President Memoirs

In the summer of 2000, the most decorated soldier in Israel's history - Ehud Barak - set himself a challenge as daunting as any he had faced on the battlefield: to secure a final peace with the Palestinians. He would propose two states for two peoples, with a shared capital in Jerusalem. He knew the risks of failure. But he also knew the risks of not trying: letting slip perhaps the last chance for a generation to secure genuine peace. It was a moment of truth.

In The King and the Cowboy, renowned historian David Fromkin reveals how two unlikely world leaders - Edward the Seventh of England and Theodore Roosevelt - recast themselves as respected political players and established a friendship that would shape the course of the 20th century in ways never anticipated.

Told from multiple points of view - including those of James and Dolley Madison and a British admiral - this is the true story of the burning of the White House in 1814. It's unimaginable today, even for a generation that saw the Twin Towers fall and the Pentagon attacked. It's unimaginable because in 1814, enemies didn't fly overhead; they marched through the streets, and for 26 hours in August, the British enemy marched through Washington, DC, and set fire to government buildings, including the US Capitol and the White House.

Distinguished historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough tells one of the greatest American stories in this stirring audio adaptation of Truman - a compelling, classic portrait of a life that shaped history.

From a renowned biographer comes the greatest untold story of the Civil War: how two American presidents faced off as the fate of the nation hung in the balance—and how Abraham Lincoln came to embrace emancipation as the last, best chance to save the Union. With a cast of unforgettable characters, from first ladies to fugitive coachmen to treasonous cabinet officials, Lincoln vs. Davis is a spellbinding dual biography from renowned presidential chronicler Nigel Hamilton: a saga that will surprise, touch, and enthrall.

In tracing the life of Golda Meir, acclaimed author Deborah E. Lipstadt explores the history of the Yishuv and Jewish state from the 1920s through the 1973 Yom Kippur War, all while highlighting the contradictions and complexities of a person who was only the third woman to serve as a head of state in the 20th century.

As the tide of the Civil War turned in the spring of 1865, Abraham Lincoln took a dangerous two-week trip to visit the troops on the front lines accompanied by his young son, seeing combat up close, meeting liberated slaves in the ruins of Richmond, and comforting wounded Union and Confederate soldiers.

On November 3, Americans did not just elect Joe Biden: They got a package deal. The tight-knit Biden family - siblings, children, in-laws, and beyond - is coming right along with him. They are sure to play a defining role in his presidency, just as they have in every other one of his endeavors.

In the tradition of Neil Postman's masterpiece Amusing Ourselves to Death, Audience of One shows how American media have shaped American society and politics, by interweaving two crucial stories. The first story follows the evolution of television from the three-network era of the 20th century, which joined millions of Americans in a shared monoculture, into today's zillion-channel, internet-atomized universe, which sliced and diced them into fractious, alienated subcultures. The second story is a cultural critique of Donald Trump.

In Becoming Hitler, award-winning historian Thomas Weber examines Adolf Hitler's time in Munich between 1918 and 1926, the years when Hitler shed his awkward, feckless persona and transformed himself into a savvy opportunistic political operator who saw himself as Germany's messiah. The story of Hitler's transformation is one of a fateful match between man and city. After opportunistically fluctuating between the ideas of the left and the right, Hitler emerged as an astonishingly flexible leader of Munich's right-wing movement.

He was the unlikeliest of presidential candidates - dismissed by opponents as a movie actor, a right-winger trying to undo the work of liberals stretching back to Franklin Roosevelt. Yet Ronald Reagan made it to the White House, taking office in a time of economic turmoil, waning prestige abroad, and a general dampening of the American spirit. Reagan's patriotism, wit, and optimism lifted the nation and brought it through several crises.

The wry, honest and often hilarious chronicles of a very brave and clever TV presenter, Arctic Explorer and general drawer of the Short Straw. Moving quickly on from the devastating crash that nearly killed him he ranges widely over his life and times: a visit to Glastonbury with James May reminds of him of his early years of playing in a band and how and why he never quite made it as a rock star.

This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.

As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for 12 of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe.

Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability.

प्रधानमंत्रियों की सफलताओं और विफलताओं की रौशनी में यह किताब भारतीय लोकतंत्र की विकास-यात्रा को रेखांकित करती है जिसमें उसकी उपलब्धियाँ और चुनौतियाँ, दोनों दर्ज हैं। देश जब स्वतंत्रता का अमृत महोत्सव मना रहा है, तब 'भारत के प्रधानमंत्री' किताब एक जरूरी उपहार की तरह है। इसे हर भारतीय नागरिक को पढ़ना चाहिए। सोशल मीडिया के दौर में भ्रामक सूचनाओं का प्रसार चरम पर है। ऐसे में यह किताब स्वतंत्र भारत के क्रमिक नेतृत्व और विकास का वास्तविक लेखाजोखा पेश करती है। तकनीक और संचार के अभूतपूर्व विस्तार तथा राजनीति में लोगों की बेहिसाब दिलचस्पी के मेल से हैरतअंगेज नतीजे सामने आए हैं।

From the number one New York Times best-selling author of The Residence and First Women - also a New York Times best seller - comes a poignant, news-making look at the lives of the five former presidents in the wake of their White House years, including the surprising friendships they have formed through shared perspective and empathy.

Having once said “a military life had no charms to me,” U.S. Grant entered West Point to get through the course, secure a detail for a few years as assistant professor of mathematics at the Academy, and afterwards obtain a permanent position as professor at some respectable college. But the course his life took was quite different. Little did he ever dream that he would serve with distinction in the Mexican War, lead the Union to victory in the Civil War, and struggle through eight years as President of the United States.

Calvin Coolidge, president from 1923 to 1929, never rated highly in polls, and history has remembered the decade in which he served as an extravagant period predating the Great Depression. Now Amity Shlaes provides a fresh look at the 1920s and its elusive president, showing that the mid-1920s was in fact a triumphant period that established our modern way of life: The nation electrified, Americans drove their first cars, and the federal deficit was replaced with a surplus.

Within a month of becoming president, the issue of Communist Cuba became central to John F. Kennedy. On February 3, 1961, President Kennedy called for a plan to support Cuban refugees. A month later, he created the Peace Corps, a program that trained young American volunteers to help with economic and community development in poor countries. Both programs were attempts to align disadvantaged groups against the Soviet Union and its communist satellites. Meanwhile, covert operations were laying the groundwork for overthrowing Fidel Castro.