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New York Times bestseller: The true story of the WWII naval battle portrayed in the Roland Emmerich film is “something special among war histories” ( Chicago Sun-Times ).   Six months after Pearl Harbor, the seemingly invincible Imperial Japanese Navy prepared a decisive blow against the United States. After sweeping through Asia and the South Pacific, Japan’s military targeted the tiny atoll of Midway, an ideal launching pad for the invasion of Hawaii and beyond.   But the US Navy would be waiting for them. Thanks to cutting-edge code-breaking technology, tactical daring, and a significant stroke of luck, the Americans under Adm. Chester W. Nimitz dealt Japan’s navy its first major defeat in the war. Three years of hard fighting remained, but it was at Midway that the tide turned.   This “stirring, even suspenseful narrative” is the first book to tell the story of the epic battle from both the American and Japanese sides ( Newsday ). Miracle at Midway reveals how America won its first and greatest victory of the Pacific war—and how easily it could have been a loss. |
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Civilization was born eight thousand years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period and explores the political and social systems, as well as the technical and cultural innovations, which made this land extraordinary. At the heart of this book is the story of Babylon, which rose to prominence under the Amorite king Hammurabi from about 1800 BCE. Even as Babylon's fortunes waxed and waned, it never lost its allure as the ancient world's greatest city. Engaging and compelling, Babylon reveals the splendor of the ancient world that laid the foundation for civilization itself. |
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For fans of both real spy dramas and fictional ones—both Ben Macintyre and John le Carré—the story of why spies spy.   Why do people put their lives at risk to collect intelligence? How do intelligence services ensure that the agents they recruit do their bidding and don't betray them? What makes the perfect spy? Drawing on interviews with active and former British, American, Russian, European, and Asian intelligence officers and agents, Michael Smith creates a layered portrait of why spies spy, what motivates them, and what makes them effective. Love, sex, money, patriotism, risk, adventure, revenge, compulsion, doing the right thing— focusing on the motivations, The Anatomy of a Spy presents a wealth of spy stories, some previously unknown and some famous, from the very human angle of the agents themselves. The accounts of actual spying extend from ancient history to the present, and from running agents inside the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to the recent Russian active measures campaigns and operations to influence votes in the UK, European Union, and United States, penetrating as far as Trump Tower if not the White House.   |
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Destined to become a modern classic in the vein of Guns, Germs, and Steel , Sapiens is a lively, groundbreaking history of humankind told from a unique perspective.      100,000 years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the earth. Today there is just one.      Us. Homo Sapiens .      How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?      In Sapiens , Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical -- and sometimes devastating -- breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?      Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power...and our future. |
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The landmark history of France and French culture in the eighteenth-century, a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the eighteenth-century version of Little Red Riding Hood did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions the distinguished Harvard historian Robert Darnton answers The Great Cat Massacre , a kaleidoscopic view of European culture during in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment." A classic of European history, it is an essential starting point for understanding Enlightenment France. |
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The international bestselling author of A Spy and the Traitor and A Spy Among Friends reveals one of the last great untold spy stories of the twentieth century--the woman hidden in plain sight who set the stage for the Cold War. If you happened to be in the quiet English village of Great Rollright in 1942, you might have seen a thin, elegant woman emerging from a cottage and climbing onto her bicycle. Ursula Burton had three children and a husband named Len, who worked as a machinist nearby. She was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a very slight foreign accent. Her neighbours in the Cotswolds knew little about her.      They did not know that Burton was a dedicated communist, a Soviet Colonel, and a veteran spy who had already conducted espionage operations in China, Poland, and Switzerland. They did not know that Len was also a Soviet spy, or that Burton kept a powerful radio transmitter connected to Moscow in their outhouse. They did not know that in her last espionage mission, Burton had infiltrated communist spies into a top-secret American intelligence operation parachting anti-Nazi agents into the Third Reich. But perhaps the most remarkable thing they did not know was that when Burton hopped onto her bike and pedaled away, she was heading to a countryside rendezvous with Klaus Fuchs, the nuclear physicist working on Britain's top secret atomic weapons program. Klaus was Burton's best agent, and together they were gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.      Ben Macintyre's latest true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named "Sonya," one of the most important female spies in history. Hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI, she evaded all of them, and survived as well the brutal Soviet purges that left many of her friends and colleagues dead. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century, between communism, fascism, and Western democracy, and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times. With access to Sonya's papers and her intelligence files from multiple countries, Macintyre has conjured a thrilling secret history of a landmark agent, a true original who altered the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a nuclear standoff that would last for decades. |
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Half a millennium of European warfare brilliantly retold by masterly historian Brendan Simms At the heart of Europe's history lies a puzzle. In most of the world humankind has created enormous political frameworks, whether ancient (such as China) or modern (such as the United States). Sprawling empires, kingdoms or republics appear to be the norm. By contrast Europe has remained stubbornly chaotic and fractured into often amazingly tiny pieces, with each serious attempt to unify the continent (by Charles V, Napoleon and Hitler) thwarted. In this marvelously ambitious and exciting new book, Brendan Simms tells the story of Europe's constantly shifting geopolitics and the peculiar circumstances that have made it both so impossible to dominate, but also so dynamic and ferocious. It is the story of a group of highly competitive and mutually suspicious dynasties, but also of a continent uniquely prone to interference from 'semi-detached' elements, such as Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain and (just as centrally to Simms' argument) the United States. Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy will become the standard work on this crucial subject - and an extremely enjoyable one. Reviews: 'This is a brilliant and beautifully written history. From the Holy Roman Empire to the Euro, Brendan Simms shows that one of the constant preoccupations of Europeans has always been the geography, the power and the needs of Germany. Europe is a work of extraordinary scholarship delivered with the lightest of touches. It will be essential, absorbing reading for anyone trying to understand both the past and the present of one of the most productive and most dangerous continents on earth' William Shawcross 'World history is German history, and German history is world history.This is the powerful case made by this gifted historian of Europe, whose expansive erudition revives the proud tradition of the history of geopolitics, and whose immanent moral sensibility reminds us that human choices made in Berlin (and London) today about the future of Europe might be decisive for the future of the world' Timothy Snyder (author of Bloodlands ) About the author: Brendan Simms is Professor of the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge. His major books include Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia (shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize) and Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire . |
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Now in one collection, the century-spanning trilogy filled with “the wonders of the lands and people of Latin America” ( The Washington Post ). Eduardo Galeano’s  Memory of Fire Trilogy  defies categorization—or perhaps creates its own. It is a passionate, razor-sharp, lyrical history of North and South America, from the birth of the continent’s indigenous peoples through the end of the twentieth century. The three volumes form a haunting and dizzying whole that resurrects the lives of Indians, conquistadors, slaves, revolutionaries, poets, and more. The first book,  Genesis , pays homage to the many origin stories of the tribes of the Americas, and paints a verdant portrait of life in the New World through the age of the conquistadors. The second book,  Faces and Masks , spans the two centuries between the years 1700 and 1900, in which colonial powers plundered their newfound territories, ultimately giving way to a rising tide of dictators. And in the final installment,  Century of the Wind , Galeano brings his story into the twentieth century, in which a fractured continent enters the modern age as popular revolts blaze from North to South. This celebrated series is a landmark of contemporary Latin American writing, and a brilliant document of culture.  |
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Since its creation in 1876, the Indian Act has dictated and constrained the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Peoples, and is at the root of many enduring stereotypes. Bob Joseph’s book comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph examines how Indigenous Peoples can return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance—and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around the Indian Act, and demonstrates why learning about its cruel and irrevocable legacy is vital for the country to move toward true reconciliation. * * * * * * * Bob Joseph, founder of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., has provided training on Indigenous relations since 1994. As a certified Master Trainer, Bob has assisted both individuals and organizations in building Indigenous relations. His Canadian clients include all levels of government, Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, including the World Bank, small and medium-sized corporate enterprises, and Indigenous Peoples. He has worked internationally for clients in the United States, Guatemala, Peru, and New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Bob Joseph is an Indigenous person, or more specifically a status Indian, and is a member of the Gwawaenuk Nation. The Gwawaenuk is one of the many Kwakwaka’wakw tribes located between Comox and Port Hardy on Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland of British Columbia. He comes from a proud potlatch family and is an initiated member of the Hamatsa Society. As the son of a hereditary chief, he will one day, in accordance with strict cultural laws, become a hereditary chief. * * * * * * * Advance praise: “I have a deep hope for Canada that there can be reconciliation. I want every Canadian to imagine a Canada in which every person will live with dignity, value, and purpose. But to do that, there must be reflection on our shared history and the harmful periods and events that continue to haunt us as a nation. Understanding the Indian Act is fundamental to understanding why those harmful periods and events took place. Bob Joseph’s book is an invaluable tool for Canadians who want to understand the past in order to contribute to reconciliation in our country.” --Chief Dr. Robert Joseph, O.B.C., Ambassador, Reconciliation Canada “From declaring cultural ceremonies illegal, to prohibiting pool hall owners from granting Indigenous Peoples entrance, from forbidding the speaking of Indigenous languages, to the devastating policy that created residential schools, Bob Joseph reveals the hold this paternalistic act, with its roots in the 1800s, still has on the lives of Indigenous Peoples in Canada in the twenty-first century. This straightforward book is an invaluable resource. There is much for non-Indigenous people to learn and to do. But equally important, there is much to unlearn and to undo. The time is right for this book. Thank you, Bob Joseph. Gilakas’la.” --Shelagh Rogers, O.C., Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada “Increasing Canadians' knowledge about the terrible foundation this country has been built on is a critical part of reconciliation. Bob Joseph has highlighted some of the unbelievable provisions of the Indian Act and how they have impacted First Nations in Canada, and gives a brief overview of what we may replace it with going forward. His book provides helpful context to the dialogue that needs to take place in Canada.” --Kim Baird, O.C., O.B.C.; Owner, Kim Baird Strategic Consulting; Member of the Tsawwassen First Nation |
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Best Books of Fall 2020: O, The Oprah Magazine, The Observer, Boston.com Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2020: TIME Longlisted • Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year A revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the author of the acclaimed international bestseller These Truths. The Simulmatics Corporation, launched during the Cold War, mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge—decades before Facebook, Google, and Cambridge Analytica. Jill Lepore, best-selling author of These Truths, came across the company’s papers in MIT’s archives and set out to tell this forgotten history, the long-lost backstory to the methods, and the arrogance, of Silicon Valley. Founded in 1959 by some of the nation’s leading social scientists—“the best and the brightest, fatally brilliant, Icaruses with wings of feathers and wax, flying to the sun”—Simulmatics proposed to predict and manipulate the future by way of the computer simulation of human behavior. In summers, with their wives and children in tow, the company’s scientists met on the beach in Long Island under a geodesic, honeycombed dome, where they built a “People Machine” that aimed to model everything from buying a dishwasher to counterinsurgency to casting a vote. Deploying their “People Machine” from New York, Washington, Cambridge, and even Saigon, Simulmatics’ clients included the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign, the New York Times, the Department of Defense, and dozens of major manufacturers: Simulmatics had a hand in everything from political races to the Vietnam War to the Johnson administration’s ill-fated attempt to predict race riots. The company’s collapse was almost as rapid as its ascent, a collapse that involved failed marriages, a suspicious death, and bankruptcy. Exposed for false claims, and even accused of war crimes, it closed its doors in 1970 and all but vanished. Until Lepore came across the records of its remains. The scientists of Simulmatics believed they had invented “the A-bomb of the social sciences.” They did not predict that it would take decades to detonate, like a long-buried grenade. But, in the early years of the twenty-first century, that bomb did detonate, creating a world in which corporations collect data and model behavior and target messages about the most ordinary of decisions, leaving people all over the world, long before the global pandemic, crushed by feelings of helplessness. This history has a past; If Then is its cautionary tale. |
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A captivating new book from Wade Davis--award-winning, bestselling author and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence for more than a decade-- that brings vividly to life the story of the great Río Magdalena, illuminating Colombia's complex past, present, and future Travelers often become enchanted with the first country that captures their hearts and gives them license to be free. For Wade Davis, it was Colombia. Now in a masterful new book, the bestselling author tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet. Only in Colombia can a traveler wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valleys rising to soaring ice-clad summits. This rugged and impossible geography finds its perfect coefficient in the topography of the Colombian spirit: restive, potent, at times placid and calm, in moments explosive and wild. Both a corridor of commerce and a fountain of culture, the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry and prayer, the Magdalena has served in dark times as the graveyard of the nation. And yet, always, it returns as a river of life. At once an absorbing adventure and an inspiring tale of hope and redemption, Magdalena gives us a rare, kaleidoscopic picture of a nation on the verge of a new period of peace. Braiding together memoir, history, and journalism, Wade Davis tells the story of the country's most magnificent river, and in doing so, tells the epic story of Colombia. |
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The latest installment of the multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans and settlers. The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the beginning. It’s 1811 and President James Madison has ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh’s alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades. Bestselling authors Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through the fraught history of our country’s founding on already occupied lands, from General Andrew Jackson’s brutal battles with the Creek Nation to President James Monroe’s epic “sea to shining sea” policy, to President Martin Van Buren’s cruel enforcement of a “treaty” that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands along what would be called the Trail of Tears. O’Reilly and Dugard take readers behind the legends to reveal never-before-told historical moments in the fascinating creation story of America. This fast-paced, wild ride through the American frontier will shock readers and impart unexpected lessons that reverberate to this day. |
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From writer and political analyst Jared Yates Sexton comes a journey through the history of the United States, from the nation’s founding to the twenty-first century, which examines and debunks the American myths we've always told ourselves.  In recent years, Americans have faced a deluge of horrifying developments in politics and culture: stolen elections, fascist rallies, families torn apart and locked away. A common refrain erupts at each new atrocity:  This isn't who we are . In  American Rule , Jared Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the foundational myths at the heart of our collective American imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values, which are fed to the public and repeated across generations. Working through each era of American growth and change, Sexton weaves together the origins and perpetuation of these narratives still in the public memory, and the acts we have chosen to forget.  Stirring, deeply researched, and disturbingly familiar,  American Rule  is a call to examine our own misconceptions of what it means, and has always meant, to be an American. |
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“The work that brought down a presidency...perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history” ( Time )—from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Final Days. The most devastating political detective story of the century: two Washington Post reporters, whose brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation smashed the Watergate scandal wide open, tell the behind-the-scenes drama the way it really happened. One of Time magazine’s All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books, this is the book that changed America. Published just months before President Nixon’s resignation, All the President’s Men revealed the full scope of the scandal and introduced for the first time the mysterious “Deep Throat.” Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing through headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward deliver a riveting firsthand account of their reporting. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post , toppled the president, and have since inspired generations of reporters. All the President’s Men is a riveting detective story, capturing the exhilarating rush of the biggest presidential scandal in US history as it unfolded in real time. |
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“Brilliantly written, vivid, a powerful and often uncomfortable true story that deserves to be read and remembered. It beautifully captures the strength of the bond between a father and son.”--Heather Morris, author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz The #1 Sunday Times bestseller—a remarkable story of the heroic and unbreakable bond between a father and son that is as inspirational as The Tattooist of Auschwitz and as mesmerizing as The Choice. Where there is family, there is hope In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholster from Vienna, and his sixteen-year-old son Fritz are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Germany. Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis’ murderous brutality. Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz—and certain death. For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow.  Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future.  Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz’s younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is Gustav and Fritz’s story—an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforgettable. |
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Les États-Unis disposent-ils d'un empire ? Les Palestiniens des territoires occupés vivent-ils sous le joug d'un " néo-colonialisme " ? La France et la Grande-Bretagne doivent-elles " se repentir " de leur passé colonial ? La question impériale ne cesse de travailler la conscience politique occidentale. Mais elle reste l'une des moins bien comprises de l'historiographie moderne. Ses formulations théoriques les plus abouties sont venues des adversaires de l'impérialisme. Or leurs critiques ont souvent manqué leur cible. Une étrange histoire parallèle des puissances impériales et de leurs dénonciations depuis le XIXe siècle montre une constante inadéquation entre les faits et les idées. Explorant ce long héritage de conquêtes et de dominations, de contestations et d'indépendances, Henry Laurens entreprend d'élucider cette histoire double – celle de l'empire et celle de ses ennemis – qui a largement façonné le monde dans lequel nous vivons. Henry Laurens est historien, professeur au Collège de France. Il est l'auteur de nombreux ouvrages, dont La Question de Palestine (3 vol., Fayard, 1999, 2002 et 2007). |
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“One neat book full of markings for British Shermans. It will greatly appeal to both modelers and AFV enthusiasts and historians.”— AMPS Indianapolis   With production in excess of 55,000, the Sherman tank was eventually in service with most Allied armies of the Second World War and by the time of the Normandy landings was the mainstay of Britain’s armored battalions. In his second book in the TankCraft series, Dennis Oliver uses wartime photos and extensively researched, exquisitely presented color illustrations to cover the Sherman tanks used by the units of the Royal Armoured Corps and the Royal Marines during the fighting in northern France.   As with all the books in the TankCraft series, a large part of this work showcases available model kits and aftermarket products, complemented by a gallery of beautifully constructed and painted models in various scales. Technical details as well as modifications introduced during production and in the field are also explained as is the complex system of markings employed by British armored regiments.   This book will give the modeler all the information and knowledge required to recreate an authentic miniature representation of the tanks that fought from the beaches of Normandy, through the battles for Caen and on to killing fields of Falaise.   “Provides a clear overview of the Sherman tank in British service during the Normandy Campaign. This will appeal to anyone with an interest in armoured warfare and the period covered. Much Recommended.”— Firetrench   “A good-value reference for any Sherman fan, but particularly those new to the subject and who favour ‘Blighty’s’ armour.”—Airfix Model World |
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A journey into the golden age of naval history, when these floating powerhouses ruled the waves.   The battleship was the ultimate embodiment of naval power during the latter stages of the British Empire, with the Royal Navy the first to build the dreadnought battleship in 1906. The new design, with a uniform main battery and steam turbines making it faster and more accurate than ever before, sparked a race with the German navy that culminated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the only fleet-to-fleet naval battle during the First World War. With major losses on both sides, and several treaties during the interwar years banning the construction of new battleships, a new generation emerged only in the Second World War, with Japan secretly creating Yamato and Musashi , two of the most powerful battleships ever built.   World War II saw the zenith of the battleship, with many pivotal battles such as that of Denmark Strait, during which the iconic battleship HMS Hood was sunk; the second battle of Guadalcanal; and the Battle of Leyte Gulf—to name but a few. The Germans, the Japanese, the Royal Navy, and the US Navy were locked in a titanic struggle across vast distances, in which battleships, for a time, played a decisive role, until the development of new aircraft carriers and the growing use of torpedoes began to make them obsolete. Since the 1990s, no battleship has seen active service.   This accessible short history gives an expert overview of the history of the battleship, looking at its origins, the role played by battleships in both World Wars, famous ships and their stories, and the weaponry and technology they employed. |
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The ability to view recorded moving pictures has had a major impact on human culture since the development of the necessary technologies over a century ago. For most of this time people have gone to the movies to be entertained and perhaps edified, but in the meantime television, the videocassette recorder (VCR), the digital versatile disk (DVD) player, the personal computer (desktop and laptop), the internet and other technologies have made watching moving pictures possible at home, in the classroom and just about anywhere else. Today, moving images are everywhere in our culture. Every day, moving picture cameras record millions of hours of activity, human and otherwise, all over the world: your cell phone makes a little video of your friends at a party; the surveillance camera at the bank keeps on eye on customers; journalists’ shoulder-carried cameras record the latest from the war zone; and across the world film artists work on all kinds of movies, from low-budget independent projects to the next big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. Moving pictures have had a great influence on human culture, and this book focuses on using moving images as historical evidence. Studying history means examining evidence from the past to understand, interpret and present what has happened in different times and places. We talk and write about what we have learned, hoping to establish credibility both for what we have determined to be the facts and for whatever meaning or significance we may attach to our reconstruction of the past. Studying history is a scientific process, involving a fairly set methodology. We tend to favor written sources, and we have tended to favor writing as a means of presenting our views of the past. But historians also use all kinds of other documents and artifacts in their work of interpreting the past, including moving pictures. |
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Much of the ground on which Canada’s largest metropolitan centre now stands was purchased by the British from the Mississauga Indians for a payment that in the end amounted to ten shillings. Sacred Feathers (1802–1856), or Peter Jones, as he became known in English, grew up hearing countless stories of the treachery in those negotiations, early lessons in the need for Indian vigilance in preserving their land and their rights. Donald B. Smith’s biography of this remarkable Ojibwa leader shows how well those early lessons were learned and how Jones used them to advance the welfare of his people. A groundbreaking book, Sacred Feathers was one of the first biographies of a Canadian Aboriginal to be based on his own writings – drawing on Jones’s letters, diaries, sermons, and his history of the Ojibwas – and the first modern account of the Mississauga Indians. As summarized by M.T. Kelly in Saturday Night when the book was first published in 1988, “This biography achieves something remarkable. Peter Jones emerges from its pages alive. We don’t merely understand him by the book’s end: we know him.” |
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The story of Eastern Kentucky's continued struggles 50 years after a country lawyer's book -- "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" -- focused the nation on the region's problems. |
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中国传统文化博大精深,包罗万象,远不是一本书所能囊括的。《史记》书中讲到了项羽本纪、越王勾践世家、孙子吴起列传、伍子胥列传等等故事。 |
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With a New Foreword The heartwrenching New York Times bestseller about the only known person born inside a North Korean prison camp to have escaped.  North Korea’s political prison camps have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. No one born and raised in these camps is known to have escaped. No one, that is, except Shin Dong-hyuk. In Escape From Camp 14 , Blaine Harden unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state through the story of Shin’s shocking imprisonment and his astounding getaway. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence—he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother. The late “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il was recognized throughout the world, but his country remains sealed as his third son and chosen heir, Kim Jong Eun, consolidates power. Few foreigners are allowed in, and few North Koreans are able to leave. North Korea is hungry, bankrupt, and armed with nuclear weapons. It is also a human rights catastrophe. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people work as slaves in its political prison camps. These camps are clearly visible in satellite photographs, yet North Korea’s government denies they exist. Harden’s harrowing narrative exposes this hidden dystopia, focusing on an extraordinary young man who came of age inside the highest security prison in the highest security state. Escape from Camp 14 offers an unequalled inside account of one of the world’s darkest nations. It is a tale of endurance and courage, survival and hope. |
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In three years, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, leading a few hundred Spanish soldiers, overcame a centuries-old empire that could put tens of thousands of warriors on the field. Even after his god-like reputation had been shattered, and his horses and cannons were no longer regarded as supernatural, his ruthless daring took him on to victory. Yet in the end, his prize was not the gold that he had sought, but the destruction of the entire Aztec civilization. |
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The only insider′s account ever written on America′s most powerful weapon in the war against terrorism |
