For sheer bravado and style, no woman in the North or Southrivaled the Civil War heroine Rose O’Neale Greenhow. Fearless spyfor the Confederacy, glittering Washington hostess, legendarybeauty and lover, Rose Greenhow risked everything for the cause shevalued more than life itself. In this superb portrait, biographerAnn Blackman tells the surprising true story of a unique woman inhistory. “I am a Southern woman, born with revolutionary blood in myveins,” Rose once declared–and that fiery spirit would plunge herinto the center of power and the thick of adventure. Born into aslave-holding family, Rose moved to Washington, D.C., as a youngwoman and soon established herself as one of the capital’s mostcharming and influential socialites, an intimate of John C.Calhoun, James Buchanan, and Dolley Madison. She married well, bore eight children and buried five, and, atthe height of the Gold Rush, accompanied her husband RobertGreenhow to San Francisco. Widowed after Robert died in a tragic

The award-winning correspondent for the MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour gives a moment-by-moment account of her walk into historywhen, as a 19-year-old, she challenged Southern law--and Southernviolence--to become the first black woman to attend the Universityof Georgia. A powrful act of witness to the brutal realities ofsegregation.

In 1971 a young French ethnologist named Francois Bizot wastaken prisoner by forces of the Khmer Rouge who kept him chained ina jungle camp for months before releasing him. Four years laterBizot became the intermediary between the now victorious KhmerRouge and the occupants of the besieged French embassy in PhnomPenh, eventually leading a desperate convoy of foreigners to safetyacross the Thai border. Out of those ordeals comes this transfixing book. At its centerlies the relationship between Bizot and his principal captor, a mannamed Douch, who is today known as the most notorious of the KhmerRouge’s torturers but who, for a while, was Bizot’s protector andfriend. Written with the immediacy of a great novel, unsparing inits understanding of evil, The Gate manages to be at oncewrenching and redemptive.

From the bestselling and PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author ofNetherland, a fascinating, personal, and beautifully crafted familyhistory. Joseph O'Neill's grandfathers--one Turkish, one Irish--were bothimprisoned for suspected subversion during the Second World War.The Irish grandfather, a handsome rogue from a family of smallfarmers, was an active member of the IRA. O'Neill's othergrandfather, a debonair hotelier from the tiny and threatenedTurkish Christian minority, was interned by the British inPalestine on suspicion of being an Axis spy. With intellect, compassion, and grace, O'Neill sets the storiesof these individuals against the history of the last century's mostinhuman events.

For the first time in one enthralling book, here is theincredible true story of the numerous attempts to assassinate AdolfHitler and change the course of history. Disraeli once declared that “assassination never changed anything,”and yet the idea that World War II and the horrors of the Holocaustmight have been averted with a single bullet or bomb has remained atantalizing one for half a century. What historian Roger Moorhousereveals in Killing Hitler is just how close–and how often–historycame to taking a radically different path between Adolf Hitler’srise to power and his ignominious suicide. Few leaders, in any century, can have been the target of so manyassassination attempts, with such momentous consequences in thebalance. Hitler’s almost fifty would-be assassins ranged fromsimple craftsmen to high-ranking soldiers, from the apolitical tothe ideologically obsessed, from Polish Resistance fighters topatriotic Wehrmacht officers, and from enemy agents to his closestassociates. And yet, up to

When he was a student in Paris, Truong Nhu Tang met Ho ChiMinh. Later he fought in the Vietnamese jungle and emerged as oneof the major figures in the "fight for liberation" -- and one ofthe most determined adversaries of the United States. He became theVietcong's Minister of Justice, but at the end of the war he fledthe country in disillusionment and despair. He now lives in exilein Paris, the highest level official to have defected from Vietnamto the West. This is his candid, revealing and unforgettableautobiography.

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

When the Second World War broke out, Philipp Freiherr vonBoeselager, then 25-years-old, fought enthusiastically for Germanyas a cavalry officer. But after discovering Nazi crimes, vonBoeselager’s patriotism quickly turned to disgust, and he joined agroup of conspirators who plotted to kill Adolf Hitler and HeinrichHimmler. In this elegant but unflinching memoir, von Boeselagergives voice to the spirit of the small but determined band of menwho took a stand against the Third Reich in what culminating in thefailed “Valkyrie” plot—one of the most fascinating near misses oftwentieth-century history.

The story of Jason and the Argonauts and Homer’s tales ofUlysses are among the greatest ancient epics, but are they merelynautical legends or true stories? Mauricio Obregón has combed through classical texts, focusing onthe smallest details, and with his intimate knowledge of historicalnavigation, brilliantly reenacts the voyages the ancient heroesactually traveled. Using the clues embedded in these epic tales,Obregón deftly argues that many of the legends are not merelyfiction, but are, quite possibly, true adventures.

Sherman's March is the vivid narrative of General William T.Sherman's devastating sweep through Georgia and the Carolinas inthe closing days of the Civil War. Weaving together hundreds ofeyewitness stories, Burke Davis graphically brings to life thedramatic experiences of the 65,000 Federal troops who plunderedtheir way through the South and those of the anguished -- and oftendefiant -- Confederate women and men who sought to protectthemselves and their family treasures, usually in vain. Dominatingthese events is the general himself -- "Uncle Billy" to his troops,the devil incarnate to the Southerners he encountered.

In this lively and engaging history, Stephen Puleo tells thestory of the Boston Italians from their earliest years, when alargely illiterate and impoverished people in a strange landrecreated the bonds of village and region in the cramped quartersof the North End. Focusing on this first and crucial Italianenclave in Boston, Puleo describes the experience of Italianimmigrants as they battled poverty, illiteracy, and prejudice;explains their transformation into Italian Americans during theDepression and World War II; and chronicles their rich history inBoston up to the present day.

Polk's Folly is William Polk's captivating investigation ofhis impressive family tree and of the broader American tale itnarrates. Growing up in Texas in the late 1930s, listening to hisgrandmother's memories of her childhood amidst the Civil War, Polkbecame fascinated by tales of his family's engagement in monumentalmoments of our nation's history. Beginning when Robert Pollok fledIreland in the 1680s, Polk's saga includes an Indian trader, anearly drafter of the Declaration of Independence, one of ourgreatest presidents, heroes and rascals on both sides of the CivilWar, Indian fighters, a World War I diplomat, and Polk's ownbrother, a journalist who reported on the Nuremberg Trials. Full ofstunning detail and based on primary historical documents, Polk'sFolly is a grand American chronicle that allows history to includethe lives that made it happen.

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army hadno specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought theinvading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named CharlesMinot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let himrecruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates,wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form theminto a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These men endured nearlythree years of grueling training in the Colorado Rockies and in theprocess set new standards for both soldiering and mountaineering.The newly forged 10th Mountain Division finally faced combat in thewinter of 1945, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, against theseemingly unbreakable German fortifications north of the GothicLine. There, they planned and executed what is still regarded asthe most daring series of nighttime mountain attacks in U.S.military history, taking Mount Belvedere and the sheer, tre

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.

This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101stAirborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as“the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’sso-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south ofBaghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably thecountry’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks,suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring achronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heartplatoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, overtheir year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline,substance abuse, and brutality. Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the mostheinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the IraqWar—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-bloodedexecution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldierswould be overrun at

November 11, 1918. The final hours pulsate with tension asevery man in the trenches hopes to escape the melancholydistinction of being the last to die in World War I. The Alliedgenerals knew the fighting would end precisely at 11:00 A.M, yet inthe final hours they flung men against an already beaten Germany.The result? Eleven thousand casualties suffered–more than duringthe D-Day invasion of Normandy. Why? Allied commanders wanted topunish the enemy to the very last moment and career officers saw afast-fading chance for glory and promotion. Joseph E. Persico puts the reader in the trenches with theforgotten and the famous–among the latter, Corporal Adolf Hitler,Captain Harry Truman, and Colonels Douglas MacArthur and GeorgePatton. Mainly, he follows ordinary soldiers’ lives, illuminatingtheir fate as the end approaches. Persico sets the last day of thewar in historic context with a gripping reprise of all that led upto it, from the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke, FranzFerdinand

More than 100 compelling, true stories of personal heroismand valor– in a special expanded edition honoring courage in theface of war Here are dramatic accounts of the fearless actions thatearned American soldiers in Vietnam our highest militarydistinction–the Medal of Honor. Edward F. Murphy, head of the Medalof Honor Historical Society, re-creates the heroic acts ofindividual soldiers from official documents, Medal of Honorcitations, contemporary accounts, and, where possible, interviewswith survivors. Complete with a list of all Vietnam Medal of Honor recipients, thisbook offers a unique perspective on the war–from the early days ofU.S. involvement through the return home of the last soldiers. Itpays a fitting tribute to these patriotic, selfless souls.

In a series of moving and provocative conversations, ninemembers of the Israeli Defense Force tell why they refused to servein the West Bank and Gaza. The "Refuseniks" describe their riskymoral decision against the background of what is perhaps the mostvolatile conflict in the world today: the Israeli-Palestinianstruggle. Their individual choices and their collective activismhave generated intense debate in Israel and the internationalcommunity, from the leading Israeli newspaper Ha'Aretz to a segmenton 60 Minutes. In a sociocultural mosaic of the Refusenik movement and thepolitical context in which it arose, these men describe theirindividual family backgrounds and beliefs. Dedicated to the welfareof their country and its cultural heritage, they outline theirconcerns for the future of Israel. As they tell their stories ofpersonal struggle, they also raise the disturbing and highlycontroversial issue of human rights abuses in the occupiedterritories. These personal accounts offer new perspe

In this unprecedented account, Chandra Manning uses letters,diaries, and regimental newspapers to take the reader inside theminds of Civil War soldiers-black and white, Northern andSouthern-as they fought and marched across a divided country. Withstunning poise and narrative verve, Manning explores how the Unionand Confederate soldiers came to identify slavery as the centralissue of the war and what that meant for a tumultuous nation. Thisis a brilliant and eye-opening debut and an invaluable addition toour understanding of the Civil War as it has never been renderedbefore.