Showing titles in Historical

History comes alive in this textured account of the rivalry between Harry Houdini and the so-called Witch of Lime Street, whose iconic lives intersected at a time when science was on the verge of embracing the paranormal. The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was...

The parallels to the present are ominous: an international pandemic killing nearly 700,000 Americans, followed by a booming stock markets and political turmoil….then years of unimaginable misery for so many – an era so difficult and challenging that it became known as The Great Depression….SOUND FAMILIAR? CAN HISTORY REPEAT? They Never Threw Anything Away provides an entertaining, informative, but all-too-plausible comparison of then and now from memories of 22 Americans who lived through The Great Depression. In their own words they tell of experiences gained while living during the ...

At the peak of his power, in the 1940s and 1950s, William Francis Gibbs was considered America's best naval architect. His quest to build the finest, fastest, most beautiful ocean liner of his time, the S.S. United States, was a topic of national fascination. When completed in 1952, the ship was hailed as a technological masterpiece at a time when "made in America" meant the best.

This second volume of the best-selling diaries of Henry 'Chips' Channon takes us from the heady aftermath of the Munich agreement, when the prime minister Chips so admired was credited with having averted a general European conflagration, through the rapid unravelling of appeasement, and on to the tribulations of the early years of the Second World War. It closes with a moment of hope, as Channon, in recording the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, reflects: 'The war must be more than half over.'

In Search of Bill Clinton unravels the mystery at the heart of Clinton's complex nature and explains why so many people fall under his spell. Gartner tells the story we all thought we knew, from the fresh viewpoint of a psychologist, as he questions the well-crafted Clinton life story. Gartner, a therapist with expertise in treating individuals with hypomanic temperaments, saw in Clinton the energy, creativity, and charisma that leads a hypomanic individual to success as well as the problems with impulse control and judgment.

The great king of Persia granted Haman the Agagite illustrious honors and commanded all peoples to bow down before Haman whenever he made a public appearance. Mordecai the Jew refused to bow to an ancient enemy of his God and people, consequently the offended Haman plotted a genocide against the Jews throughout the Persian empire selecting the date for this act by the drawing of lots. The indifferent and trusting king approved Haman's treachery against the people of God. How can Mordecai and Esther save the people of God from this satanic attack?

Neil Hansen began his aviation career as a pilot for Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. He spent more than a decade in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War as a captain for Air America, the CIA's airline that operated there during the Vietnam era and the Secret War in Laos. Neil reveled in the risky flying that fed his adrenaline addiction. Upon returning to the States, ultimately unable to find work and unable to let go of the Air America exhilaration rush, he saw the profession he loved come to an end when his trajectory veered off course.

In The Paper Garden, celebrated poet Molly Peacock explores the remarkable life of 18th-century British gentlewoman-turned-artist Mary Delany. In the 1770s, at the age of 72, the twice-widowed and nearly broke Delany turned her interest in botany into beautiful paper “mosaick” flowers still revered today.

In July 1952, Dr. Walter Freeman arrived at the gates of a West Virginia asylum. In his medical bag he carried two metal picks and a surgical hammer. He had invented a “cheap, easy” ten-minute lobotomy. The press described it as a miracle cure, a new frontier in psychosurgery. That summer, in just twelve days, Freeman lobotomized 228 men, women, and children in West Virginia’s public mental hospitals. His blitzkrieg of brain surgery became known as “Operation Ice Pick,” named after the tools he wielded.

New York Times Bestseller ""Lively, approachable, and captivating. Like Lee himself, everything about Clouds of Glory is on a grand scale."" —Boston Globe Michael Korda, the acclaimed biographer of Ulysses S. Grant and the bestsellers Ike and Hero, offers a brilliant, balanced, single-volume...

The Year is 1500. Christopher Columbus, stripped of his title Admiral of the Ocean Seas, waits in chains in a Caribbean prison built under his orders, looking out at the colony that he founded, nurtured, and ruled for eight years. Less than a decade after discovering the New World, he has fallen...

In Steel Drivin' Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson recounts the true story of the man behind the iconic American hero, telling the poignant tale of a young Virginia convict who died working on one of the most dangerous enterprises of the time: the first rail route through the Appalachian Mountains. Using census data, penitentiary reports, and railroad company reports, Nelson reveals how John Henry, victimized by Virginia's notorious Black Codes, was shipped to the infamous Richmond Penitentiary to become prisoner number 497, and was forced to labor on the mile-long Lewis Tunnel for the C&O railroad.

In 1924, in response to the pursuit of increasingly racist policies in the United States, W. E. B. Du Bois published a groundbreaking collection of essays that challenged the existing prejudices about Black people and provided a fuller accounting of Black contributions to American life. The accomplishments that Du Bois chronicles here - in art, literature, economics, religion, industry, the military, and more - are stunning, especially considering the obstacles facing Black Americans.

Until his assassination by US drone strike in January 2020, commander Qassem Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran and the military spearhead for Iranian foreign policy, enacting the wishes of the country's Supreme Leader in the region. A widely popular but also feared maverick operator, he helped to establish the Islamic Republic as a major force in the Middle East, with interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. This was a long way from where he began as a youth, living on the margins in a country ruled by a monarch supported by the United States.

In All the Powers of Earth, Lincoln's incredible ascent to power in a world of chaos is newly revealed through the great biographer's extraordinary research and literary style. After a period of depression that he would ever find his way to greatness, Lincoln takes on the most powerful demagogue in the country, Stephen Douglas, in the debates for a Senate seat. He sidelines the front-runner William Seward, a former governor and senator for New York, to cinch the new Republican Party's nomination.

Fifteen Brave Men and Women of Bharat who Never Succumbed to the Challenges of Invaders But were Lost and Forgotten in the Annals of History. These are the stories of those Bravehearts who Fought to Protect their Rights, Faith and Freedom.History has always been the handmaiden of the victor...

Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized.

A definitive new biography of the Byzantine emperor Justinian Justinian is a radical reassessment of an emperor and his times. In the sixth century CE, the emperor Justinian presided over nearly four decades of remarkable change, in an era of geopolitical threats, climate change, and plague...

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early 18th century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery - until now. Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island

The Life and Legacy of a Universal Ruler What if everything you thought you knew about Genghis Khan was wrong? He was feared and admired in equal measure. To his enemies, he was a storm of destruction. To his people, he was a unifier and a lawgiver. But before he became the "universal ruler," he was a boy defined by betrayal, exile, and a relentless will to survive. This book is the definitive story of a man who rose from the windswept steppes of Mongolia to command the largest contiguous empire in history. It tells you about the battles and immerses you in the personal struggles that ...