Winner of the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in the categoryof Biography, Autobiography Memoir A powerful memoir of war, politics, literature, and family lifeby one of Europe's leading intellectuals. When George Konrad was a child of eleven, he, his sister, and twocousins managed to flee to Budapest from the Hungarian countrysidethe day before deportations swept through his home town.Ultimately, they were the only Jewish children of the town tosurvive the Holocaust. A Guest in My Own Country recalls the life of one of EasternEurope's most accomplished modern writers, beginning with hissurvival during the final months of the war. Konrad captures thedangers, the hopes, the betrayals and courageous acts of the periodthrough a series of carefully chosen episodes that occasionallyborder on the surreal (as when a dead German soldier begins tospeak, attempting to justify his actions). The end of the war launches the young man on a remarkable careerin letters and politics. Offering l

The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trottingtale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, ficklefashion, and mouthwatering cuisine–in short, the very stuff ofwhich our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, andanecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writerand food historian, tells the story of three legendarycities–Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam–and how their single-mindedpursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet andset in motion the first great wave of globalization. Sharing mealsand stories with Indian pepper planters, Portuguese sailors, andVenetian foodies, Krondl takes every opportunity to explore theworld of long ago and sample its many flavors. Along the way, hereveals that the taste for spice of a few wealthy Europeans ledto great crusades, astonishing feats of bravery, and even wholesaleslaughter. As stimulating as it is pleasurable, and filled with surprisinginsights, The Taste of Conquest offers a compell

Resolution of intractable problems around the world requiresunderstanding ordinary people as well as leaders. This street-levelview of Northern Ireland provides the best explanation of thetwenty-five-year conflict.

In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency,” V. S.Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left onehundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concisemasterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of asociety traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured ina mythic vision of its past. Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his ownencounters with ordinary Indians–from a supercilious prince to anengineer constructing housing for Bombay’s homeless–Naipaulcaptures a vast, mysterious, and agonized continent inaccessible toforeigners and barely visible to its own people. He sees both theburgeoning space program and the 5,000 volunteers chanting mantrasto purify a defiled temple; the feudal village autocrat and theNaxalite revolutionaries who combined Maoist rhetoric with ritualmurder. Relentless in its vision, thrilling in the keenness of itsprose, India: A Wounded Civilization is a work of astonishinginsight an

Includes a complete copy of the Constitution.Fifty-five menmet in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a document that would create acountry and change a world. Here is a remarkable rendering of thatfateful time, told with humanity and humor. "The best popularhistory of the Constitutional Convention available."--LibraryJournal From the Paperback edition.

In A Continent for the Taking Howard W. French, a veterancorrespondent for The New York Times, gives a compelling firsthandaccount of some of Africa’s most devastating recent history–fromthe fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, to Charles Taylor’s arrival inMonrovia, to the genocide in Rwanda and the Congo that leftmillions dead. Blending eyewitness reportage with rich historicalinsight, French searches deeply into the causes of today’s events,illuminating the debilitating legacy of colonization and theabiding hypocrisy and inhumanity of both Western and Africanpolitical leaders. While he captures the tragedies that have repeatedly befallenAfrica’s peoples, French also opens our eyes to the immensepossibility that lies in Africa’s complexity, diversity, and myriadcultural strengths. The culmination of twenty-five years ofpassionate exploration and understanding, this is a powerful andultimately hopeful book about a fascinating and misunderstoodcontinent.

Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company's 1stPlatoon, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, found itself inFallujah, embroiled in some of the most intense house-to-house,hand-to-hand urban combat since World War II. In the city's bloodystreets, they came face-to-face with the enemy--radical insurgentshigh on adrenaline, fighting to a martyr's death, and suicidebombers approaching from every corner. Award-winning author andhistorian Patrick O'Donnell stood shoulder to shoulder with thismodern band of brothers as they marched and fought through thestreets of Fallujah, and he stayed with them as the casualtiesmounted.