Adult

For 40 years, Bob Brier, one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, has been amassing one of the largest collections of Egyptian memorabilia and seeking to understand the pull of Ancient Egypt on our world today. Drawing on his personal collection --- from Napoleon's 20-volume Egypt encyclopedia to Howard Carter's letters written from the Valley of the Kings as he was excavating --- this is an inventive and mesmerizing tour of how an ancient civilization endures in ours.

Drawing on a dazzling array of sources from hitherto unseen archives and rare collections, renowned historian Catherine Merridale traces the full history of the Kremlin. This enigmatic fortress has inspired innumerable myths, but no invented tales could be more dramatic than the operatic successions and savage betrayals that took place within its vast compound of palaces and cathedrals.

As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent 20 years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China’s totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest.

The Russian Empire once extended deep into America: in 1818, Russia’s furthest outposts were in California and Hawaii. The dreamer behind this great Imperial vision was Nikolai Rezanov, whose quest to plant Russian colonies from Siberia to California led him to San Francisco, where he was captivated by Conchita, the 15-year-old daughter of the Spanish Governor. Owen Matthews conjures a brilliantly original portrait of one of Russia’s most eccentric Empire-builders.

The history and evolution of landownership is a fascinating chronicle in the history of civilization, offering unexpected insights about how various forms of democracy and capitalism developed, as well as a revealing analysis of a future where the Earth must sustain nine billion lives. Seen through the eyes of remarkable individuals, OWNING THE EARTH presents a radically new view of mankind’s place on the planet.

On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende of Chile was deposed in a violent coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. The coup had been in the works for months, even years. Shortly after giving a farewell speech to his people, Allende died of gunshot wounds --- whether inflicted by his own hand or an assassin’s remains uncertain. Pinochet ruled Chile for a quarter century, but the short rise and bloody fall of Allende is still the subject of fierce historical debate.

While the Cold War began to thaw, the race into space heated up, feminism and civil rights percolated in politics, JFK’s assassination shocked the world, and the Beatles and Bob Dylan would emerge as poster boys and prophets of a revolution that changed the world. 1963: THE YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION records, documentary-style, the incredible roller-coaster ride of those 12 months, told through the recollections of some of the period’s most influential figures.

Focusing for the first time on why attorney general Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 instead of on why President John F. Kennedy was, Mark Shaw offers a stunning and provocative assassination theory that leads directly to the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy.

In CIA ROGUES AND THE KILLING OF THE KENNEDYS, Patrick Nolan fearlessly investigates the CIA’s involvement in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy --- why the brothers needed to die and how rogue intelligence agents orchestrated history’s most infamous conspiracy.

Peter Janney traces some of the most important events and influences in the life of Mary Pinchot Meyer, including how she supported her secret lover, the president of the United States, as he turned away from the Cold War toward the pursuit of world peace. As we approach the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination --- and Mary Meyer’s --- MARY'S MOSAIC adds to our understanding of why both took place.