War Years

In early 1860, pundits across America confidently predicted the election of Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas in the coming presidential race. Douglas, after all, led the only party that bridged North and South. But the Democrats would split over the issue of slavery, leading Southerners in the party to run their own presidential slate. This opened the door for the upstart Republicans, exclusively Northern, to steal the Oval Office. Dark horse Abraham Lincoln, not the first choice even of his own party, won the presidency with a record-low 39.8 percent of the popular vote.

Summer, 1851. Racial tensions in America were higher than ever. The year before, President Millard Fillmore had passed the Fugitive Slave Act to return runaway slaves to the South. In February, Congress had established the reservation system, forcing Native Americans to leave their homelands. White Americans were strengthening dominance over people of color across the continent. In Oregon City, one biracial man named Jacob Vanderpool found himself in the crosshairs of this racist discrimination.

In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope.

Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House is the life story of Elizabeth Keckley, a shrewd entrepreneur who, while enslaved, raised enough money to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Working as a seamstress and dressmaker for the wives of influential politicians, Keckley helped organize an auction of dresses that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln, the former first lady. The auction elicited strong criticism from the Washington elite.

In late August 2011, Shahbaz Taseer was driving to his office in Lahore when he was dragged from his car at gunpoint and kidnapped by members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Taliban-affiliated Uzbek terrorist group. Shahbaz’s father, the late Pakistani governor, had recently been assassinated. His crime: speaking in support of a Christian woman who had been accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death.

New York Times best-selling author Jay Winik brings to life in gripping detail the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.

World War II is raging in Europe, and Tomie finds that life has changed in many ways. Now he has to wear an extra sweater to school because they're trying to conserve coal. Then tragedy brings the war home to the dePaola family, and all Tomie can do is ask "Why?"

Eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Imperial Army launched an invasion plan for Southeast Asia, including Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong was a British Colony at the time, soldiers from British colonies including India and Canada fought alongside Chinese guerrilla fighters. However, soldiers defending the city at the time were largely unprepared and Japan claimed its victory within 18 days.

Before Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, there was 1924. This was the year of Hitler's final transformation into the self-proclaimed savior and infallible leader who would interpret and distort Germany's historical traditions to support his vision for the Third Reich. Everything that would come - the rallies and riots, the single-minded deployment of a catastrophically evil idea - all of it crystallized in one defining year.

In hindsight, we can say no one man or event served as a catalyst for the Civil War. It was not the John Brown Raid, no matter how many historians say it was the pivotal event. It was not the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the war was not about slavery - not in the beginning anyway. The Civil War got its start 73 years earlier when the Founding Fathers set aside the hot potato that was slavery - so they could ratify the Constitution. The signers knew they were passing the issue on to a future generation. Their hope was their progeny could answer the questions they could not.

Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing on authoritative materials not previously available, including thousands of hours of tape-recorded allied councils of war, award-winning military historian Lewis Sorley has given us what has long been needed - an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these important years.

In the first of the three volumes of his projected comprehensive narrative history of the role of law in America from the colonial years through the twentieth century, G. Edward White takes up the central themes of American legal history from the earliest European settlements through the Civil War.

Born in Virginia in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley grew up enslaved until she was able to purchase her and her son's freedom with money made from working as a seamstress. As she continued to perfect her craft, her styles caught the attention of the elite in Washington, DC. It wasn't until the day of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration that she crossed paths with Mary Todd Lincoln, who took Elizabeth on as her personal confidante and seamstress. Behind the Scenes offers an intimate look into the enslaved and free life of Elizabeth Keckley and the lives of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.

Told with a thrilling pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years. Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North.

Twelve Years a Slave is the 1853 narrative of former slave Solomon Northup. He was born free in New York and kidnapped and sold into slavery. It was famously adapted for film in 2013.

Even as scores of Americans rally to the Ukrainian cause and adopt Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero, the lives of Ukrainians remain opaque and mostly anonymous. In By the Second Spring, the historian Danielle Leavitt goes beyond familiar portraits of wartime heroism and victimhood to reveal the human experience of the conflict. An American who grew up in Ukraine, Leavitt draws on her deep familiarity with the country and a unique trove of online diaries to track a diverse group of Ukrainians through the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Although it ended over 550 years ago, the Hundred Years’ War still looms large in the historical consciousness of England and France, even if the name of the famous war is a misnomer. The war was transformative in many respects, and the impact it had on the geopolitical situation of Europe cannot be overstated. While some might think of the war as being a continuation of the feudal tradition of knights and peasants, the Hundred Years’ War revolutionized Western European warfare, and it truly helped to usher in the concept of nationalism on the continent.

In early 2022, veteran journalist Andrew North was kidnapped by the Taliban. By the time he found himself imprisoned in a jail cell, he had been reporting from Afghanistan for two decades, coming to know hundreds of Afghans along the way. This book brings together both his and their stories.

The phony war is over and Hitler is beginning his rampage through Europe. But back home Barbara Sinclair has troubles of her own. With her wedding to Spitfire Pilot Alex Everton imminent, Barbara is worried about a secret she is keeping from her new husband – one that could ruin everything. Determined to try and maintain some normality in her life, the wedding goes ahead, but Alex leaves almost immediately to continue fighting the Germans. Barbara fears for his safety and for the moment, her secret must wait. But when bombs fall on Barbara’s new home, the war feels closer than ever.