It is a tale as familiar as our history primers: A derangedactor, John Wilkes Booth, killed Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre,escaped on foot, and eluded capture for twelve days until he methis fiery end in a Virginia tobacco barn. In the national hysteriathat followed, eight others were arrested and tried; four of thosewere executed, four imprisoned. Therein lie all the classicelements of a great thriller. But the untold tale is even morefascinating. Now, in American Brutus, Michael W. Kauffman, one of the foremostLincoln assassination authorities, takes familiar history to adeeper level, offering an unprecedented, authoritative account ofthe Lincoln murder conspiracy. Working from a staggering array ofarchival sources and new research, Kauffman sheds new light on thebackground and motives of John Wilkes Booth, the mechanics of hisplot to topple the Union government, and the trials and fates ofthe conspirators. Piece by piece, Kauffman explains and corrects commonmisperceptions and analy

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkestyears of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before orsince. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues thisiconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour deforce of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and theircommunities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells oftheir desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dustblizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantlycapturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equaljustice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic,long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgencyand respect" (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greaternatural disasters, "The Worst Hard Time" is "arguably the bestnonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatestenvironmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and apowerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling withnature

This singular collection is nothing less than a political,spiritual, and intensely personal record of America's tumultuousmodern age, as experienced by our foremost critics, commentators,activists, and artists. Joyce Carol Oates has collected a group ofworks that are both intimate and important, essays that move frompersonal experience to larger significance without severing theconnection between speaker and audience. From Ernest Hemingwaycovering bullfights in Pamplona to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s"Letter from Birmingham Jail," these essays fit, in the words ofJoyce Carol Oates, "into a kind of mobile mosaic suggest ing] wherewe've come from, and who we are, and where we are going." Amongthose whose work is included are Mark Twain, John Muir, T. S.Eliot, Richard Wright, Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin, Tom Wolfe,Susan Sontag, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Joan Didion, CynthiaOzick, Saul Bellow, Stephen Jay Gould, Edward Hoagland, and AnnieDillard.

The companion volume to Stars in Their Courses, thismarvelous account of Grant's siege of the Mississippi port ofVicksburg continues Foote's narrative of the great battles of theCivil War--culled from his massive three-volume history--recountinga campaign which Lincoln called "one of the most brilliant in theworld."

A "full-dress history of the war by one of our mostdistinguished military writers" (NEW YORK TIMES), WORLD WAR I takesus from the first shots in Sarajevo to the signing of the peacetreaty in Versailles and through every bunker, foxhole, andminefield in between. General S.L.A. Marshall drew on his uniquefirsthand experience as a soldier and a lifetime of militaryservice to pen this forthright, forward-thinking history of whatpeople once believed would be the last great war. Newly introducedby the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, David M. Kennedy, WORLDWAR I is a classic example of unflinching military history that iscertain to inform, enrich, and deepen our understanding of thisgreat cataclysm.

In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Marine Corps’ ground campaignup the Tigris and Euphrates was notable for speed andaggressiveness unparalleled in military history. Little has beenwritten, however, of the air support that guaranteed the drive’ssuccess. Paving the way for the rush to Baghdad was “the hammerfrom above”–in the form of attack helicopters, jet fighters,transport, and other support aircraft. Now a former Marine fighterpilot shares the gripping never-before-told stories of the Marineswho helped bring to an end the regime of Saddam Hussein. As Jay Stout reveals, the air war had actually been in theplanning stages ever since the victory of Operation Desert Storm,twelve years earlier. But when Operation Iraqi Freedom officiallycommenced on March 20, 2003, the Marine Corps entered the fightwith an aviation arm at its smallest since before World War II.Still, with the motto “Speed Equals Success,” the separate air andground units acted as a team to get the job done. Drawing

In this gripping memoir, the daughter of a man who conspiredto assassinate Hitler tells the story of three generations of herfamily and offers unparalleled insight into the German experiencein the last century. On August 15, 1944, Major Hans Georg Klamroth was tried fortreason for his part in the July Plot to kill Hitler. Eleven dayslater, he was executed. His youngest daughter, Wibke Bruhns, wassix years old. Decades later, watching a documentary about theevents of July 20, she saw images of her father in court suddenlyappear on-screen. “I stare at this man with the empty face. I don'tknow him. But I can see myself in him.” How could her familysuccumb to Nazi sympathies? And what made her father finallyrenounce Hitler?

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

The myths of the ancient Greeks have inspired us for thousandsof years. Where did the famous stories of the battles of their godsdevelop and spread across the world? The celebrated classicistRobin Lane Fox draws on a lifetime’s knowledge of the ancientworld, and on his own travels, answering this question by pursuingit through the age of Homer. His acclaimed history explores how theintrepid seafarers of eighth-century Greece sailed around theMediterranean, encountering strange new sights—volcanic mountains,vaporous springs, huge prehistoric bones—and weaving them into themyths of gods, monsters and heroes that would become thecornerstone of Western civilization.

This acclaimed book on the Wright Brothers takes the readerstraight to the heart of their remarkable achievement, focusing onthe technology and offering a clear, concise chronicle of preciselywhat they accomplished and how they did it. This book deals withthe process of the invention of the airplane and how the brothersidentified and resolved a range of technical puzzles that othershad attempted to solve for a century. Step by step, the book details the path of invention (includingthe important wind tunnel experiments of 1901) which culminated inthe momentous flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the first majormilestone in aviation history. Enhanced by original photos,designs, drawings, notebooks, letters and diaries of the WrightBrothers, Visions of a Flying Machine is a fascinating book thatwill be of interest to engineers, historians, enthusiasts, oranyone interested in the process of invention.

The secretive Mysteries conducted at Eleusis in Greece fornearly two millennia have long puzzled scholars with strangeaccounts of initiates experiencing otherworldly journeys. In thisgroundbreaking work, three experts—a mycologist, a chemist, and ahistorian—argue persuasively that the sacred potion given toparticipants in the course of the ritual contained a psychoactiveentheogen. The authors then expand the discussion to show thatnatural psychedelic agents have been used in spiritual ritualsacross history and cultures. Although controversial when firstpublished in 1978, the book’s hypothesis has become more widelyaccepted in recent years, as knowledge of ethnobotany has deepened.The authors have played critical roles in the modern rediscovery ofentheogens, and The Road to Eleusis presents an authoritativeexposition of their views. The book’s themes of the universality ofexperiential religion, the suppression of that knowledge byexploitative forces, and the use of psychedelics to reconcile theh

In Lone Star Nation , Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W.Brands demythologizes Texas’s journey to statehood and restores thegenuinely heroic spirit to a pivotal chapter in Americanhistory. From Stephen Austin, Texas’s reluctant founder, to the alcoholicSam Houston, who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisisand glory, to President Andrew Jackson, whose expansionistaspirations loomed large in the background, here is the story ofTexas and the outsize figures who shaped its turbulent history.Beginning with its early colonization in the 1820s and taking inthe shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad,its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches, andits day of liberation as an upstart republic, Brands’ livelyhistory draws on contemporary accounts, diaries, and letters toanimate a diverse cast of characters whose adventures, exploits,and ambitions live on in the very fabric of our nation.

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

Robert V. Brulle, who flew seventy ground support missionswith the 366th Fighter Group, links his daily experiences in thecockpit not only with the battles in which he participated but alsowith events in the wider European theater. Combining anecdotes fromhis personal diary, research in US and German records, andinterviews with participants from both sides, Brulle details acombat career that began just after D-Day, when he flew columncover for Allied troops as they chased the German military out ofFrance. He then describes the brutal, six-week Hürtgen Forestcampaign, during which his fighter group lost 15 pilots and 18aircraft. He also tells how the otherwise bitterly fought Battle ofthe Bulge provided the 366th with an opportunity to successfullyengage 60 Luftwaffe airplanes in a dogfight directly over theirairfield. Angels Zero combines both personal and historical detail tovividly re-create a lesser-known aspect of the air war inEurope.

Infinitely readable and absorbing, Bruce Catton's The CivilWar is one of the best-selling, most widely read general historiesof the war available in a single volume. Newly introduced by thecritically acclaimed Civil War historian James M. McPherson, TheCivil War vividly traces one of the most moving chapters inAmerican history, from the early division between the North and theSouth to the final surrender of Confederate troops. Catton'saccount of battles is carefully interwoven with details about thepolitical activities of the Union and Confederate armies anddiplomatic efforts overseas. This new edition of The Civil War is amust-have for anyone interested in the war that dividedAmerica.

This sweeping history provides the reader with a betterunderstanding of America’s consumer society, obsession withshopping, and devotion to brands. Focusing on the advertisingcampaigns of Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Wrigley’s, Gillette, and Kodak,Strasser shows how companies created both national brands andnational markets. These new brands eventually displaced genericmanufacturers and created a new desire for brand-name goods. Thebook also details the rise and development of department storessuch as Macy’s, grocery store chains such as A P and PigglyWiggly, and mail-order companies like Sears Roebuck and MontgomeryWard.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Garry Wills makes a compelling argumentfor a reassessment of Henry Adams as our nations greatest historianand his History as the "nonfiction prose masterpiece of thenineteenth century in America." Adams drew on his own southernfixations, his extensive foreign travel, his political service inthe Lincoln administration, and much more to invent the study ofhistory as we know it. His nine-volume chronicle of America from1800 to 1816 established new standards for employing archivalsources, firsthand reportage, eyewitness accounts, and othertechniques that have become the essence of modern history.Ambitious in scope, nuanced in detail, Henry Adams and the Makingof America throws brilliant light on the historian and the makingof history.

An incisive account of the Persian Gulf War, Storm Over Iraqshows how the success of Operation Desert Storm was the product oftwo decades of profound changes in the American approach todefense, military doctrine, and combat operations. The firstdetailed analysis of why the Gulf War could be fought the way itwas, the book examines the planning and preparation for war.Richard P. Hallion argues that the ascendancy of precision airpower in warfare—which fulfilled the promise that air power hadheld for more than seventy-five years—reflects the revolutionaryadaptation of a war strategy that targets things rather thanpeople, allowing one to control an opposing nation withoutdestroying it.

The experience of war has affected every generation in thetwentieth and twenty-first centuries, and every soldier has a storyto tell. Since the year 2000, the Veteran's History Project, a newpermanent department of the Library of Congress, has beencollecting and preserving the memories of veterans. In addition tomore than 50,000 recorded oral histories, the Veteran's HistoryProject has amassed thousands of letters, photographs, scrapbooks,and invaluable mementos from nearly a century of warfare. In the first book to showcase the richness and depth of thiscollection, Voices of War tells a compelling, emotional, history ofthe experience of war, weaving together veterans' stories from inWorld Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Thestories are organized thematically into sections-from signing up tocoming home, generations of veterans recall individual experiencesthat together tell the extraordinary story of America at war.Letters, photographs, sketches and paintings enrich the compellingoral hi

In 1863, after surviving the devastating Battle of Corinth,Newton Knight, a poor farmer from Mississippi, deserted theConfederate Army and began a guerrilla battle against theConfederacy. For two years he and other residents of Jones Countyengaged in an insurrection that would have repercussions far beyondthe scope of the Civil War. In this dramatic account of an almostforgotten chapter of American history, Sally Jenkins and JohnStauffer upend the traditional myth of the Confederacy as a heroicand unified Lost Cause, revealing the fractures within Civil-Warera Southern society. No man better exemplified these complexitiesthan Newton Knight, a pro-Union sympathizer in the deep South whorefused to fight a rich man’s war for slavery and cotton.

At the end of 1618, a blazing green star soared across thenight sky over the northern hemisphere. From the Philippines to theArctic, the comet became a sensation and a symbol, a warning ofdoom or a promise of salvation. Two years later, as the Pilgrimsprepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, theatmosphere remained charged with fear and expectation. Men andwomen readied themselves for war, pestilence, or divineretribution. Against this background, and amid deep economicdepression, the Pilgrims conceived their enterprise of exile. Within a decade, despite crisis and catastrophe, they built athriving settlement at New Plymouth, based on beaver fur, corn, andcattle. In doing so, they laid the foundations for Massachusetts,New England, and a new nation. Using a wealth of new evidence fromlandscape, archaeology, and hundreds of overlooked or neglecteddocuments, Nick Bunker gives a vivid and strikingly originalaccount of the Mayflower project and the first decade of thePlymouth Colon

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In the Spring of 1917, America went to war with an innocentdetermination to re-make the world. When the smoke lifted inNovember 1918, the nation emerged with its sense of purposeshattered, its certainties shaken, and with a new and unwelcomeself-knowledge. Seventy-five thousand American soldiers were dead,and back home a Pandora's box of suspicions and surveillance hadbeen opened. The Last Days of Innocence reveals how the fight to preservefreedom abroad led to the erosion of freedom at home. Drawing onAmerican, British, and French archival material, the authors revealunplanned and uncoordinated field efforts, as well as the unsavoryactivities of anti-dissent groups, from the Committee for PublicInformation to the Anti-Yellow Dog League, including a posse ofchildren organized to listen for antiwar talk among families andfriends. Here is the story of the fifty-billion-dollar war thatgave birth to the Selective Service Act, threatened labor rights,stoked the fires of racial and religious intolerance, andconcen