History Ages

In contrast to their Danish and Norwegian cousins, Swedish Vikings traveled east rather than west in search of riches, land, and power. The extensive river systems of Russia provided economic and military “superhighways” to the adventurers from the north who journeyed down them all the way to the Black Sea and Constantinople in search of fame and riches. In Captivating History’s History of Sweden, you will learn more about these Swedish adventurers along with other parts of Sweden’s fascinating history.

From the late eighth century to somewhere around the middle of the 11th century, the history of Europe was dominated by the people who have become known as the Vikings. The Vikings were among the first global explorers who established territory that stretched from North America in the west to Constantinople in the east, and from the frigid wastes of the Arctic in the north to the warm shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the south.

In the time period between the fall of Rome and the spread of the Renaissance across the European continent, many of today’s European nations were formed. The Catholic Church rose to great prominence. Some of history’s most famous wars occurred. And a social class system was instituted that lasted over 1,000 years.

In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul "Big Alex" McKenzie defied even the era's standard for avarice. Charismatic and shameless, he arrived in the new Alaskan territory intent on controlling gold mines and draining them of their ore. Miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appalled at his unabashed deviousness. A Most Wicked Conspiracy recounts McKenzie's plot to rob the gold fields.

Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.

Many tales from the Jazz Age reek of crime and corruption. But perhaps the era’s greatest political fiasco—one that resulted in a nationwide scandal, a public reckoning at the Department of Justice, the rise of J. Edgar Hoover, and an Oscar-winning film—has long been lost to the annals of history. In Crooked, Nathan Masters restores this story of murderers, con artists, secret lovers, spies, bootleggers, and corrupt politicians to its full, page-turning glory.

What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less.

This book begins with King Solomon's reign and ends just before Jesus' birth, but don't expect to hear an historical record as in a textbook. This is history read as God's master plan, and He knows exactly what He's doing.

Prophets and Kings is volume two of a five-volume set that covers human history from the beginning of our time and on into the future.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize - winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state - and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.

Now published in five languages, Strange Medicine casts a gimlet eye on the practice of medicine through the ages that highlights the most dubious ideas, bizarre treatments, and biggest blunders. From bad science and oafish behavior to stomach-turning procedures that hurt more than helped, Strange Medicine presents strange but true facts and an honor roll of doctors, scientists, and dreamers who inadvertently turned the clock of medicine backward.

For centuries, raw and primal urges and principles had taken hold of conquerors, officials, and governments. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Humanity just needed to acknowledge knowledge. It needed to value the art of studying phenomena and learning, not just spiritual notions and religion. Welcome to the book about how this happened. Welcome to a glimmer of hope in humanity’s realization of what this world is and what lies in the elements yet to be discovered. Get ready for some enlightenment in your own life as you learn about the Age of Enlightenment.

It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal’s monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific - and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martín, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet.

The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission, told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. The Voyager spacecraft are our farthest-flung emissaries--11.3 billion miles away from the crew who built and still operate them decades after their launch.

In the summer of 1936, James Agee and Walker Evans set out on assignment for Fortune magazine to explore the daily lives of sharecroppers in the South. Their journey would prove an extraordinary collaboration and a watershed literary event when Let Us Now Praise Famous Men was first published in 1941 to enormous critical acclaim. This unsparing record of place, the people who shaped the land, and the rhythm of their lives is intensely moving and unrelentingly honest, and today, it stands as a poetic tract of its time.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Rocket Men and the award-winning biographer of Thomas Paine comes the first complete history of the Atomic Age, a brilliant, magisterial account of the men and women who uncovered the secrets of the nucleus, brought its power to America, and ignited the 20th century.

The dramatic story of the explosive 1894 clash of industry, labor, and government that shook the nation and marked a turning point for America. The Edge of Anarchy offers a vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history. At the pinnacle of the Gilded Age, a boycott of Pullman sleeping cars by hundreds of thousands of railroad employees brought commerce to a standstill across much of the country. Famine threatened, riots broke out along the rail lines. Soon the US Army was on the march and gunfire rang from the streets of major cities.

When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation”, its “sole superpower”, the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.

Ancient myths speak eloquently of the affairs of immortal gods and shining heroes, while linking us to our cultural history. Bulfinch captures these fables in one graceful, lyrical collection which has been an enduring success for over 140 years. Now, through George Guidall’s lucid two-part narration, The Age of Fable takes on new life and power. Part One includes the fascinating tales of Prometheus, Hercules, and Ulysses.

Greek arts, philosophy, science, and political discourse were a true gift to the world. In this audiobook, you will explore the ancient Greeks, the Byzantine Empire, the Greek War of Independence, the Megali Idea, the military junta, and modern-day governance - this audiobook covers Greek history from start to finish.

The battle of Crécy in 1346 is one of the most famous and widely studied military engagements in history. The repercussions of this battle were felt for hundreds of years, and the exploits of those fighting reached the status of legend. Yet cutting-edge research has shown that nearly everything that has been written about this dramatic event may be wrong. In this new study, Michael Livingston reveals how modern scholars have used archived manuscripts, satellite technologies and traditional fieldwork to help unlock what was arguably the battle’s greatest secret.