In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, a strong strain of isolationism existed in Congress and across the country. The U.S. Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men—unprepared to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army led...

Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.

Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments...

Long before recorded history, men, women and children had been seized by conquering tribes and nations to be employed or traded as slaves. Greeks, Romans, Vikings and Arabs were among the earliest of many peoples involved in the slave trade, and across Africa the buying and selling of slaves was widespread. There was, at the time, nothing unusual in...

'We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.' - W. Somerset Maugham The Victorian era boasted the glory of the Empire and the grandeur that Empire afforded, it saw huge technological advances in civil engineering and transport, mass urbanisation and social change, as well as still-treasured...

Across all imaginable borders, Johnny Cash fans show the appeal of a thoroughly American performer who simultaneously inspires people worldwide. A young Norwegian shows off his Johnny Cash tattoo. A Canadian vlogger sings “I Walk the Line” to camel herders in Egypt’s White Desert. A shopkeeper in Northern Ireland plays Cash as his constant soundtrack. A...

A gripping history of the September Campaign and the onset of World War II

For Americans, World War II began in December of 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor; but for Poland, the war began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler's soldiers invaded, followed later that month by Stalin's Red Army. The conflict that followed saw the debut of many of the features...

The Real Beatrix Potter is a fascinating and revealing biography of one of the world's most cherished children's authors. Beatrix Potter's famous little white books have enchanted generations of young readers who adored the characters she created and of course her own distinctive illustrations. Born into a typically repressed Victorian family it was...

A HISTORY OF THE MEDICINES WE TAKE gives a lively account of the development of medicines from traces of herbs found with the remains of Neanderthal man, to prescriptions written on clay tablets from Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, to pure drugs extracted from plants in the nineteenth century to the latest biotechnology antibody products. The...

“When everyone had had plenty to eat and drink they called for the gladiators. The moment anyone’s throat was cut, they clapped their hands in pleasure. And it sometimes even turned out that someone had specified in their will that the most beautiful women he had purchased were to fight each other….” – Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters With their...

1970 was the last year of the Beatles and the first year of the supersonic Concorde - a time of new possibilities and social upheaval, and Jennifer Hosten, a young airline hostess from the Caribbean island of Grenada, was as surprised as anyone to find herself in the midst of it.

After winning a Miss Grenada contest, she travelled to London for the 1970 Miss...

In early October 1942 the German Sixth Army realised that it had one last chance to break through the Soviet lines and capture Stalingrad before exhaustion and the Russian winter set in. Stalingrad examines this last attempt by the Germans to win Stalingrad and how the Red Army managed to cling on against the odds, marking the turning point of the war on...

On New Year’s Day 1940, the people of Britain looked back on the first four months of the Second World War with a sort of puzzled unease. Wartime life was nothing like what they had imagined. Unlike the First World War there was no fighting on the Western Front. Indeed, there was no Western Front. There had been no major air attacks. Four days into the war...

The history of unemployment and many concepts surrounding it remain a mystery to many Americans. Frank Stricker believes we need to understand this essential thread in our shared past. American Unemployment is an introduction for everyone that takes aim at misinformation, willful deceptions, and popular myths to set the record straight:

-Workers do not...

From the ancient Greeks and Romans to the modern era, how have people determined what is true? How have those with power and influence sought to control the narrative? Are we living in a post-truth era, or is that notion simply the latest attempt to control the narrative? The relationship between truth and power is the key theme. Moving through major...

Alan Berkman (1945–2009) was no campus radical in the mid-1960s; he was a promising Ivy League student, football player, Eagle Scout, and fraternity president. But when he was a medical student and doctor, his politics began to change, and soon he was providing covert care to members of revolutionary groups like the Weather Underground and becoming...

Success is a slippery, fickle thing. How much is down to luck, being in the right place at the right time or knowing the right people, and how much to innate talent? Why are some people less successful than others? Taking as its frame of reference the stories of fifty inventors who lost out on the fame that their genius might otherwise have merited, The...

Parting and Enduring is a dialectical effort to understand some consequences of the principle of evolution that threaten the survival of mankind very clearly and directly.

Although it has become commonplace to say and hear that humanity faces global perils, we try to explain how true this actually is by identifying these dangers.

For instance, we believe that...

England, 1527, King Henry seeks a divorce from his first wife, Katherine, who can't give him the male heir he desires. He sets his eyes on the younger, more daring Anne Boleyn, triggering a complex, triangular exchange of personal narratives from the protagonists, who remain entwined for the ensuing nine years. Each struggle in their pursuits of power...

American road are about destinations. They’re also about destiny.

The evolution of the national system of roads in the United States is undeniably linked to our unique history and our past and future successes. Today’s roads are a long way from the Model T days, when bold early contractors used mules and Fresnos to build roads and bridges that literally...

What does the future hold for the Midwest? A vast stretch of fertile farmland bordering one of the largest concentrations of fresh water in the world, the Midwestern US seems ideally situated for the coming challenges of climate change. But it also sits at the epicenter of a massive economic collapse that many of its citizens are still struggling to...

Last Subway is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. With his extraordinary access to powerful players and internal documents, Philip Mark Plotch reveals why the city's subway system, once the best in the world, is now too often...

Exploring the roots of Canadian consumer culture, Purchasing Power uncovers the meanings that Canadians have historically attached to consumer goods. Focusing on white women during the early twentieth century, Donica Belisle reveals that for thousands of Canadians between the 1890s and World War II, consumption was about not only survival, but also civic...

Abdallah Azzam, the Palestinian cleric who led the mobilization of Arab fighters to Afghanistan in the 1980s, played a crucial role in the internationalization of the jihadi movement.

Killed in mysterious circumstances in 1989 in Peshawar, Pakistan, he remains one of the most influential jihadi ideologies of all time.

Here, in the first in-depth biography...

Stephen M. Miller’s journalistic approach to Bible knowledge is fascinating—and has sold over two million copies of his books! Now Miller has set his sights on crucifixion, gathering firsthand testimony from ancient witnesses to discover, What does it really mean that Jesus was executed on a Roman cross? You’ll examine the historical context for your faith...

Sir Francis Bryan

The life of Henry VIII's most notorious ambassador, who, unlike many who served the second Tudor monarch, managed to keep his head.

ir Francis Bryan was Henry VIII's most notorious ambassador and one of his closest companions. Bryan was a man of many talents; jouster, poet, rake and hell-raiser, gambler, soldier, sailor and diplomat. He...

High Heels & Beetle Crushers

This compelling memoir of a girl in uniform reveals the first-hand experience of the social attitudes towards women in post-war Britain.

A compelling memoir of post-war Britain. Jackie Skingley grew up with limited career choices but joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps offered her a different life, living and working in a...

The Caribbean Irish explores the little known fact that the Irish were amongst the earliest settlers in the Caribbean. They became colonisers, planters and merchants living in the British West Indies between 1620 and 1800 but the majority of them arrived as indentured servants. This book explores their lives and poses the question, were they really slaves?...

The definitive history of the dynasty that dominated Europe for centuries

In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world they built -- and then lost -- over nearly a millennium. From modest origins, the Habsburgs gained control of the Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. Then, in just a few decades, their possessions...

The incredible true story of America's original—and forgotten—capital of vice

Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor...

An enchanting tale of the exhilarating search for forgotten treasures at one of the greatest flea markets on earth.

For decades, the Chelsea Flea Market on the west side of Manhattan drew shoppers seeking treasures in booths crammed with vintage dresses, ancient swords, glass eyeballs, Afghan rugs, West African fetish dolls, Old Master paintings, and more...

The eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s monumental series on the primal forces of civilization

The eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s singular work in progress that began in 1983 with The Ruin of Kasch, The Celestial Hunter is an inspired and provocative exploration of mankind’s relationship with myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation.

There was a time...