Eastern World History

In 1940, the Polish Underground wanted to know what was happening inside the recently opened Auschwitz concentration camp. Polish army officer Witold Pilecki volunteered to be arrested by the Germans and report from inside the camp. His intelligence reports, smuggled out in 1941, were among the first eyewitness accounts of Auschwitz atrocities: the extermination of Soviet POWs, its function as a camp for Polish political prisoners, and the "final solution" for Jews. Pilecki received brutal treatment until he escaped in April 1943; soon after, he wrote a brief report....

Whereas for much of human history slavery was somewhat arbitrary, in its later forms, it often had a discriminatory component, typically based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. This distinction shows how the practitioners of slavery justified the practice in terms of ideology, and Slavic people were discriminated against within the Ottoman Empire. Slavs had lived in the lands of today’s Eastern European region for centuries.

In 2009, the acclaimed author of Hitler’s Furies was shown a photograph just brought to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The documentation of the Holocaust is vast, but there are virtually no images of a Jewish family at the actual moment of murder, in this case by German officials and Ukrainian collaborators.

Between 1846 and 1940, more than 50 million Europeans moved to the Americas, irrevocably changing both their new lands and the ones they left behind. Their immigration fostered an idea of the "land of the free", yet more than a third returned home again. In a groundbreaking study, Tara Zahra brilliantly explores the deeper story of this unprecedented movement of people.

Written with a thrilling narrative pull, The Butcher's Trail chronicles the pursuit and capture of the Balkan war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Borger recounts how Radovan Karadžic and Ratko Mladic - both now on trial in The Hague - were finally tracked down and describes the intrigue behind the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president who became the first head of state to stand before an international tribunal for crimes perpetrated in a time of war.

Written as part of a US Army program instigated after World War II by Colonel S. L. A. Marshall of the Army Historical Division, who was convinced that no record of the war could be complete without the input of the German commanding officers and their main staff officers, these reports offer an invaluable record of German operations for historians and general audiences.

The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, subsequent war in Eastern Ukraine, and economic sanctions imposed by the West transformed European politics. The conflict did not escalate to the levels originally feared but nor was either side able to bring it to a definitive conclusion. Ukraine suffered a loss of territory but was not forced into changing its policies away from the Westward course adopted as a result of the EuroMaidan uprising of February 2014. President Putin was left supporting a separatist enclave as Russia's economy suffered significant damage.

Believe it or not, but what happened in Old Babylonia centuries ago still holds water today. You see, significant events in history, regardless of the setting, changed the world. They created lessons and from there, new decisions came about. That’s why the identity of the world was established, and that’s how we got to live like we do today.

Country of Ash is the starkly compelling, original chronicle of a Jewish doctor who miraculously survived near-certain death, first inside the Lodz and Warsaw ghettoes, where he was forced to treat the Gestapo, then on the Aryan side of Warsaw, where he hid under numerous disguises. He clandestinely recorded the terrible events he witnessed, but his manuscript disappeared during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After the war, reunited with his wife and young daughter, he rewrote his story.

Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.

Emma Goldman was initially supportive of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution. This 1918 pamphlet was published in elucidation of the revolution and in justification of the Bolsheviks. Goldman reversed her opinion in the wake of the Kronstadt rebellion and denounced the Soviet Union for its violent repression of independent voices.

In what has become a classic of Middle Eastern literature, Raja Shehadeh, in Palestinian Walks, wrote of his treks through the hills surrounding Ramallah over a period of three decades under Israel's military occupation. In Where the Line Is Drawn, Shehadeh explores how occupation has affected him personally, chronicling the various crossings that he undertook into Israel over a period of forty years to visit friends and family, to enjoy the sea, to argue before the Israeli courts, and to negotiate failed peace agreements.

The very first democracy in the world found its origins in Ancient Greece. The most exquisite art and architecture of the world had its origins there. While education had its roots in many cultures after the Bronze Age, education found its flowering in the rise of some of greatest literature ever written. From the very small country of Greece came the development of the higher sciences. Even the most celebrated of sports events, the Olympics, started in a small city-state of Athens.

A collector of strange machines. An enthusiast of skiing and sweets. A world famous fantasy writer who kept many secrets, even from his own family. What did he do with the unsuccessful versions of his books? What did he do to anger Philip K. Dick? How did he survive three occupations of Lviv? In a word: Stanisław Lem's life was out of this world. It's a story full of unexpected twists of fate, funny anecdotes, tragic events, small secrets, and big mysteries. It's the first Polish biography of Stanisław Lem, written by another science fiction writer, Wojciech Orliński.

Alexander Domokos wrote this memoir of his years during and after the Second World War with two purposes in mind. He wanted to allow his daughter a glimpse into his past and to enlighten others about the tragedy of his homeland, Hungary.

Most violent jihadi movements in the 20th century focused on removing corrupt, repressive secular regimes throughout the Muslim world. But following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a new form of jihadism emerged - global jihad - turning to the international arena as the primary locus of ideology and action. With this book, Glenn E. Robinson develops a compelling and provocative argument about this violent political movement's evolution.

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from about the fifth century BCE. The work contains a detailed explanation and analysis of the Chinese military, from weapons and strategy to rank and discipline. It also stresses the importance of intelligence operatives and espionage to the war effort.

Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be "the other", this groundbreaking anthology contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, Iraq + 100 is also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future.

A record of life in Poland before, during and after World War II. The memoir not only conveys personal experiences, but also explores momentous happenings of the time throughout Europe.

Ruling Russia for a little over 300 years, from the 17th to the early 20th centuries, the Romanov tsars, and in rare but unforgettable cases, empresses, dominated the political landscapes of their times and forged one of the most legendary dynasties of all time.