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A battle is like just. The frenzy passes. Consequence remains." Such are the observations made and ill-gotten lessons learned in this fic tional autobiographical narrative of breathtaking range and power.Ross Leckie not only presents a vivid re-creation of the great strug gle o.f the Punic wars and the profoundly bloody battle for Rome,but succeeds in bringing the almost mythical figure of Hannibal to life. Introspective, educated on the Greeks, but steeped in animus for Rome, Hannibal has never been presented quite like this.

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.

Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato ,Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year asa foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him toexperience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk theminefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and toexplore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war goneterribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, IfI Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.

In this lively narrative history, Robert H. Patton, grandsonof the World War II battlefield legend, tells a sweeping tale ofcourage, capitalism, naval warfare, and international politicalintrigue set on the high seas during the American Revolution. Patriot Pirates highlights the obscure but pivotal roleplayed by colonial privateers in defeating Britain in the AmericanRevolution. American privateering-essentially legalizedpiracy-began with a ragtag squadron of New England schooners in1775. It quickly erupted into a massive seaborne insurgencyinvolving thousands of money-mad patriots plundering Britain'smaritime trade throughout Atlantic. Patton's extensive researchbrings to life the extraordinary adventures of privateers as theyhammered the British economy, infuriated the Royal Navy, andhumiliated the crown.

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.

During the second Palestinian intifada, Philip C. Winslowworked in the West Bank with the United Nations Relief and WorksAgency (UNRWA), driving up to 600 miles a week in the occupiedterritory. He returned to the region in 2006. In this book, Winslowcaptures the daily struggles, desperation, and anger ofPalestinians; the hostility of settlers; the complex responses ofIsraeli soldiers, officials, and peace activists; and even thebreathtaking beauty of nature in this embattled place.

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

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.

Nominated for the National Book Award, this book is set incolonial Massachusetts where, in 1704, a French and Indian warparty descended on the village of Deerfield, abducting a Puritanminister and his children. Although John Williams was eventuallyreleased, his daughter horrified the family by staying with hercaptors and marrying a Mohawk husband.

Grade 6-9-Good-quality full-color photographs, reproductions, drawings, and maps combine with lucid texts to create informative and attractive research sources on ancient cultures. The Ancient Hebrews discusses the social and religious history of the Jewish people and its influence on modern Judaism, and touches on the relationship between present-day Israel and Arab countries. Mesopotamia examines the social structure and cultural history of that area and the legacy the people have left to the modern world. Clarice Swisher's The Ancient Near East (Lucent, 1995) offers a more detailed study of Mesopotamian cultures but with black-and-white images. Sidebars provide additional information on the language, literature, law, and beliefs of both societies. Helpful glossaries and time lines are also included. Eye-catching, useful titles for collections needing historical material about the Middle East. Cynthia M. Sturgis, Ledding Library, Milwaukee, OR Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

On January 5, 1924, a well-dressed young woman, accompanied bya male companion, walked into a Brooklyn grocery, pulled a “babyautomatic” from the pocket of her fur coat, emptied the cashregister, and escaped into the night. Dubbed “the Bobbed HairedBandit” by the press, the petite thief continued her escapades inthe months that followed, pulling off increasingly spectacularrobberies, writing taunting notes to police officials, and eludingthe biggest manhunt in New York City history. When laundress CeliaCooney was finally caught in Florida and brought back to New York,media attention grew to a fever pitch. Crowds gathered at thecourts and jails where she appeared, the public clamored to knowher story, and newspapers and magazines nationwide obliged bypublishing sensational front-page articles.

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.

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.

No one in Vietnam had to tell door gunner and gunship crewchief Al Sever that the odds didn’t look good. He volunteered forthe job well aware that hanging out of slow-moving choppers overhot LZs blazing with enemy fire was not conducive to a long life.But that wasn’t going to stop Specialist Sever. From Da Nang to Cu Chi and the Mekong Delta, Sever spentthirty-one months in Vietnam, fighting in eleven of the war’ssixteen campaigns. Every morning when his gunship lifted off, oftento the clacking and muzzle flashes of AK-47s hidden in the dawnfog, Sever knew he might not return. This raw, gritty,gut-wrenching firsthand account of American boys fighting and dyingin Vietnam captures all the hell, horror, and heroism of thattragic war.

In the winter of 1979 Nabeel Yasin, Iraq's most famous youngpoet, gathered together a handful of belongings and fled Iraq withhis wife and son. Life in Baghdad had become intolerable. Silencedby a series of brutal beatings at the hands of the Ba'ath Party'sSecret Police and declared an “enemy of the state,” he facedcertain death if he stayed. Nabeel had grown up in the late 1950s and early '60s in a largeand loving family, amid the domestic drama typical of Iraq's newmiddle class, with his mother Sabria working as a seamstress tosend all of her seven children to college. As his story unfolds,Nabeel meets his future wife and finds his poetic voice while he isa student. But Saddam's rise to power ushers in a new era ofrepression, imprisonment and betrayal from which few families willescape intact. In this new climate of intimidation and randomviolence Iraqis live in fear and silence; yet Nabeel’s mother tellshim “It is your duty to write.” His poetry, a blend of myth andhistory, attacks t

As a senior foreign correspondent for The Times ofLondon, Janine di Giovanni was a firsthand witness to the brutaland protracted break-up of Yugoslavia. With unflinchingsensitivity, Madness Visible follows the arc of the wars inthe Balkans through the experience of those caught up in them:soldiers numbed by the atrocities they commit, women driven todespair by their life in paramilitary rape camps, civilians (diGiovanni among them) caught in bombing raids of uncertain origin,babies murdered in hate-induced rage. Di Giovanni’s searing memoir examines the turmoil of the Balkansin acute detail, and uncovers the motives of the leaders whocreated hell on earth; it raises challenging questions about ethnicconflict and the responsibilities of foreign governments in timesof mass murder. Perceptive and compelling, this unique work ofreportage from the physical and psychological front lines makes themadness of war wholly visible.