One of WW2 Reads "Top 20 Must-Read WWII Books of 2018"

The gripping and little known story of the fight for the allegiance of Latin America during World War II

The Tango War by Mary Jo McConahay fills an important gap in WWII history. Beginning in the thirties, both sides were well aware of the need to control not just the hearts and minds but also the...

A sobering story of an industrial family’s cold efficiency behind the design of the ovens at Auschwitz

Architects of Death tells the astonishing story of how the gas chambers and crematoria that facilitated the murder and incineration of more than one million people in the Holocaust were designed not by the Nazi SS, but by a small respectable family firm of...

In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm—a city legendary...

Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968) was a thinker of many contradictions. Born in Russia, he spent most of his life in France. His interpretation of Hegel and his notorious declaration that history had come to an end had a major influence on French thinkers and writers such as Raymond Aron, Georges Bataille, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan, and Raymond...

"An absorbing and at times ironical humorous picture of the battle of Prohibition. Recommended." — Library Journal
With the passing of the Volstead Act, the United States embraced Prohibition as the law of the land. From 1920 to 1933, the well-intentioned ban of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors gave rise to a flourishing...

Surveying the field of political history in Canada, one might assume that the politics of the nation have been shaped solely by the Liberal and Conservative parties. Relatively little attention has been paid to the contributions of the CCF and NDP in Canadian politics. This collection remedies this imbalance with a critical examination of the place of...

A book examining the strange terrain of Nazi sympathizers, nonintervention campaigners and other voices in America who advocated on behalf of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II.

Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: until the attack on Pearl...

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Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age”—spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s—when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond.

Best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin...

The author of the “dazzling epic” (Time) Brilliant delivers an indelible view of the ways silence affects those who seek it and those who have it imposed upon them. 

Through her original, intertwined histories of the penitentiary and the monastery, Jane Brox illuminates the many ways silence is far more complex than any absolute; how it has influenced ideas...

From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. 

Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to “How Do We Look” and “The Eye of Faith,” the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume...

The story of the aftermath of World War I, a transformative time when a new world seemed possible—told from the vantage of people, famous and ordinary, who lived through the turmoil

November 1918. The Great War has left Europe in ruins, but with the end of hostilities, a radical new start seems not only possible, but essential, even unavoidable. Unorthodox...

Paris on the Brink vividly portrays the City of Light during the tumultuous 1930s, from the Wall Street Crash of 1929 to war and German Occupation. This was a dangerous and turbulent decade, during which workers flexed their economic muscle and their opponents struck back with increasing violence. As the divide between haves and have-nots widened...

The French Foreign Legion has gained a reputation as one of the most formidable of military institutions. Accepting volunteers from all parts of the globe, the Legion has acquired an aura of mystery – and a less than enviable reputation for brutality within its ranks. Voices of the Foreign Legion considers how recruits are selected and trained, where...

The forgotten story of the ‘Christian Vikings’ We are all familiar with the fierce pagan warriors that burst out of Scandinavia during the eighth century, plundering, ravaging and shedding blood wherever they went. A lesser-known fact about these infamous pillagers is that the majority converted to Christianity in the centuries that followed. In...

A new biography of Queen Elizabeth II, focusing on her early life, with new research and insights.

As a 13-year-old girl, Princess Elizabeth fell in love with Prince Philip of Greece, an ambitious naval cadet, and they married when she was 21. When Elizabeth suddenly became Queen at 25, their lives changed forever. With previously unpublished material...

A “comprehensive history of Satan’s snuff” (GQ), Tim Madge’s critically acclaimed White Mischief: A Cultural History of Cocaine. This informative, intriguing and often challenging account provides an overview of changing attitudes toward cocaine, from the wonder cure when it was first discovered 150 years ago, right through to its champagne status today.

"This is no staid diary. There are forest fires, floods, gunplay and many other death-defying episodes."  Reviewer, Mark McLaughlin

Hazelet's Journal is a true story that gives us insight into the character of those who went before us, a sense of passion, loyalty, and resilience that was so much a part of the great American spirit that our country was...

Nearly every tourist destination has a graveyard. Yosemite National Park has a graveyard. The Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: both graveyards. The #1 tourist destination in Michigan has three cemeteries. Gettysburg is a National Park because it has a graveyard. Some graveyards are even tourist destinations in...

“Currently the urban affairs reporter for the New York Times, Roberts has covered the city for 40 years. So as we locals say, he knows from, and it shows in this fabulous collection of essays. With wit and grace, he tells stories of its citizens—some illustrious, others not; some living, others long dead. But the story he’s really telling is that of New...

During the rise of New York from the capital of an upstart nation to a global metropolis, the visual language of Greek and Roman antiquity played a formative role in the development of the city’s art and architecture. This compilation of essays offers a survey of diverse reinterpretations of classical forms in some of New York’s most iconic buildings...

“Unflinching, insightful, and humane. I can think of no other book that takes as its charge so ambitious a goal: to take the full measure of America’s wars in this new century. A landmark work.”—Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author of Horse Soldiers and In Harm’s Way

Pulitzer Prize winner C.J. Chivers’ unvarnished account of modern combat, told...

A new and definitive investigation into the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.  

At 12.16am on Wednesday, June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded in the kitchen service pantry of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. He had just won the California Primary, an important victory in his quest for nomination as the...

The supposed extinction of the Indigenous Beothuk people of Newfoundland in the early nineteenth century is a foundational moment in Canadian history. Increasingly under scrutiny, non-Indigenous perceptions of the Beothuk have had especially dire and far-reaching ramifications for contemporary Indigenous people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Prairie Fairies draws upon a wealth of oral, archival and cultural histories to recover the experiences of queer urban and rural people in the prairies. Focusing on the five major urban centres: Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, and Calgary, Prairie Fairies explores the regional experiences of queer men and women from 1930-1985. 

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As a brown boy growing up in apartheid South Africa, Himmet Dajee’s life could easily have turned out quite differently. As the fourth, and largely discounted, son of tradition-minded Indian immigrants, he faced a future of oppression under the white ruling class. His path seemed predetermined: to follow his father in the shoe trade and accept an arranged...

The New York Times bestseller 'Silicon Valley needed a history lesson and Ferguson has provided it' Eric Schmidt What if everything we thought we knew about history was wrong? From Niall Ferguson, the global bestselling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, this is a whole new way of imagining the world. Most history is hierarchical:...

This book is based on a true event, the real life adventure of nine year-old Ariel Bradley. It reveals the anxiety of the Americans, who a battle in the first months of the Revolutionary War. It also shows George Washington’s keen sense of humor and his wily, perceptive view of his British adversaries.

Ariel Bradley is Washington’s boy spy who pretends to...

From activist, Pussy Riot member and freedom fighter Maria Alyokhina, a raw, hallucinatory, passionate account of her arrest, trial and imprisonment in a penal colony in the Urals for standing up for what she believed in. 'One of the most brilliant and inspiring things I've read in years. Couldn't put it down. This book is freedom' Chris Kraus, author...

Murder by poison alarmed, enthralled, and in many ways encapsulated the Victorian age. Linda Stratmann's dark and splendid social history reveals the nineteenth century as a gruesome battleground where poisoners went head-to-head with authorities who strove to detect poisons, control their availability, and bring the guilty to justice. She corrects many...

SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, FT AND EVENING STANDARD BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017 The momentous new book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Iron Curtain. In 1932-33, nearly four million Ukrainians died of starvation, having been deliberately deprived of food. It is one of the most devastating episodes in the history of the twentieth century...

Cimarron Girl: The Dust Bowl Years of Abigail Brubaker is a fictional recollection of young Abigail’s experiences on the family’s Oklahoma prairie farm, located in Cimarron, the heart of the Dust Bowl. Abby’s first-person account chronicles key episodes each year as the depth of the drought unfolds. As she grows, personal perspectives are woven from actual...

A fascinating and revelatory exploration of the intricacies of Islam and the inner psyche of the Muslim world from the bestselling author of The Islamist

‘Islam began as a stranger,’ said the Prophet Mohammed, ‘and one day, it will again return to being a stranger.’

The gulf between Islam and the West is widening. A faith rich with strong values and...

Children and adults under the age of 40 have forgotten about the Pullman Porter.

This book will teach children and adults, who the porters were and why they were

so important in our history. Porters worked in early train cars and because they

traveled the country and learned much, many Pullman porters became leaders back

in their home communities. They...