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.

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

A source of endless fascination and speculation, the subjectof countless biographies, novels, and films, Elizabeth I is nowconsidered from a thrilling new angle by the brilliant younghistorian Tracy Borman. So often viewed in her relationships withmen, the Virgin Queen is portrayed here as the product of women—themother she lost so tragically, the female subjects who worshippedher, and the peers and intimates who loved, raised, challenged, andsometimes opposed her. In vivid detail, Borman presents Elizabeth’s bewitching mother,Anne Boleyn, eager to nurture her new child, only to see her takenaway and her own life destroyed by damning allegations—which taughtElizabeth never to mix politics and love. Kat Astley, the governesswho attended and taught Elizabeth for almost thirty years, inviteddisaster by encouraging her charge into a dangerous liaison afterHenry VIII’s death. Mary Tudor—“Bloody Mary”—envied her youngersister’s popularity and threatened to destroy her altogether. Andanimosity dr

Propelled by the discovery of an ancient book and a cache ofyellowing letters, a young woman plunges into a labyrinth where thesecrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: thedark reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that mayhave kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for thethe truth becomes an adventure of monumental propportions, takingus from monasteries and dusty libraries to the captitals of EasternEurope - in a feat of storytelling so rich, so exciting, sosuspenseful that it has enthralled readers around he world.

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famousmoment in American military history, James Bradley has captured theglory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six menwho raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind theimmortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage andindomitable will of America. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at IwoJima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortarfire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled tothe island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscapeof hell itself, they raised a flag. Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerfulaccount of six very different young men who came together in amoment that will live forever. To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or thewar. But after his death at age seventy, his family discoveredclosed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers ,James Bradley draws on those documents

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.

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.

At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousandAmericans loyal to the British cause fled the United States andbecame refugees throughout the British Empire. This groundbreakingbook offers the first global history of the loyalist exodus toCanada, the Caribbean, Sierra Leone, India, and beyond. Followingextraordinary journeys like the one of Elizabeth Johnston, a youngmother from Georgia, who led her growing family to Britain,Jamaica, and Canada, questing for a home; black loyalists such asDavid George, who escaped from slavery in Virginia and went on tofound Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone; andMohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant, who tried to find autonomy forhis people in Ontario, Liberty’s Exiles challengesconventional understandings about the founding of the United Statesand the shaping of the postrevolutionary world. Based on originalresearch on four continents, this book is at once an intimatenarrative history and a provocative new analysis—a story about thepast that

A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatestminds, and greatest books of all time -- listed in accessible andsuccinct form -- by one of the world's greatest scholars. From the "Hundred Best Books" to the "Ten Greatest Thinkers" tothe "Ten Greatest Poets," here is a concise collection of theworld's most significant knowledge. For the better part of acentury, Will Durant dwelled upon -- and wrote about -- the mostsignificant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history.His selections have finally been brought together in a single,compact volume. Durant eloquently defends his choices of thegreatest minds and ideas, but he also stimulates readers intoforming their own opinions, encouraging them to shed theirsurroundings and biases and enter "The Country of the Mind," atimeless realm where the heroes of our species dwell. From a thinker who always chose to exalt the positive in thehuman species, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time stays true to Durant's optimism. This is a book c

In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as “Maggie” to his fellowparatroopers, joined the 82d Airborne Division, his new “home” forthe duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountainsoutside Naples. In October 1943, when most of the 82d departed Italy to prepare forthe D-Day invasion of France, Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, the Fifth Armycommander, requested that the division’s 504th Parachute InfantryRegiment, Maggie’s outfit, stay behind for a daring new operationthat would outflank the Nazis’ stubborn defensive lines and openthe road to Rome. On 22 January 1944, Megellas and the rest of the504th landed across the beach at Anzio. Following initial success,Fifth Army’s amphibious assault, Operation Shingle, bogged down inthe face of heavy German counterattacks that threatened to drivethe Allies into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Anzio turned into a fiasco, oneof the bloodiest Allied operations of the war. Not until April werethe remnants of the regiment withdrawn and shipped to England torecover, reo

This brief and illuminating account of the ideas of worldorder prevalent in the Elizabethan age and later is anindispensable companion for readers of the great writers of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Shakespeare and the Elizabethandramatists, Donne and Milton, among many others. The basic medievalidea of an ordered Chain of Being is studied by Professor Tillyardin the process of its various transformations by the dynamic spiritof the Renaissance. Among his topics are: Angels; the Stars andFortunes; the Analogy between Macrocosm and Microcosm; the FourElements; the Four Humours; Sympathies; Correspondences; and theCosmic Dance—ideas and symbols which inspirited the minds andimaginations not only of the Elizabethans but of all men of theRenaissance.

Writing with passion and intelligence, Said retraces thePalestinian Hejira, its disastrous flirtation with Saddam Hussein,and its ambitious peace accord with Israel. Said demolishes Westernstereotypes about the Muslim world and Islam's illusions aboutitself, leaving a masterly synthesis of scholarship and polemicwith the power to redefine the debate over the Middle East.

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.

When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664,the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappearinto myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and acartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colonyof New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages ofits records–recently declared a national treasure–are now beingtranslated. Drawing on this remarkable archive, Russell Shorto hascreated a gripping narrative–a story of global sweep centered on awilderness called Manhattan–that transforms our understanding ofearly America. The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yetit seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan andmulti-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individualrights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive,young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in thesepages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political visionbrought him into conflict with Pete

On 22 June 1941, the German army invaded the Soviet Union, onehundred fifty divisions advancing on three axes in a surpriseattack that overwhelmed and destroyed whatever opposition theRussians were able to muster. The German High Command was under theimpression that the Red Army could be destroyed west of the DneprRiver and that there would be no need for conducting operations incold, snow, and mud. They were wrong. In reality, the extreme conditions of the German war in Russiawere so brutal that past experiences simply paled before them.Everything in Russia--the land, the weather, the distances, andabove all the people--was harder, harsher, more unforgiving, andmore deadly than anything the German soldier had ever facedbefore. Based on the recollections of four veteran German commanders ofthose battles, FIGHTING IN HELL describes in detail what happenedwhen the world's best-publicized "supermen" met the world's mostbrutal fighting. It is not a tale for the squeamish.

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

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National BookAward Based on hitherto unexamined sources: interviews with ex-slaves,diaries and accounts by former slaveholders, this "rich andadmirably written book" (Eugene Genovese, The New York TimesBook Review ) aims to show how, during the Civil War and afterEmancipation, blacks and whites interacted in ways that dramatizednot only their mutual dependency, but the ambiguities and tensionsthat had always been latent in "the peculiar institution."

"An extraordinary work of history, imaginatively conceived,thoroughly researched and absorbingly written. William Leach allowsus to see the production of mass consumer culture and to see itwhole, in its richness and its poverty. It is a fascinating andtroubling tale, and Leach tells it with exceptional skill andsensitivity." --Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University "A major reinterpretation of our cultural experience, Land ofDesire is a brilliant, evocative, and highly readable study by anoriginal, honest and courageous historian who has seen to the heartof American commercial culture. In a society in debt to thelicentious 1980s and unfortunately still attempting to achievesocial justice though endless growth, this is requiredreading."--Mary O. Furner, University of California, SantaBarbara

That Sweet Enemy brings bothBritish wit (Robert Tombs is a British historian) and Frenchpanache (Isabelle Tombs is a French historian) to bear on threecenturies of the history of Britain and France. From Waterloo toChirac’s slandering of British cooking, the authors chart thiscross-channel entanglement and the unparalleled breadth ofcultural, economic, and political influence it has wrought on bothsides, illuminating the complex and sometimes contradictory aspectsof this relationship—rivalry, enmity, and misapprehension mixedwith envy, admiration, and genuine affection—and the myriad ways ithas shaped the modern world. Written with wit and elegance, and illustrated with delightfulimages and cartoons from both sides of the Channel, That SweetEnemy is a unique and immensely enjoyable history, destined tobecome a classic.