Historical Memoirs

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad.

Luther Standing Bear was seemingly everywhere in the course of his extraordinary life. He met Chief Crazy Horse on the eve of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was enrolled in the first class at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School, witnessed the Ghost Dance movement, toured the US and Europe with showman Buffalo Bill, and devoted his later years to Indian rights. His firsthand accounts of those experiences—and his reflections on Sioux culture, customs, and traditions—combine to make this narrative a landmark of Native American literature.

The never-before-seen correspondence of John le Carré, one of the most important novelists of our generation, are collected in this beautiful volume. During his lifetime, le Carré wrote numerous letters to writers, spies, politicians, artists, actors, and public figures. This collection is a treasure trove, revealing the late author's humor, generosity, and wit—a side of him many listeners have not previously seen.

In March 2000, a suitcase arrived at a children's Holocaust education center in Tokyo, Japan. On the outside, in white paint, were these words: Hana Brady, May 16, 1931, and Waisenkind - the German word for orphan. Children who saw the suitcase on display were full of questions. Who was Hana Brady? What happened to her? They wanted Fumiko Ishioka, the center's curator, to find the answers.

Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in America - more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin and his men set out to "penetrate the icy fastness of the north, and to circumnavigate America." And then they disappeared. The truth about what happened to Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition was shrouded in mystery for more than a century. Then, in 1984, Owen Beattie and his team exhumed two crew members from a burial site in the North for forensic evidence, to shocking results. But the most startling discovery didn't come until 2014, when a team commissioned by the Canadian government uncovered one of the lost ships: Erebus.

J. Edgar Hoover was the face of the FBI. But the federal agents in the field, relentlessly chasing the most notorious gangsters of the 1930s with their own lives on the line, truly transformed the Bureau. In 1932, the FBI lacked jurisdiction over murder cases, bank robberies, and kidnappings. Relegated to the sidelines, agents spent their days at their desks. But all of that changed during the War on Crime. Hunting down infamous public enemies in tense, frequently blood-soaked shootouts, the Bureau was thrust onto the front pages for the first time.

Gifted storyteller Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump, has written the fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined aviation during the great age of flight: Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle. These cleverly interwoven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including daring military raids and survival at sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, The Greatest Generation, and Flyboys.

Caesar Augustus has been called history's greatest emperor. It was said he found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. With a senator for a father and Julius Caesar for a great-uncle, he ascended the ranks of Roman society with breathtaking speed. His courage in battle is still questioned yet his political savvy was second to none. He had a lifelong rival in Mark Antony and a 51-year companion in his wife, Livia. And his influence extended perhaps further than that of any ruler who has ever lived.

Perhaps one of the best known of the English monarchs, Queen Victoria forever shaped a chapter of English history, bequeathing her name to the Victorian age. In Queen Victoria, Lucy Worsley introduces this iconic woman in a new light. Going beyond an exploration of the queen merely as a monarch, Worsley considers Victoria as a woman leading a truly extraordinary life in a unique time period.

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the 20th century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo, ruthless overlord of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia, and leading planner of the "Final Solution," Heydrich played a central role in Hitler's Germany.

For more than two years, Miep Gies and her husband helped hide the Franks from the Nazis. Like thousands of unsung heroes of the Holocaust, they risked their lives each day to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims. From her own remarkable childhood as a World War I refugee to the moment she places a small, red-orange, checkered diary -- Anne's legacy -- in Otto Frank's hands, Miep Gies remembers her days with simple honesty and shattering clarity.

A great warrior and skilled administrator, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, better known as Shivaji, was the founder of the great Maratha Empire and one who instilled a sense of Maratha identity in his people. At a time when the Mughal Empire was at its zenith, Shivaji was the only one who dared to challenge the might of Emperor Aurangzeb. He steadily grew his army from a humble contingent of 2,000 soldiers to a force of 100,000.

The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.

In 1519 Magellan and his fleet of five ships set sail from Seville, Spain, to discover a water route to the fabled Spice Islands in Indonesia, where the most sought-after commodities (cloves, pepper, and nutmeg) flourished. Three years later, a handful of survivors returned with an abundance of spices from their intended destination, but with just one ship carrying 18 emaciated men. During their remarkable voyage around the world the crew endured starvation, disease, mutiny, and torture. Many men died, including Magellan, who was violently killed in a fierce battle.

For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. The anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex World War II relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject—the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.

Contrairement aux histoires imaginées par Arthur Conan Doyle, les douze enquêtes racontées par David Grann sont bien réelles. Que l'auteur se penche sur l'infiltration d'un gang de détenus dans le système carcéral américain ou la traque de l'un des grands imposteurs du XXe siècle, affabulateur caméléon aux multiples identités, qu'il retrace la folle cavale d'un vieux braqueur de banque, le démantèlement d'un empire mafieux dans une cité de l'Ohio surnommé "Crimetown"....

Hawaii, 1941. War clouds with Japan are gathering and the islands of Hawaii have become battlegrounds of spies, intelligence agents, and military officials - with the island's residents caught between them. Toiling in the shadows are Douglas Wada, the only Japanese American agent in naval intelligence, and Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese spy sent to Pearl Harbor to gather information on the U.S. fleet.

Just before the small-time bootlegger Max Gerlach died, he tried to reveal his secret: he was the inspiration for the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It’s a nice story, but was he telling the truth? Veteran reporter Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon investigate this century-old literary mystery and uncover untold secrets about the Great American Novel.