Wednesday, June 23, 2021

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in History 2021-06-23

William Stevenson - Spymistress artwork Spymistress
The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II
William Stevenson
Genre: Military
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 11, 2011
Publisher: Arcade
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

The New York Times Bestseller by the Author of A Man Called Intrepid • Ideal for fans of Nancy Wake, Virginia Hall, The Last Goodnight by Howard Blum, The Woman Who Smashed Codes , The Wolves at the Door by Judith Pearson, and similar works • Shares the story of Vera Atkins, legendary spy and holder of the Legion of Honor • Written by William Stevenson, the only person whom she trusted to write her biography She was stunning. She was ruthless. She was brilliant and had a will of iron. Born Vera Maria Rosenberg in Bucharest, she became Vera Atkins. William Stphenson, the spymaster who would later be known as “Intrepid”, recruited her when she was twenty-three. Vera spent most of the 1930s running too many dangerous espionage missions to count. When war was declared in 1939, her many skills made her one of the leaders of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by, and reporting to, Winston Churchill. She trained and recruited hundreds of agents, including dozens of women. Their job was to seamlessly penetrate deep behind the enemy lines.  As General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, the fantastic exploits and extraordinary courage of the SOE agents and the French Resistance fighters “shortened the war by many months.”They are celebrated, as they should be. But Vera Atkins’s central role has been hidden until after she died; William Stevenson promised to wait and publish her story posthumously. Now, Vera Atkins can be celebrated and known for the hero she was: the woman whose beauty, intelligence, and unwavering dedication proved key in turning the tide of World War II.



Gaeton Fonzi, Marie Fonzi & Dick Russell - The Last Investigation artwork The Last Investigation
Gaeton Fonzi, Marie Fonzi & Dick Russell
Genre: United States
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 16, 2018
Publisher: Skyhorse
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

A shocking exposé looking into the failure of our government to investigate the assassination of a president. Now featuring a foreword from New York Times bestselling author Dick Russell. Gaeton Fonzi’s masterful retelling of his work investigating the Kennedy assassination for two congressional committees is required reading for students of the assassination and the subsequent failure of the government to solve the crime. His book is a compelling postmortem on the House Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as a riveting account of Fonzi’s pursuit of leads indicating involvement in the assassination by officers of the Central Intelligence Agency. First published in 1993 and now with a new foreword by Dick Russell, New York Times bestselling author of They Killed Our President! and 63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read , Fonzi’s The Last Investigation was a landmark book upon its release. More than merely an indictment of the Committee’s work, The Last Investigation tells the story of the important leads Fonzi developed as an investigator, which sent him into the milieu of Kennedy-haters among anti-Castro exiles and CIA officers. In this highly readable book, the author follows the trail to formerly obscure CIA officers such as David Atlee Phillips and David Morales. New records declassified under the JFK Records Act have only added to the dark questions raised here.



Mary Louise Roberts - D-Day Through French Eyes artwork D-Day Through French Eyes
Normandy 1944
Mary Louise Roberts
Genre: History
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: May 16, 2014
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

“A moving examination of how French civilians experienced the fighting” at Normandy during WWII from the acclaimed author of What Soldiers Do ( Telegraph , UK).   “Like big black umbrellas, they rain down on the fields across the way, and then disappear behind the black line of the hedges.” Silent parachutes dotting the night sky—that’s how one Normandy woman learned that the D-Day invasion was under way in June of 1944. Though they yearned for liberation, the French had to steel themselves for war, knowing that their homes, lands, and fellow citizens would have to bear the brunt of the attack. With  D-Day through French Eyes , Mary Louise Roberts turns the conventional narrative of D-Day on its head, taking readers across the Channel to view the invasion anew. Roberts builds her history from an impressive range of gripping first-person accounts by French citizens throughout the region. A farm family notices that cabbage is missing from their garden—then discovers that the guilty culprits are American paratroopers hiding in the cowshed. Fishermen rescue pilots from the wreck of their B-17, then search for clothes big enough to disguise them as civilians. A young man learns to determine whether a bomb is whistling overhead or silently plummeting toward them. When the allied infantry arrived, French citizens guided them to hidden paths and little-known bridges, giving them crucial advantages over the German occupiers. As she did in her acclaimed account of GIs in postwar France,  What Soldiers Do , Roberts here sheds vital new light on a story we thought we knew.   "In the great tradition of Studs Terkel and  Is Paris Burning? , Mary Louise Roberts uses the diaries and memoirs of French civilians to narrate a history of the French at D-Day that has for too long been occluded by the mythology of the allied landing.”—Alice Kaplan, author of Dreaming in French



Xenophon - Xenophon's Cyrus the Great artwork Xenophon's Cyrus the Great
The Arts of Leadership and War
Xenophon
Genre: Ancient
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: April 01, 2007
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: Macmillan

In 1906, a stilted English translation of Xenophon of Athens' story about Cyrus the Great's military campaigns was published. Now, a century later, a much more accessible edition of one of history's most extraordinary and successful leaders is emerging. Among his many achievements, this great leader of wisdom and virtue founded and extended the Persian Empire; conquered Babylon; freed 40,000 Jews from captivity; wrote mankind's first human rights charter; and ruled over those he had conquered with respect and benevolence. According to historian Will Durant, Cyrus the Great's military enemies knew that he was lenient, and they did not fight him with that desperate courage which men show when their only choice is "to kill or die." As a result the Iranians regarded him as "The Father," the Babylonians as "The Liberator," the Greeks as the "Law-Giver," and the Jews as the "Anointed of the Lord." By freshening the voice, style and diction of Cyrus, Larry Hedrick has created a more contemporary Cyrus. A new generation of readers, including business executives and managers, military officers, and government officials, can now learn about and benefit from Cyrus the Great's extraordinary achievements, which exceeded all other leaders' throughout antiquity.



Bob Joseph - 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality artwork 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality
Bob Joseph
Genre: Americas
Price: $9.99
Publish Date: April 10, 2018
Publisher: Bob Joseph
Seller: Smashwords, Inc.

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



Bob Carruthers - The Wehrmacht artwork The Wehrmacht
First-Hand Accounts From the Survivors of Hitler's Armed Forces
Bob Carruthers
Genre: History
Price: $6.99
Publish Date: July 08, 2010
Publisher: Carlton
Seller: Carlton Books Ltd

This is the story of the Second World War as told for the first time by survivors of Germany's armed forces. Like old soldiers everywhere, they are fading away. But these soldiers have an incredible and sometimes shocking story to tell. It certainly does not make for comfortable reading. Secrets which have been bottled up for a lifetime are revealed, stories are told at last and memories which have been hidden away for 60 years finally resurface. These are facets of history's most dreadful war being revealed for the very first time. "The Wehrmacht" is a remarkable personal record of the Third Reich's rise and fall from the inside: of how those responsible for the maelstrom sent their armies to conquer only to see them crushed as the world united against them; of men who were seduced by the siren call of Hitler, only to pay a terribly heavy price. It allows the human stories to unfold within the bigger picture behind the major campaigns of the Second World War - from the early Blitzkrieg successes through the submarine warfare of the Battle of the Atlantic, and the brutal hardships of the Russian Front, to the last days of the Reich and the fall of Berlin. "The Wehrmacht" is a brilliantly researched and thought-provoking book that reveals unique human dimensions of the world's greatest military conflict.



Winston S. Churchill - The Age of Revolution artwork The Age of Revolution
Winston S. Churchill
Genre: Europe
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: April 29, 2013
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

The third volume of the prime minister’s history of Britain follows the nation’s ascent as a world power and its response to the threat of Napoleon.   In the “wilderness” years after Sir Winston Churchill unflinchingly guided his country through World War II, he turned his masterful hand to an exhaustive history of the country he loved above all else. And the world discovered that this brilliant military strategist was an equally brilliant storyteller. In 1953, the great man was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”   This third of four volumes explores Britain’s rise to world leadership during the eighteenth-century Age of Revolution. With characteristic eloquence, Churchill recounts the plunging of the South Seas company stock, the Spanish and Austrian Successions, the Treaty of Utrecht, the Seven Years’ War, and the American and French Revolutions. This sweeping history is a must-read for history buffs.   “This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues—its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country’s past.” — The Daily Telegraph



Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens artwork Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
Genre: History
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: October 28, 2014
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

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.



William L. Shirer - The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich artwork The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
William L. Shirer
Genre: Europe
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: October 23, 2011
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

National Book Award Winner: The definitive account of Nazi Germany and “one of the most important works of history of our time” ( The New York Times ).   When the Third Reich fell, it fell swiftly. The Nazis had little time to destroy their memos, their letters, or their diaries. William L. Shirer’s sweeping account of the Third Reich uses these unique sources, combined with his experience living in Germany as an international correspondent throughout the war.   The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich earned Shirer a National Book Award and continues to be recognized as one of the most important and authoritative books about the Third Reich and Nazi Germany ever written. The diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, as well as evidence and other testimony gained at the Nuremberg Trials, could not have found more artful hands.   Shirer gives a clear, detailed, and well-documented account of how it was that Adolf Hitler almost succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a chilling and illuminating portrait of mankind’s darkest hours.   “A monumental work.” —Theodore H. White



Ben Macintyre - The Spy and the Traitor artwork The Spy and the Traitor
The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
Ben Macintyre
Genre: History
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: September 18, 2018
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

The celebrated author of A Spy Among Friends and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Cold War-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union. If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6.      For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.      Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.



Malcolm Gladwell - The Bomber Mafia artwork The Bomber Mafia
A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
Malcolm Gladwell
Genre: Military
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: April 27, 2021
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

An exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war A  New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice In The Bomber Mafia , Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.   Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?     In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?”   Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.



H. Dussauce, Adolphe Benestor Lunel & Auguste Debay - A Practical Guide for the Perfumer artwork A Practical Guide for the Perfumer
H. Dussauce, Adolphe Benestor Lunel & Auguste Debay
Genre: United States
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 09, 2020
Publisher: Barakaldo Books
Seller: INscribe Digital

A practical guide for the perfumer: being a new treatise on perfumery the most favorable to beauty without being injurious to the health, comprising a description of the substances used in perfumery, and the formulæ of more than one thousand preparations. THE industry of the perfumer has in our day been advanced to a position which now makes it one of the first of the arts; indeed, we might almost say, one of the most useful. Perfumery has had to undergo many transformations and changes to free itself from the old beaten path of quackery and charlatanism. In the last century, the general abuse of paints of every kind, and perfumery of different varieties, often most injurious to health, gave birth to preventives, sometimes unnecessary and exaggerated. Since, however, the perfumer, discarding a multitude of absurd receipts, now asks from the chemist combinations formed with a view to hygienic considerations, and studies the crude materials and co-ordinates them in a rational manner, perfumery has at last taken new forms in perfect harmony with good taste and refinement. The art of the perfumer, with the advances which it has recently made, and its present scientific character, is worthy of the consideration and support of rational people. Of the truth of this assertion I hope to give a proof in this work, and unless the desire to be useful has made me the victim of a strong delusion, I trust that this guide, which has been made as complete as possible, will advantageously direct the manufacture and contribute to the progress which skilful perfumers are daily making in that interesting branch of industry.



W.T. Hamilton - My Sixty Years on the Plains artwork My Sixty Years on the Plains
Trapping, Trading, and Indian Fighting
W.T. Hamilton
Genre: United States
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: March 22, 2018
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Seller: PublishDrive Inc.

My Sixty Years on the Plains contains the adventures of "Bill" Hamilton, an American frontiersman who lived during the 19th century.



Kati Marton - True Believer artwork True Believer
Stalin's Last American Spy
Kati Marton
Genre: History
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: September 06, 2016
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

“Kati Marton’s True Believer is a true story of intrigue, treachery, murder, torture, fascism, and an unshakable faith in the ideals of Communism….A fresh take on espionage activities from a critical period of history” ( Washington Independent Review of Books ). True Believer reveals the life of Noel Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American who spied for Stalin during the 1930s and forties. Later, a pawn in Stalin’s sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades. How does an Ivy League-educated, US State Department employee, deeply rooted in American culture and history, become a hardcore Stalinist? The 1930s, when Noel Field joined the secret underground of the International Communist Movement, were a time of national collapse. Communism promised the righting of social and political wrongs and many in Field’s generation were seduced by its siren song. Few, however, went as far as Noel Field in betraying their own country. With a reporter’s eye for detail, and a historian’s grasp of the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century, Kati Marton, in a “relevant…fascinating…vividly reconstructed” ( The New York Times Book Review ) account, captures Field’s riveting quest for a life of meaning that went horribly wrong. True Believer is supported by unprecedented access to Field family correspondence, Soviet Secret Police records, and reporting on key players from Alger Hiss, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and World War II spy master, “Wild Bill” Donovan—to the most sinister of all: Josef Stalin. “Relevant today as a tale of fanaticism and the lengths it can take one to” ( Publishers Weekly ), True Believer is “riveting reading” ( USA TODAY ), an astonishing real-life spy thriller, filled with danger, misplaced loyalties, betrayal, treachery, and pure evil, with a plot twist worthy of John le Carré.



Jennifer R. March - Dictionary of Classical Mythology artwork Dictionary of Classical Mythology
Jennifer R. March
Genre: Ancient
Price: $25.99
Publish Date: May 31, 2014
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Seller: Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors, LLC

Jenny March’s acclaimed Dictionary of Classical Mythology, first published in 1998 but long out of print, has been extensively revised and expanded including a completely new set of beautiful line-drawing illustrations for this Oxbow edition. It is a comprehensive A – Z guide to Greek and Roman mythology. All major myths, legends and fables are here, including gods and goddesses, heroes and villains, dangerous women, legendary creatures and monsters. Characters such as Achilles and Odysseus have extensive entries, as do epic journeys and heroic quests, like that of Jason and the Argonauts to win the Golden Fleece, all alongside a plethora of information on the creation of the cosmos, the many metamorphoses of gods and humans, and the Trojan War, plus more minor figures – nymphs, seers, kings, rivers, to name but a few. In this superbly authoritative work the myths are brilliantly retold, along with any major variants, and with extensive translations from ancient authors that give life to the narratives and a sense of the vibrant cultures that shaped the development of classical myth. The 172 illustrations give visual immediacy to the words, by showing how ancient artists perceived their gods and heroes. The impact of myths on ancient art is also explored, as is and their influence in the postclassical arts, emphasising the ongoing inspiration afforded by the ancient myths. Also included are two maps of the ancient world, a list of the ancient sources and their chronology, the more important genealogies, and an index of recurrent mythical motifs.



Robert E. Murphy - After Many a Summer artwork After Many a Summer
The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball
Robert E. Murphy
Genre: United States
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: March 01, 2013
Publisher: Nebraska Paperback
Seller: The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

By the mid-1950s, New York had been the unrivaled capital of America’s national pastime for a century, a place where baseball was followed with truly fanatical fervor. The city’s three teams—the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers—had over the previous decade rewarded their fans’ devotion with stellar performances: from 1947 to 1957, one or more of these teams had played in the World Series every year but one. Yet on opening day 1958, the Giants and the Dodgers were gone. Their owners, Walter O’Malley and Horace Stoneham, had ripped them away from their longtime home and from the hearts of millions of devoted and passionate fans and taken the teams to California. How did it happen? Who was to blame? The relocation of the Giants and the Dodgers, an event that transcended sports and altered the landscape of New York City, has never been addressed with the depth, detail, and insight offered here by Robert E. Murphy. As informed as it is entertaining, After Many a Summer is rich in baseball lore, civic history, and the wheeling and dealing, alliances and betrayals, and sharp-elbowed machinations of big-city business and politics.



Paul Schneider - Brutal Journey artwork Brutal Journey
The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America
Paul Schneider
Genre: History
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: April 26, 2013
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Seller: Macmillan

A gripping account of four explorers adrift in an unknown land and the harrowing journey that took them across North America 270 years before Lewis and Clark One part Heart of Darkness , one part Lewis and Clark, Brutal Journey tells the story of a group of explorers who came to the new world on the heels of Cortés; bound for glory, only four of four hundred would survive. Eight years and some five thousand miles later, three Spaniards and a black Moroccan wandered out of the wilderness to the north of the Rio Grande and into Cortes' gold-drenched Mexico. The four survivors of the Narváez expedition brought nothing back from their sojourn other than their story, but what a tale it was. They had become killers and cannibals, torturers and torture victims, slavers and enslaved. They became faith healers, arms dealers, canoe thieves, spider eaters, and finally, when there were only the four of them left in the high Texas desert, they became itinerate messiahs. They became, in other words, whatever it took to stay alive long enough to inch their way toward Mexico, the only place where they were certain they would find an outpost of the Spanish empire. The journey of the Cabeza De Vaca expedition is one of the greatest survival epics in the history of American exploration. By drawing on the accounts of the first explorers and the most recent findings of archaeologists and academic historians, Paul Schneider offers a thrilling and authentic narrative to replace a legend of North American exploration.



Stephen W. Sears - The British Empire artwork The British Empire
Stephen W. Sears
Genre: Europe
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: October 25, 2017
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Seller: New Word City

In 1815, the British controlled the seas. Before the end of the nineteenth century, they ruled Australia, India, New Zealand, half of Africa, half of North America, and islands all around the globe. Theirs was the most powerful empire the world has ever known. Here is the story of how the English acquired their vast domain; how they ruled, maintained, and exploited it; and how, within decades, they presided over its dissolution. Here are Britain's triumphs and also her stinging defeats, her heroes and her scoundrels. It is a full and fascinating chronicle of the growth of the British Empire and its people and of the impact that empire had on the rest of the world.



William Stevenson & Uri Dan - 90 Minutes at Entebbe artwork 90 Minutes at Entebbe
The Full Inside Story of the Spectacular Israeli Counterterrorism Strike and the Daring Rescue of 103 Hostages
William Stevenson & Uri Dan
Genre: Middle East
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: January 06, 2015
Publisher: Skyhorse
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

The incredible story of an Israeli mission that rescued 103 hostages from a hijacked jetliner. On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked by terrorists and flown to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. In the following agonizing days, Israeli passengers were singled out and held hostage. A week later on July 4, one hundred Israeli commandos raced 2,500 miles from Israel to Entebbe, landed in the middle of the night, and in a heart-stopping mission that lasted ninety minutes, killed all guerillas and freed 103 hostages. In captivating detail, Stevenson provides a fast-paced hour-by-hour narration from the hijacking to the final ninety-minute mission. In addition to discussing the incredible rescue itself, Stevenson also covers the political backdrop behind the hijacking, especially Ugandan President Idi Amin’s support for the hijackers, which marked one of the first times a leader of a nation had backed terrorist activities. An illustration of one nation’s undying spirit, heroism, and commitment to its people in the face of threat, Operation Thunderbolt has become a legendary antiterrorist tale. Although first written in 1976 (and published within weeks of the event), Stevenson’s account presents this act of terrorism in a way that is still relevant in our modern-day political climate. A factual account of what could easily be read as sensational fiction, 90 Minutes at Entebbe will inspire, encourage, and instill hope in all readers. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.



George R. Elford - Devil's Guard artwork Devil's Guard
George R. Elford
Genre: Military
Price: $8.99
Publish Date: April 01, 1985
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

Condemned to death for the bloodbaths of World War II, they served their sentence—on the killing fields of Vietnam. The fascinating, true story of the French Foreign Legion’s Nazi battalion   WHAT THEY DID IN WORLD WAS II WAS HITORY’S BLOODIEST NIGHTMARE. The ashes of World War II were still cooling when France went to war in the jungles of Southeast Asia. In that struggle, its frontline troops were the misfits, criminals, and mercenaries of the French Foreign Legion. And among that international army of the desperate and the damned, none were so bloodstained as the fugitive veterans of the German S.S.   WHAT THEY DID IN VIETNAM WAS ITS UGLIEST SECRET—UNTIL NOW. Loathed by the French, feared and hated by the Vietnamese, the Germans fought not for patriotism of glory but because fighting for France was better than hanging from its gallows. Here now is the untold story of the killer elite whose discipline, ferocity, and suicidal courage made them the weapon of last resort.



Sarah Schulman - Conflict Is Not Abuse artwork Conflict Is Not Abuse
Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair
Sarah Schulman
Genre: History
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: October 04, 2016
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Seller: Perseus Books, LLC

From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning. Rooting the problem of escalation in negative group relationships, Schulman illuminates the ways cliques, communities, families, and religious, racial, and national groups bond through the refusal to change their self-concept. She illustrates how Supremacy behavior and Traumatized behavior resemble each other, through a shared inability to tolerate difference. This important and sure to be controversial book illuminates such contemporary and historical issues of personal, racial, and geo-political difference as tools of escalation towards injustice, exclusion, and punishment, whether the objects of dehumanization are other individuals in our families or communities, people with HIV, African Americans, or Palestinians. Conflict Is Not Abuse is a searing rejection of the cultural phenomenon of blame, cruelty, and scapegoating, and how those in positions of power exacerbate and manipulate fear of the "other" to achieve their goals. Sarah Schulman is a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and AIDS historian, and the author of eighteen books. A Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, Sarah is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. Her novels published by Arsenal include Rat Bohemia , Empathy , After Delores , and The Mere Future . She lives in New York.



Eric Bogosian - Operation Nemesis artwork Operation Nemesis
The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide
Eric Bogosian
Genre: Europe
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: April 21, 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

A masterful account of the assassins who hunted down the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. In 1921, a tightly knit band of killers set out to avenge the deaths of almost one million victims of the Armenian Genocide. They were a humble bunch: an accountant, a life insurance salesman, a newspaper editor, an engineering student, and a diplomat. Together they formed one of the most effective assassination squads in history. They named their operation Nemesis, after the Greek goddess of retribution. The assassins were survivors, men defined by the massive tragedy that had devastated their people. With operatives on three continents, the Nemesis team killed six major Turkish leaders in Berlin, Constantinople, Tiflis, and Rome, only to disband and suddenly disappear. The story of this secret operation has never been fully told, until now. Eric Bogosian goes beyond simply telling the story of this cadre of Armenian assassins by setting the killings in the context of Ottoman and Armenian history, as well as showing in vivid color the era's history, rife with political fighting and massacres. Casting fresh light on one of the great crimes of the twentieth century and one of history's most remarkable acts of vengeance, Bogosian draws upon years of research and newly uncovered evidence. Operation Nemesis is the result -- both a riveting read and a profound examination of evil, revenge, and the costs of violence.



Maura Hanrahan - Tsunami artwork Tsunami
The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster
Maura Hanrahan
Genre: Americas
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: August 23, 2004
Publisher: Flanker Press
Seller: eBOUND Canada

The dramatic incredible story of the South Coast Disaster of 1929.



S. C. Gwynne - Hymns of the Republic artwork Hymns of the Republic
The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War
S. C. Gwynne
Genre: United States
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: October 29, 2019
Publisher: Scribner
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes “a masterwork of history” (Lawrence Wright, author of God Save Texas ), the spellbinding, epic account of the last year of the Civil War. The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of the most compelling narratives and one of history’s great turning points. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist S.C. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln. “A must-read for Civil War enthusiasts” ( Publishers Weekly ), Hymns of the Republic offers many surprising angles and insights. Robert E. Lee, known as a great general and Southern hero, is presented here as a man dealing with frustration, failure, and loss. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gwynne argues, was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. Popular history at its best, Hymns of the Republic reveals the creation that arose from destruction in this “engrossing…riveting” ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review) read.



Julia Cooke - Come Fly the World artwork Come Fly the World
The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am
Julia Cooke
Genre: History
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: March 02, 2021
Publisher: HMH Books
Seller: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men –era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a   jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire.Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from small-town girl Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few Black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life. Cooke brings to light the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage.