Few people today realize that the United States’s sovereignty was not assured until 1814, when England acknowledged it with the Treaty of Ghent. In fact, earlier that same year, the prospects for America couldn’t have looked bleaker. By year's end, however, the young nation was at peace, poised for expansion to the west, never to go to war against Britain again. How did this remarkable transformation happen? Drawing from rarely used source material, Willard Sterne Randall re-creates the dramatic chain of events that prevented the nation from falling into British hands.

In 1820, a group of about 80 African Americans reversed the course of history and sailed back to Africa. They went under the banner of the American Colonization Society, a white philanthropic organization with a dual agenda: to rid America of its blacks, and to convert Africans to Christianity. The settlers staked out a beachhead; their numbers grew as more boats arrived; and after breaking free from their white overseers, they founded Liberia --- Africa’s first black republic --- in 1847. James Ciment’s ANOTHER AMERICA is the first full account of this dramatic experiment.

In the summer of 1914, three great empires dominated Europe: Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Four years later, all had vanished in the chaos of World War I. Drawing on unpublished letters and rare primary sources, Greg King and Sue Woolmans tell the true story behind the tragic romance and brutal assassination that sparked The Great War.

In September 1967, after three years of landmark civil rights laws and three months of devastating urban riots, the football season began at Louisiana’s Grambling College and Florida A&M. The teams were led by two extraordinary coaches, and they featured the best quarterbacks ever at each school. BREAKING THE LINE brings to life the historic saga of the battle for the 1967 black college championship, culminating in a riveting, excruciatingly close contest.

Following the end of World War II, more than 10,000 German civilians trapped in the Red Army’s way pack aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff. Soon after the ship leaves port, three Soviet torpedoes strike it, inflicting catastrophic damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the Baltic. Drawing on interviews with survivors, as well as the letters and diaries of those who perished, award-wining author Cathryn Prince reconstructs this forgotten moment in history.

For America, the mid-19th century was an era of vast expectation and expansion: the country dreamed big, craved new lands, developed new technologies, and after too long a delay, finally confronted its greatest moral failure: slavery. Brenda Wineapple explores these feverish, ecstatic, conflicted years when Americans began to live within new and ever-widening borders; fought a devastating war over parallel ideals of freedom and justice; and transformed their country, at tragic cost, from a confederation into one nation, indivisible.

Inside Spain as well as outside, many believe --- wrongly --- that under Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship, nothing truthful or imaginatively worthwhile could be said or written or shown. In FRANCO'S CRYPT, Jeremy Treglown argues that oversimplifications like these of a complicated, ambiguous actuality have contributed to a separate falsehood: that there was and continues to be a national pact to forget the evils for which Franco’s side (and, according to this version, his side alone) was responsible.

THE HEIR APPARENT chronicles the eventful life of Queen Victoria’s firstborn son, the quintessential black sheep of Buckingham Palace, who matured into as wise and effective a monarch as Britain has ever seen. Granted unprecedented access to the royal archives, noted scholar Jane Ridley draws on numerous primary sources to paint a vivid portrait of the man and the age to which he gave his name.

In this harrowing history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Paul Ham argues against the use of nuclear weapons, drawing on extensive research and hundreds of interviews to prove that the bombings had little impact on the eventual outcome of the Pacific War. HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI presents the grizzly unadorned truth about the bombings, blurred for so long by postwar propaganda, and transforms our understanding of one of the defining events of the 20th century.

On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever." The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship. Thus began their long march across the endless ice --- a frozen hell in the most lonesome corner of the world --- as they desperately strove for survival.

In INFIDEL KINGS AND UNHOLY WARRIORS, award-winning scholar Brian Catlos puts us on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050-1200. We experience the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it. We learn about the siege tactics, theological disputes and poetry of this enthralling time. And we see that people of different faiths coexisted far more frequently than we are commonly told.

The bestselling author of NIXONLAND has written a dazzling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s. Against a backdrop of melodramas from the Arab oil embargo to Patty Hearst to the near-bankruptcy of America’s greatest city, THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE asks the question: What does it mean to believe in America? To wave a flag --- or to reject the glibness of the flag wavers?

The president and Mrs. Lincoln personally comforted the wounded troops who flooded wartime Washington. In 1862, Lincoln spent July 4th riding in a train of ambulances carrying casualties from the Peninsula Campaign to Washington hospitals. He saluted the “One-Legged Brigade” assembled outside the White House as “orators,” their wounds eloquent expressions of sacrifice and dedication. These are among the unforgettable scenes in LINCOLN'S CITADEL, a fresh, absorbing narrative history of Lincoln’s leadership in Civil War Washington.

It was the final speech of a long day when hundreds of thousands gathered on the Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. lifted the crowd when he told of his dream that all Americans would join together to realize the founding ideal of equality. His speech still inspires us 50 years later, but its very power has also narrowed our understanding of the march. In this insightful history, William P. Jones restores the march to its full significance.

History is about so much more than memorizing facts. It is, as more than half of the word suggests, about the story. And, told in the right way, it is the greatest one ever written: Good and evil, triumph and tragedy, despicable acts of barbarism and courageous acts of heroism. MIRACLES AND MASSACRES is history as you've never heard it told. It's incredible events that you never knew existed. And it's stories so important and relevant to today that you won't have to ask, Why didn't they teach me this?

Dianne Hales became obsessed with finding the real Mona Lisa on repeated trips to Florence. Here, she takes readers with her to meet Lisa’s descendants; uncover her family’s long and colorful history; and explore the neighborhoods where she lived as a girl, a wife and a mother. In the process, we can participate in Lisa’s daily rituals; understand her personal relationships; and see, hear, smell and taste “her” Florence.

Now marking its bicentennial, the War of 1812 remains the least understood of America’s wars. Neither side gained a clear triumph, but in truth it was our second war of independence, settling once and for all that America would never again submit to Britain. It featured humiliating disasters and stirring successes. Here, Hugh Howard brings a forgotten conflict alive and offers a vivid portrait of two key figures at its center: President James Madison and his charismatic, courageous first lady Dolley.

THE OPIUM WAR is both the story of China’s first conflict with the West and an analysis of the country’s contemporary self-image. It explores how China’s national myths mold its interactions with the outside world, how public memory is spun to serve the present; and how delusion and prejudice have bedeviled its relationship with the modern West.

Vivid and entertaining, this sweeping tale of adventure and intrigue describes the essential role that pepper played in bringing both Americans and Europeans to Asia. From the abundance of wildlife on the islands of the Indian Ocean to colorful accounts of sultans entertaining their European visitors, this fascinating book reveals the often surprising story behind one of mankind's most common spices.

From the racetracks of Seoul to the battlegrounds of the Korean War, Reckless was a horse whose strength, tenacity and relentless spirit made her a hero amongst a regiment of U.S. Marines fighting for their lives on the front lines. Tom Clavin, the bestselling co-author of THE HEART OF EVERYTHING THAT IS, tells the unlikely story of this racehorse who was beloved by the Marine Corps and decorated for bravery.

In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as hundreds of thousands of men and women borrowed money, quit their jobs, and allowed themselves to imagine a future of ease and splendor. In THE RUSH, Edward Dolnick recounts their treacherous westward journeys by wagon and on foot, and takes us to the frenzied gold fields and the rowdy cities that sprang from nothing to jam-packed chaos.

In the spring of 1553, three ships sailed northeast from London into uncharted waters. The scale of their ambition was breathtaking. Drawing on the latest navigational science and the new spirit of enterprise and discovery sweeping the Tudor capital, they sought a northern passage to Asia and its riches. This exceptional endeavour was one of the boldest in British history, and its impact was profound. Although the “merchant adventurers” failed to reach China as they had hoped, their achievements would lay the foundations for England’s expansion on a global stage.

One of the them was a military genius, one murdered his mother and fiddled while Rome burned, another earned the nickname "sphincter artist". Six of their number were assassinated, two committed suicide --- and five of them were elevated to the status of gods. They have come down to posterity as the "twelve Caesars." Matthew Dennison offers a beautifully crafted sequence of colorful biographies of each emperor, triumphantly evoking the luxury, license, brutality and sophistication of imperial Rome at its zenith.

Cultural commentator John Strausbaugh's THE VILLAGE is the first complete history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood. From the Dutch settlers and Washington Square patricians, to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and Prohibition-era speakeasies; from Abstract Expressionism and beatniks, to Stonewall and AIDS, the connecting narratives of THE VILLAGE tell the story of America itself.

Music historian James A. Grymes tells the amazing, horrifying and inspiring story of the violins of the Holocaust, and of Amnon Weinstein, the renowned Israeli violinmaker who has devoted the past twenty years to restoring these instruments in tribute to those who were lost, including 400 members of his own family. Juxtaposing tales of individual violins with one man’s harrowing struggle to reconcile his own family’s history and the history of his people, it is a poignant, affecting and ultimately uplifting look at the Holocaust and its enduring impact.

On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. WHEN PARIS WENT DARK evokes the detail of daily life in a city under occupation, and the brave people who fought against the darkness. Relying on a range of resources, Ronald C. Rosbottom has forged a groundbreaking book that will forever influence how we understand those dark years in the City of Light.