AMERICAN SPRING follows a fledgling nation from Paul Revere's little-known ride of December 1774 and the first shots fired on Lexington Green through the catastrophic Battle of Bunker Hill, culminating with George Washington taking command of colonial forces on July 3, 1775. Focusing on well-known heroes and the ordinary Americans caught up in the revolution, Walter Borneman tells the story of how a decade of discontent erupted into an armed rebellion that forged our nation.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the single most important piece of legislation passed by Congress in American history. The bill's passage often has been credited to the political leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, or the moral force of Martin Luther King. Yet, as Clay Risen shows, the battle for the Civil Rights Act was a story much bigger than those two men. It was a broad, epic struggle, a sweeping tale of unceasing grassroots activism, ringing speeches, backroom deal-making and hand-to-hand legislative combat.

Wilbur and Orville Wright are two of the greatest innovators in history, and together they solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. Glenn Hammond Curtiss was the most talented machinist of his day --- tackling first the motorcycle and later turning his eyes toward the skies to become the fastest man aloft. But between the Wrights and Curtiss bloomed a poisonous rivalry and patent war so powerful that it shaped aviation in its early years and drove one of the three men to his grave.

Few commodities figure as prominently or as intimately in the story of the nation as bourbon whiskey. First brewed by pioneers in the backwoods of Appalachia, bourbon whiskey has become a modern multi-billion-dollar international industry today. As Dane Huckelbridge reveals, the Kentucky spirit --- the only liquor produced from corn --- is the American experience, distilled, aged and sealed in a bottle. In telling the story of bourbon, Huckelbridge takes us on a lively tour across 300 years.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Washington, D.C. found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle that would determine the future of the United States. With their husbands, brothers and fathers marching off to war, the women of Washington, D.C. joined the cause as well. Cokie Roberts chronicles their increasing independence, their political empowerment, their indispensable role in keeping the Union unified through the war, and in helping heal it once the fighting was done.

James Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans who, in the 1800s, made their fortunes in the China opium trade. Meanwhile, American missionaries sought a myth: noble Chinese peasants eager to Westernize. The media propagated this mirage, and FDR believed that supporting Chiang Kai-shek would make China America's best friend in Asia. But Chiang was on his way out, and when Mao Zedong instead came to power, Americans were shocked, wondering how we had "lost China." From the 1850s to the origins of the Vietnam War, Bradley reveals how American misconceptions about China have distorted our policies and led to the avoidable deaths of millions.

Edmund Burke is both the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the past 300 years. A brilliant 18th-century Irish philosopher and statesman, Burke was a fierce champion of human rights and the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, and a lifelong campaigner against arbitrary power. Revered by great Americans, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Burke has been almost forgotten in recent years. But as politician and political philosopher Jesse Norman argues in this penetrating biography, we cannot understand modern politics without him.

Billy Williams came to colonial Burma in 1920, fresh from service in World War I, to a job as a “forest man” for a British teak company. Mesmerized by the intelligence, character and even humor of the great animals who hauled logs through the remote jungles, he became increasingly skilled at treating their illnesses and injuries, and championed more humane treatment for them. In ELEPHANT COMPANY, Vicki Constantine Croke chronicles Williams’s growing love for elephants as the animals provide him lessons in courage, trust and gratitude.

For decades, conservative and corporate interests have worked to obscure the greatest achievement of the Greatest Generation: securing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms for all Americans. These were the democratic aims that helped beat the Great Depression, defeat the Axis Powers in World War II, and turn the United States into the strongest and richest nation in history. In this eye-opening account, Harvey Kaye recalls the full story of this generation’s extraordinary struggles and accomplishments.

C-SPAN’s yearlong history series, "First Ladies: Influence and Image," featured interviews with more than 50 preeminent historians and biographers. In this informative book, these experts paint intimate portraits of all 45 first ladies --- their lives, ambitions, and unique partnerships with their presidential spouses. It provides an up-close historical look at these fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the White House, sometimes at great personal cost, while supporting their families and famous husbands --- and sometimes changing history.

On April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey were battle hardened and prepared. But nothing could have prepared the crew for this moment --- an 80-minute ordeal in which the single small ship was targeted by no fewer than 22 Japanese suicide aircraft. Using scores of personal interviews with survivors, the memoirs of crew members, and the sailors' wartime correspondence, historian and author John Wukovits breathes life into the story of this nearly forgotten historic event.

In a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, 70 years ago, in the spring of 1945. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system.

Amid the deprivation and despair of the Great Depression, Shirley Temple radiated optimism and plucky good cheer that lifted the spirits of millions and shaped their collective character for generations to come. Cultural historian John F. Kasson shows how the most famous, adored, imitated and commodified child in the world astonished movie goers, created a new international culture of celebrity, and revolutionized the role of children as consumers.

In her riveting account of this enormous and controversial tragedy, Diana Preston recalls both a pivotal moment in history and a remarkable human drama. The story of the Lusitania is a window on the maritime world of the early 20th century: the heyday of the luxury liner, the first days of the modern submarine, and the climax of the decades-long German-British rivalry for supremacy of the Atlantic. Above all, it is the story of the passengers and crew on that fateful voyage --- a story of terror and cowardice, of self-sacrifice and heroism, of death and miraculous survival.

As prize-winning historian Jonathan Schneer reveals in MINISTERS AT WAR, Winston Churchill depended on a team of powerful ministers to manage the war effort as he rallied a beleaguered nation. Selecting men from across the political spectrum --- from fellow Conservative Anthony Eden to leader of the opposing socialist Labor Party Clement Attlee --- Churchill assembled a War Cabinet that balanced competing interests and bolstered support for his national coalition government. The group possessed a potent blend of talent, ambition and egotism.

General Douglas MacArthur matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet, despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific secured America’s triumph in World War II and changed the course of history. In THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour.

While Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first hundred days may be the most celebrated period of his presidency, the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor proved the most critical. Beginning as early as 1939 when Germany first attacked Poland, Roosevelt skillfully navigated a host of challenges to prepare the country for its inevitable confrontation with the Axis. In NO END SAVE VICTORY, esteemed historian David Kaiser draws on extensive archival research to reveal the careful preparations that enabled the United States to win World War II.

America’s First Families are unknowable in many ways. No one has insight into their true character like the people who serve their meals and make their beds every day. Full of stories and details by turns dramatic, humorous and heartwarming, THE RESIDENCE reveals daily life in the White House as it is really lived through the voices of the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers and others who tend to the needs of the President and First Family.

For a couple of decades before World War II, a group of immigrant painters and sculptors, including Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine and Jules Pascin, dominated the new art scene of Montparnasse in Paris. Modigliani and Chagall eventually attained enormous worldwide popularity, but in those earlier days, most School of Paris painters looked on Soutine as their most talented contemporary. In constant fear of the French police and the German Gestapo, plagued by poor health and bouts of depression, Soutine was the epitome of the tortured artist.

The turning point of World War II came at Stalingrad. Hitler’s soldiers stormed the city in September 1942 in a bid to complete the conquest of Europe. Yet Stalingrad never fell. After months of bitter fighting, 100,000 surviving Germans surrendered to Soviet troops. During the battle and shortly after its conclusion, scores of Red Army commanders and soldiers, party officials and workers spoke with a team of historians who visited from Moscow to record their conversations. The tapestry of their voices provides groundbreaking insights into the thoughts and feelings of Soviet citizens during wartime.

Lawrence Wright takes us through each of the 13 days of the Camp David conference, illuminating the issues that have made the problems of the region so intractable, as well as exploring the scriptural narratives that continue to frame the conflict. In addition to his in-depth accounts of the lives of the three leaders, Wright draws vivid portraits of other fiery personalities who were present at Camp David as they work furiously behind the scenes.
 

Midnight, Sunday, June 18, 1815. Britain holds its breath. Since Napoleon’s escape from Elba in February, Europe has been jolted from 11 months of peace back into the frenzied panic of a war it believed had ended. The nation is awash in reports and rumors. The Battle of Waterloo is close at hand. WENT THE DAY WELL? is an astonishing hour-by-hour chronicle that starts the day before the battle that reset the course of world history and continues to its aftermath.