In 1787, the beautiful Lucia is married off to AlviseMocenigo, scion of one of the most powerful Venetian families. Buttheir life as a golden couple will be suddenly transformed whenVenice falls to Bonaparte. We witness Lucia's painful series ofmiscarriages and the pressure on her to produce an heir; herimpassioned affair with an Austrian officer; the glamour and strainof her career as a hostess in Vienna; and her amazing firsthandaccount of the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. With his brave andarticulate heroine, Andrea di Robilant has once again reachedacross the centuries, and deep into his own past, to bring historyto rich and vivid life on the page.

In a remarkably vibrant narrative, Michael Stürmer blends highpolitics, social history, portraiture, and an unparalleled commandof military and economic developments to tell the story ofGermany’s breakneck rise from new nation to Continental superpower.It begins with the German military’s greatest triumph, theFranco-Prussian War, and then tracks the forces of unification,industrialization, colonization, and militarization as theycombined to propel Germany to become the force that fatallydestabilized Europe’s balance of power. Without The GermanEmpire ’s masterly rendering of this story, a full understandingof the roots of World War I and World War II is impossible.

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.

The last quarter of the eighteenth century remains the mostpolitically creative era in American history, when a dedicatedgroup of men undertook a bold experiment in political ideals. Itwas a time of both triumphs and tragedies—all of which contributedto the shaping of our burgeoning nation. Ellis casts an incisiveeye on the gradual pace of the American Revolution and thecontributions of such luminaries as Washington, Jefferson, andMadison, and brilliantly analyzes the failures of the founders toadequately solve the problems of slavery and the treatment ofNative Americans. With accessible prose and stunning eloquence,Ellis delineates in American Creation an era of flawed greatness,at a time when understanding our origins is more important thanever.

From a master chronicler of Spanish history comes amagnificent work about the pivotal years from 1522 to 1566, whenSpain was the greatest European power. Hugh Thomas has written arich and riveting narrative of exploration, progress, and plunder.At its center is the unforgettable ruler who fought the French andexpanded the Spanish empire, and the bold conquistadors who werehis agents. Thomas brings to life King Charles V—first as a ganglyand easygoing youth, then as a liberal statesman who exceeded allhis predecessors in his ambitions for conquest (while making sureto maintain the humanity of his new subjects in the Americas), andfinally as a besieged Catholic leader obsessed with Protestantheresy and interested only in profiting from those he presidedover. The Golden Empire also presents the legendary men whom KingCharles V sent on perilous and unprecedented expeditions: HernánCortés, who ruled the “New Spain” of Mexico as an absolutemonarch—and whose rebuilding of its capital, Tenochti

Published when Theodore Roosevelt was only twenty-three yearsold, The Naval War of 1812 was immediately hailed as aliterary and scholarly triumph, and it is still considered thedefinitive book on the subject. It caused considerable controversyfor its bold refutation of earlier accounts of the war, but itsbrilliant analysis and balanced tone left critics floundering,changed the course of U.S. military history by renewing interest inour obsolete forces, and set the young author and political hopefulon a path to greatness. Roosevelt's inimitable style and robustnarrative make The Naval War of 1812 enthralling, illuminating, andutterly essential to every armchair historian.

Award-winning historian Deborah Lipstadt gives us acom?pelling reassessment of the groundbreaking trial that hasbecome a touchstone for judicial proceedings throughout the worldin which victims of genocide confront its perpetrators. The capture of SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eich?mann by Israeliagents in Argentina in May of 1960 and his subsequent trial in TelAviv by an Israeli court electrified the world. The public debateit sparked on where, how, and by whom Nazi war criminals should bebrought to justice, and the international media cov?erage of thetrial itself, is recognized as a watershed moment in how thecivilized world in general and Ho?locaust survivors in particularfound the means to deal with the legacy of genocide on a scale thathad never been seen before. In The Eichmann Trial, award-winning historian Deborah Lipstadtgives us an overview of the trial and analyzes the dramatic effectthat the testimony of sur?vivors in a court of law—which was itselfnot without controversy—had o

"In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, toNormandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversaryof D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe thatmarked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked thebeaches with the American veterans who had returned for thisanniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened totheir stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for allthey had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for thefiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come tounderstand what this generation of Americans meant to history. Itis, I believe, the greatest generation any society has everproduced." In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tellthrough the stories of individual men and women the story of ageneration, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of ageduring the Great Depression and the Second World War and went

This is a book aboutGermans and Jews, about power and money. It is a book focused onBismarck and Bleichroder, Junker and Jew, statesman and banker,collaborators for over thirty years. The setting is that of aGermany where two worlds clashed: the new world of capitalism andan earlier world with its ancient feudal ethos; gradually a new andbroadened elite emerged, and Bismarck's tie with Bleichroderepitomized that regrouping. It is the story of the founding of thenew German Empire, in whose midst a Jewish minority rose toembattled prominence.

Each year, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps selects onebook that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading byall Marines. The Commandant's choice for 1993 was We Were SoldiersOnce . . . and Young. In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry,under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopterinto a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediatelysurrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later,only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped topieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray andAlbany constituted one of the most savage and significant battlesof the Vietnam War. How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for theircomrades and never gave up--makes a vivid portrait of war at itsmost inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway,the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, haveinterviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the Nort

The winner of Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize and abestseller there for months, this wonderfully readable biographyoffers a rich, rollicking picture of late-eighteenth-centuryBritish aristocracy and the intimate story of a woman who for atime was its undisputed leader. Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt ofDiana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In1774, at the age of seventeen, Georgiana achieved immediatecelebrity by marrying one of England's richest and most influentialaristocrats, the Duke of Devonshire. Launched into a world ofwealth and power, she quickly became the queen of fashionablesociety, adored by the Prince of Wales, a dear friend ofMarie-Antoinette, and leader of the most important salon of hertime. Not content with the role of society hostess, she used herconnections to enter politics, eventually becoming more influentialthan most of the men who held office. Her good works and social exploits made her loved by themultitudes

In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story ofcourage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefullydocuments--and exposes--one of the worst racial massacres inAmerican history. Whitaker's important book commemorates a legalstruggle, "Moore v. Dempsey, " that paved the way for the civilrights era, and tells too of a man, Scipio Africanus Jones, whosename surely deserves to be known by all Americans. "Whitaker has ... placed the massacre and the Supreme Courtdecision in their full legal and historical context. At the sametime, he has revived the story of a great African-American lawyer,Scipio Africanus Jones." --"New York Times Book Review"

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

Instead of the dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullientcountry, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty andtechnology--a strikingly fresh view of Louis XVI's France. A NewYork Times bestseller in hardcover. 200 illustrations.

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

At the age of thirty-three, Ekow Eshun—born in London toAfrican-born parents—travels to Ghana in search of his roots. Hegoes from Accra, Ghana’s cosmopolitan capital city, to the storiedslave forts of Elmina, and on to the historic warrior kingdom ofAsante. During his journey, Eshun uncovers a long-held secret abouthis lineage that will compel him to question everything he knowsabout himself and where he comes from. From the London suburbs ofhis childhood to the twenty-first century African metropolis,Eshun’s is a moving chronicle of one man’s search for home, and ofthe pleasures and pitfalls of fashioning an identity in thesevibrant contemporary worlds.

For the first time in decades, here, in a single volume, is afresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty, comprising some of the mostenigmatic figures ever to rule a country. Acclaimed historian G. J.Meyer reveals the flesh-and-bone reality in all its wildexcess. In 1485, young Henry Tudor, whose claim to the throne was so weakas to be almost laughable, crossed the English Channel from Franceat the head of a ragtag little army and took the crown from thefamily that had ruled England for almost four hundred years. Half acentury later his son, Henry VIII, desperate to rid himself of hisfirst wife in order to marry a second, launched a reign of terroraimed at taking powers no previous monarch had even dreamed ofpossessing. In the process he plunged his kingdom into generationsof division and disorder, creating a legacy of blood and betrayalthat would blight the lives of his children and the destiny of hiscountry. The boy king Edward VI, a fervent believer in reforming theEnglish church, died before

Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historianAlexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring thathelped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rosetakes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowyunderworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operationsand code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men whoinhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at theheart of it all. In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor,General George Washington desperately needed to know where theBritish would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secretweapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged withdiscovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy. Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn betweenpolitical principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailoraddicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, aYale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan

Here is the crucial summer of 1944 as seen by both sides, fromthe British spy, code-named “Garbo,” who successfully misled theNazis about the time and place of the D-day landings, to the poorplanning for action after the assault that forced the allies tofight for nine weeks “field to field, hedgerow to hedgerow.” Heretoo are the questionable command decisions of Montgomery,Eisenhower, and Bradley, the insatiable ego of Patton. Yet,fighting in some of the most miserable conditions of the war, theallied soldiers used ingenuity, resilience, and raw courage todrive the enemy from France in what John Keegan describes as “thebiggest disaster to hit the German army in the course of the war.”Normandy is an inspiring tribute to the common fighting men of fivenations who won the pivotal campaign that lead to peace andfreedom.

Military historian Alexander ( Lost Victories et al.)offers a well-reasoned brief that lays the blame for theConfederate defeat in the Civil War primarily on PresidentJefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, and their war-longinsistence on conducting toe-to-toe frontal assaults against themuch-stronger Union Army. Alexander argues that had Davis and Leelistened to Gen. Stonewall Jackson, things very well could haveturned out differently. Jackson—and like-minded generals Joseph E.Johnston, Pierre G.T. Beauregard and James Longstreet—warnedagainst conducting an offensive war against the North. Instead,they advocated waging unrelenting war against undefended factories,farms, and railroads north of the Mason-Dixon line, bypassing theUnion Army and winning indirectly by assaulting the Northernpeople's will to pursue the war. While Alexander convincinglyargues that there was nothing inevitable about a Southern defeat,he is no Lost Cause advocate. Instead, he presents well-drawn andclear-eyed tactical and strat

Marco Polo’s account of his journey throughout the East in thethirteenth century was one of the earliest European travelnarratives, and it remains the most important. Themerchant-traveler from Venice, the first to cross the entirecontinent of Asia, provided us with accurate de*ions of lifein China, Tibet, India, and a hundred other lands, and recordedcustoms, natural history, strange sights, historical legends, andmuch more. From the dazzling courts of Kublai Khan to the perilousdeserts of Persia, no book contains a richer magazine of marvelsthan the Travels. This edition, selected and edited by the great scholar ManuelKomroff, also features the classic and stylistically brilliantMarsden translation, revised and corrected, as well as Komroff’sIntroduction to the 1926 edition.

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

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

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