Historical Memoirs

A biography of William T. Sherman by the military theorist and author of Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon.

The most remarkable double agent of World War II, Eddie Chapman was witty, handsome, and charming. Too bad he was also a con man, womanizer, and safe-cracker. To the British, though, he was known as ZigZag, one of MI5's most valuable agents. To the Abwehr - German military intelligence - he was known as Fritzchen (Little Fritz), and was believed to be one of their most valued and trusted spies.

With this revelatory and painstakingly researched book, Martha Washington, the invisible woman of American history, at last gets the biography she deserves. In place of the domestic frump of popular imagination, Patricia Brady resurrects the wealthy, attractive, and vivacious young widow who captivated the youthful George Washington. And even as it brings Martha Washington into sharper and more accurate focus, this sterling life sheds light on her marriage, her society, and the precedents she established for future First Ladies.

The gruesome true story of a small town murder in 1988.

In Churchill, Johnson applies a wide lens and an unconventional approach to illuminate the various phases of Churchill's career. From his adventures as a young cavalry officer in the service of the Empire to his role as an elder statesman prophesying the advent of the Cold War, Johnson shows how Churchill's immense adaptability combined with his natural pugnacity to make him a formidable leader for the better part of a century.

Before the Brontë sisters picked up their pens, or Jane Austen’s heroines Elizabeth and Jane Bennet became household names, the literary world was celebrating a different pair of sisters: Jane and Anna Maria Porter. The Porters were brilliant, attractive, self-made single women of polite reputation who between them published 26 books and achieved global fame. But history hasn’t been kind to the Porters. Credit for their literary invention was given to their childhood friend, Sir Walter Scott, who never publicly acknowledged the sisters’ works as his inspiration.

It is the spring of 1945, and in a dusty, remote community, the world’s most brilliant minds have come together in secret. Their mission: to split an atom and end a war. But among those who have come to Robert Oppenheimer’s "enchanted campus" of foreign-born scientists, baffled guards, and restless wives is a simple man in search of a killer. Michael Connolly has been sent to the middle of nowhere to investigate the murder of a security officer on the Manhattan Project.

"JE NE VIS PLUS. J'AI PERDU PLUS QUE LA VIE, PLUS QUE LE BONHEUR, PLUS QUE LE REPOS." (lettre de Napoléon à Joséphine) Napoléon et Joséphine ont formé un couple mythique, qui suscite encore la curiosité aujourd'hui, tant leurs caractères semblent opposés en tous points. Octave Aubry relate, entre roman et histoire, cette flamboyante idylle, qui, malgré ses aléas, ne s'éteignit jamais tout à fait. Celle qui se fera appeler Joséphine est née Marie-Joseph-Rose de Tascher en 1763 sur l'île de la Martinique. Lorsqu'elle rencontre Napoléon, il n'est encore que général, et de 6 ans son cadet.

Publicada en 1929, "Fouché, el genio tenebroso", es una de las mayores obras maestras de Stefan Zweig. Una obra apasionante e hipnótica, que no deja indiferente a nadie. Joseph Fouché (1759 - 1820) fue uno de los personajes más controvertidos de la Revolución Francesa. Hipócrita, tenebroso y maquiavélico, votó a favor de la muerte de Luis XVI y María Antonieta y fue responsable de sangrientas represalias. Luego, sintiéndose amenazado por Robespierre, participó activamente en la conspiración termidoriana.

Quickly becoming a cornerstone of Holocaust historiography, this is a devastatingly stark memoir from one of the lone survivors of Treblinka. Why do some live while so many others perish? Tiny children, old men, beautiful girls - in the gas chambers of Treblinka, all are equal. The Nazis kept the fires of Treblinka burning night and day, a central cog in the wheel of the Final Solution.

John Milton Cooper, Jr., is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s preeminent Woodrow Wilson biographers. This thoroughly researched profile of America’s 28th president is universally hailed for its scholarship and insight into the life and career ofone of the nation’s most polarizing leaders.

To their coworkers, neighbors, and others who knew them, they led unremarkable lives. They had careers as military pilots, police officers, landscapers, small business owners, farmers, realtors, reporters, authors, veterinary technicians, nurses, doctors, handymen, painters, and chefs, while they simultaneously stalked city suburbs, college campuses, trailer parks, and red-light districts. This chilling book looks at the horrifying stories of nearly thirty malevolent killers who were mistakenly trusted.

Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24-25, 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in Eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire - but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo.

This is a major political biography of a great American president - who won a war, transformed the government, and doubled the size of the United States...in four years. When Polk was sworn in as the 11th president, what followed was one of the most consequential presidencies in history.

Around the turn of the nineteenth century, a steady stream of young German poets and thinkers coursed to the town of Jena to make history. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had dealt a one-two punch to the dynastic system. Confidence in traditional social, political, and religious norms had been replaced by a profound uncertainty that was as terrifying for some as it was exhilarating for others. Nowhere was the excitement more palpable than among the extraordinary group of poets, philosophers, translators, and socialites who gathered in this Thuringian village.

A leading industrialist of the 19th and 20th centuries, Andrew Carnegie was one of America's most successful and generous businessmen. The autobiography tells of his rise to power, from humble beginnings in Scotland to controlling the biggest steel empire in the history of the United States. Carnegie lays down the blueprint for success, with an abundance of inspiring life lessons, while also giving unique first-hand impressions of burgeoning 19th century America and some of the most prominent people of the age, including Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

From the palaces of the Habsburg Empire to the torture chambers of Stalin's Soviet Union, the extraordinary story of a life suspended between the collapse of the imperial order and the violent emergence of modern Europe. Wilhelm Von Habsburg wore the uniform of the Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, every so often, a dress.

Great Contemporaries profiles towering figures ranging from Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling and George Bernard Shaw. Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, the essays in Great Contemporaries focus on the challenges of statecraft at a time when the democratic revolution was toppling older regimes based on tradition and aristocratic privilege.

As the Roaring Twenties wind down, Jean-Paul Sartre waits in a Paris café for a first date with Simone de Beauvoir, who never shows. Marlene Dietrich slips away from a loveless marriage to cruise the dive bars of Berlin. The fledgling writer Vladimir Nabokov places a freshly netted butterfly at the end of his wife’s bed. Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Zelda and Scott, Dalí and Gala, Picasso and his many muses, Henry and June and Anaïs Nin, the entire extended family of Thomas Mann, and a host of other fascinating and famous figures make art and love, write and row, bed and wed and betray.

The Killer Book of Serial Killers is the complete resource for any true crime fan or student of the lurid, fascinating world of serial killers. Inside you'll find a concise compilation of the world's thirty-five most notorious murderers, including an in-depth look at their crimes and the lives that turned them into monsters. This is the perfect gift for any true crime buff or psychology enthusiast. Sprinkled throughout the book are Q&A's, quizzes, quotes, and odd facts about serial killers and their true stories to test your knowledge and make you shudder in horrified delight.