Historical History

When the American ace Major Jack Freeman - poster boy for the war against the Kaiser's undead army of shamblers - is shot down over enemy lines and taken captive, veteran Captain Michael "Madman" Burke is the only man brave and foolish enough to accept the mission to recover him. Burke assembles a team of disparate members - his right-hand man, Sergeant Moore, big-game-hunter-turned-soldier Clayton Manning, and Professor Dan Graves, one of Tesla's top men and the resident authority on all things supernatural, among them - to dare the impossible.

Can the dream of freedom overcome fear and oppression? In this novel spanning Prague’s tumultuous twentieth century, friendships and marriages are tested to the limit. In the summer of 1914, young love beckons and the future seems bright for three friends as they reach adulthood, but the dark clouds of war throw into stark relief the differences between them which had never mattered before. From World War One and the heady days of liberty which follow, to Nazi occupation during World War Two, and afterwards Communist dictatorship, life threatening risks must be taken. Friends and families...

In 1920, in small-town America, the ubiquitous dry goods store was usually owned by Jews and often referred to as "the Jew store". That's how Stella Suberman's father's store, Bronson's Low-Priced Store, in Concordia, Tennessee, was known locally. The Bronsons were the first Jews to ever live in that tiny town of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware, one barber shop, one beauty parlor, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches.

One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

Always Greener is an exquisite portrait of Kate Grenville's complex, conflicted grandmother, who she feared as a child and only in adulthood came to understand. Born in rural Australia, Dolly Russell becomes a successful businessperson, mother and troubled wife. Then came the depression, bankruptcy and World War I. Yet, in a way, those disasters freed her. They allowed her to use her intelligence and ambition to make a space for herself in a man’s world.

The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing audiobook makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve victory.

THE RETURN OF MARY After fourteen exceptionally long years, Mary Bentley, who was missing since the age of five has at last been found by her mum through what most would consider a profound miracle. Now a young woman, she must learn to reacquaint herself with the her biological family who are essentially strangers to her. But what will happen to the relationship between Mary and the loving Irish couple who raised her as their own for all of those years? They live a simple life on a rural farm in Dixon, England, and forge through life with very few luxuries, but have given Mary a God-fearing...

On April 15, 1945, Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes entered Bergen-Belsen for the first time. Waiting for him were 10,000 unburied, putrefying corpses and 60,000 living prisoners, starving and sick. One month earlier, 15-year-old Rachel Genuth arrived at Bergen-Belsen; deported with her family from Sighet, Transylvania, in May of 1944, Rachel had by then already endured Auschwitz, the Christianstadt labor camp, and a forced march through the Sudetenland.

Franklin’s Autobiography, one of the most regarded works in early American literature, began as a private collection of anecdotes for his son, but was soon transformed from reflective personal journaling into a work of national history. Filled with the inimitable nuances & wit of the inventor, philosopher, scientist and statesman, this engaging narration of Benjamin Franklin’s classic is as certain to delight modern readers as it did with his original audience.

One of the greatest commanders of the ancient world brought vividly to life: Hannibal, the brilliant general who successfully crossed the Alps with his war elephants and brought Rome to its knees. Hannibal Barca of Carthage, born 247 BC, was one of the great generals of the ancient world. Historian Patrick N. Hunt has led archaeological expeditions in the Alps and elsewhere to study Hannibal's achievements. Now he brings Hannibal's incredible story to life in this riveting and dramatic audiobook.

It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a 23-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces.

In 1908, at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for 13 years in Peking’s Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi’s life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor.

Saint Augustine's contributions to Christian theology are second to no other post-apostolic author in the whole sweep of church history. Yet along side his doctrinal treatises, Augustine tells a story of his life devoted to Christ as his only satisfaction. The Confessions is at once the autobiographical account of Augustine's life of Christian faith and at the same time a compelling theology of Christian spirituality for everyone.

This book is about an idea - namely, that Scripture mandates a Jewish return to the historical region of Palestine - which in turn morphed into a political movement, rallied around a popular slogan ("A country without a nation for a nation without a country"), and eventually contributed to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Christian Zionism continues to influence global politics, especially US foreign policy, and has deeply affected Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian relations.

The story of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair begins with Michael Lang, a kid out of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who liked to smoke a joint and listen to jazz. He would find his way to Florida, open a head shop, and produce his first festival - Miami Pop, featuring Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and others - then travel to Woodstock, where, after meeting Artie Kornfeld, his vision for a festival where folks could come and stay for a few days amid the rural beauty of upstate New York would become a reality.

John Paul Jones is more than a great sea story. Jones is a character for the ages. John Adams called him the "most ambitious and intriguing officer in the American Navy." The renewed interest in the Founding Fathers reminds us of the great men who made this country, but John Paul Jones teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones' spirit was classically American.

Growing up in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden - just steps from Adolf Hitler's alpine retreat - Irmgard Hunt had a seemingly happy, simple childhood. In her powerful, illuminating, and sometimes frightening memoir, Hunt recounts a youth lived under an evil but persuasive leader. As she grew older, the harsh reality of war - and a few brave adults who opposed the Nazi regime - aroused in her skepticism of National Socialist ideology and the Nazi propaganda she was taught to believe in.

Daughter of parents who counted President Washington as a friend, Sarah had a bright future. Until... she's caught up in a scandal and cast outside society. Three lonely years pass and to start afresh, she forsakes the thirteen United States for faraway French Colonial New Orleans. But sailing south through the pirate-ridden Caribbean is no place for an unprotected lady. Douglas “Mac” McKuen is hired to protect her. Though also outcast, at first he believes the ill-founded gossip. But during the dangerous voyage, the two forge a bond to face whatever comes—as friends. Mac plans to ...

In this compelling biography, historian A. J. P. Taylor reevaluates Bismarck's motives and methods, focusing on the chancellor's rise to power in the 1860s and his removal from office in 1890.

Laban Carrick Hill, the best-selling author of the National Book Award Finalist Harlem Stomp, here delivers an inspiring and lyrical story of a gifted craftsman who lived in South Carolina two centuries ago. Dave’s superb artistry and the deeply observant poetry he carved onto his pots reveal how he transcended the limitations he faced as a slave.