1968 was a year filled with mind-boggling headlines. Both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were struck down by assassins’ bullets. The war in Vietnam was raging. And a small, nondescript former cargo ship, the USS Pueblo,and her crew were seized by the North Koreans in international waters. This massively researched book tells the full story of what became known as "the Pueblo incident."

Beethoven scholar and classical radio host John Suchet has had a lifelong, ardent interest in the man and his music. Here, in his first full-length biography, Suchet illuminates the composer’s difficult childhood, his struggle to maintain friendships and romances, his ungovernable temper, his obsessive efforts to control his nephew’s life, and the excruciating decline of his hearing.

For the entire history of human civilization, gold has enraptured people around the globe. The Nazis were no less enthralled by it and felt that gold was the solution to funding Hitler's war machine. Gold was also on the mind of FDR across the Atlantic, as he worked with Europe's other leaders to bring the United States and the rest of the world out of a severe depression. CHASING GOLD is the story of how the Nazis attempted to grab Europe’s gold to finance history’s bloodiest war.

Cotton is so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible, yet understanding its history is key to understanding the origins of modern capitalism. Sven Beckert’s rich, fascinating book tells the story of how, in a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to change the world.

Dr. Aribert Heim worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp for only a few months in 1941 but left a devastating mark. According to the testimony of survivors, Heim euthanized patients with injections of gasoline into their hearts and performed surgeries on otherwise healthy people. In THE ETERNAL NAZI, Nicholas Kulish and Souad Mekhennet reveal for the first time how Heim evaded capture while inspiring a manhunt that outlived him by many years.

In THE GREATEST KNIGHT, renowned historian Thomas Asbridge presents a compelling account of William Marshal's life and times. Asbridge follows Marshal on his journey from rural England onto the battlefields of France, to the desert castles of the Holy Land and the verdant shores of Ireland, charting the unparalleled rise to prominence of a man bound to a code of honour, yet driven by unquenchable ambition.

Near the start of the 19th century, as the newly established United States looked outward toward the wider world, a group of eminent Protestant ministers formed a grand scheme for gathering the rest of mankind into the redemptive fold of Christianity and “civilization.” Its core element was a special school for “heathen youth” drawn from all parts of the earth. However, when two Cherokee students courted and married local women, public resolve --- and fundamental ideals --- were put to a severe test.

Rachel Cooke goes back in time to offer an entertaining and iconoclastic look at 10 women in the 1950s --- pioneers whose professional careers and complicated private lives helped to create the opportunities available to today's women. These plucky and ambitious individuals --- among them a film director, a cook, an architect, an editor, an archaeologist and a race car driver --- left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.

Looking beyond the familiar Little Italys and stereotypes fostered by The Godfather and “The Sopranos,” Maria Laurino reveals surprising, fascinating lives: Italian-Americans working on sugar-cane plantations in Louisiana to those who were lynched in New Orleans; the banker who helped rebuild San Francisco after the great earthquake; and families interned as “enemy aliens” in World War II. This book is both an exploration and celebration of the rich legacy of Italian-American life.

Abraham Lincoln’s official secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president’s immediate family. As Joshua Zeitz shows, the image of a humble man with uncommon intellect who rose from obscurity to become a storied wartime leader and emancipator is very much their creation.

The United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the significance of America’s Hispanic past. With the profile of the United States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic dimension to our national story has never been greater.

As the ringleader of the infamous Stern Gang, also known as Lehi, militant zionist Avraham Stern masterminded a series of high-profile terrorist attacks in pursuit of his dream. On the run from British authorities, Stern was hiding in an attic in Tel Aviv when he was killed by Geoffrey Morton, a British colonial policeman assigned to capture him. Morton claimed Stern was trying to escape, but witnesses insisted he was executed in cold blood. THE RECKONING is the story of Patrick Bishop's quest to discover the truth.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria's favorite poet, commanded a wider readership than any other of his time. His ascendancy was neither the triumph of pure genius nor an accident of history: he skillfully crafted his own career and his relationships with his audience. This thoughtful new biography by John Batchelor reveals him to be a fascinating paradigm of both the Romantic and Victorian ideals.

The Duke of Wellington remarked that Waterloo was “a damned nice thing,” meaning uncertain or finely balanced. He was right. For his part, Napoleon reckoned “the English are bad troops and this affair is nothing more than eating breakfast.” He was wrong, and this gripping and dramatic narrative history by veteran historian Gordon Corrigan --- in time for the bicentennial in 2015 --- shows just how wrong.

When America entered World War II, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned over 100 million books and caused fearful citizens to hide or destroy many more. The War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks, for troops to carry in their pockets and their rucksacks, in every theater of war. Comprising 1,200 different titles of every imaginable type, these paperbacks were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today.

In WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE WORLD?, science writer Andrew Lawler takes us on an adventure from prehistory to the modern era with an account of the partnership between human and chicken (the most successful of all cross-species relationships). In a masterful combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about our most important animal partner --- and, by extension, all domesticated animals, and even nature itself.