Here in a single volume are the documents, speeches and lettersthat have forged American history, accompanied by interpretationsof their significance by noted historian and broadcaster Richard D.Heffner. The book includes the complete text of the Declaration ofIndependence, the complete Constitution of the United States, theEmancipation Proclamation, FDR's ""Four Freedoms"" speech, JFK'sinaugural address, Martin Luther King's ""I Have a Dream"" speech,documents relating to 9/11 and Barack Obama's inauguraladdress.

From Midnight to Dawn presents compelling portraitsof the men and women who established the Underground Railroad andtraveled it to find new lives in Canada. Evoking the turmoil andcontroversies of the time, Tobin illuminates the historic eventsthat forever connected American and Canadian history by giving usthe true stories behind well-known figures such as Harriet Tubmanand John Brown. She also profiles lesser-known but equally heroicfigures such as Mary Ann Shadd, who became the first black femalenewspaper editor in North America, and Osborne Perry Anderson, theonly black survivor of the fighting at Harpers Ferry. Anextraordinary examination of a part of American history, FromMidnight to Dawn will captivate readers with its tales of hope,courage, and a people’s determination to live equally under thelaw.

The effects of war refuse to remain local: they persistthrough the centuries, sometimes in unlikely ways far removed fromthe military arena. In Ripples of Battle , the acclaimed historianVictor Davis Hanson weaves wide-ranging military and culturalhistory with his unparalleled gift for battle narrative as heilluminates the centrality of war in the human experience. The Athenian defeat at Delium in 424 BC brought tacticalinnovations to infantry fighting; it also assured the influence ofthe philosophy of Socrates, who fought well in the battle. Nearlytwenty-three hundred years later, the carnage at Shiloh and thedeath of the brilliant Southern strategist Albert Sidney Johnsoninspired a sense of fateful tragedy that would endure and stymieSouthern culture for decades. The Northern victory would alsobolster the reputation of William Tecumseh Sherman, and inspire LewWallace to pen the classic Ben Hur . And, perhaps most resonant forour time, the agony of Okinawa spurred the Japanese towardstate-sanct

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

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.

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.

The heartwarming New York Times bestseller by the author ofThe Greatest Generation "When I wrote about the men and women who came out of theDepression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices inWorld War II and then returned home to begin building the world wehave today ... it was my way of saying thank you. I was notprepared for the avalanche of letters and responses touched off bythat book. "I had written a book about America, and now America was writingback." Tom Brokaw touched the heart of the nation with his towering #1bestseller The Greatest Generation, a moving tribute to those whogave the world so much -- and who left an enduring legacy ofheroism and grace. The Greatest Generation Speaks was born out ofthe vast outpouring of letters Brokaw received from people eager toshare their personal memories and experiences of a momentous timein America's history. These letters and reflections cross time, distance, andgenerations as they give voice to lives forever chan

On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected U.S. troops slippedbehind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirtyrugged miles to rescue 513 POWs languishing in a hellish camp,among them the last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March. Arecent prison massacre by Japanese soldiers elsewhere in thePhilippines made the stakes impossibly high and left little time toplan the complex operation. In Ghost Soldiers Hampton Sides vividly re-creates thisdaring raid, offering a minute-by-minute narration that unfoldsalongside intimate portraits of the prisoners and their lives inthe camp. Sides shows how the POWs banded together to survive,defying the Japanese authorities even as they endured starvation,tropical diseases, and torture. Harrowing, poignant, and inspiring, Ghost Soldiers is the mesmerizing story of a remarkablemission. It is also a testament to the human spirit, an account ofenormous bravery and self-sacrifice amid the most tryingconditions.

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.

A powerful wartime saga in the bestselling tradition of Flags of Our Fathers, Brothers in Arms recounts theextraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the firstall-black armored unit to see combat in World War II.

Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive,the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his ownillusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye fordetail, pitiless candor and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life amodern classic.

Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, and Mary, Queen of Scots. Whatdid they have in common? For a while they were crowned in gold,cosseted in silk, and flattered by courtiers. But in the end, theyspent long nights in dark prison towers and were marched to thescaffold where they surrendered their heads to the executioner. Andthey are hardly alone in their undignified demises. Throughouthistory, royal women have had a distressing way of meeting badends--dying of starvation, being burned at the stake, or expiringin childbirth while trying desperately to produce an heir. Theyalways had to be on their toes and all too often even deviousplotting, miraculous pregnancies, and selling out their sisters wasnot enough to keep them from forcible consignment to religiousorders. From Cleopatra (suicide by asp), to Princess Caroline(suspiciously poisoned on her coronation day), there’s a gorydownside to being blue-blooded when you lack a Y chromosome. KrisWaldherr’s elegant little book is a chronicle of the trials andt

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.

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.