, and heroism of combat innearly every major invasion of the war. Whether spearheading alanding force or scouting deep behind enemy lines, these highlymotivated, highly trained volunteers led the way for other soldiers-- they were Rangers. With first-person interviews, in-depth research, and a completeappendix naming every Ranger known to have served, author RobertBlack, a Ranger himself, has made the battles of WWII come to lifethrough the struggles of the men who fought to win the greatest warthe world has ever seen.