One morning in May 1671, a man disguised as a parson daringly attempted to seize the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Astonishingly, he managed to escape with the regalia and crown before being apprehended. And yet he was not executed for treason. Instead, the king granted him a generous income, and he became a familiar strutting figure in the royal court's glittering state apartments. This man was Colonel Thomas Blood, a notorious turncoat and fugitive from justice. Historian Robert Hutchinson paints a vivid portrait of a double agent bent on ambiguous political and personal motivation.

1943 was the year of Allied military counteroffensives, beating back the forces of the Axis powers in North Africa and the Pacific --- the “Hinge of Fate,” as Winston Churchill called it. In COMMANDER IN CHIEF, Nigel Hamilton reveals FDR’s true role in this saga: overruling his own Joint Chiefs of Staff, ordering American airmen on an ambush of the Japanese navy’s Admiral Yamamoto, facing down Churchill when he attempted to abandon Allied D-day strategy (twice).

Douglas MacArthur was arguably the last American public figure to be worshipped unreservedly as a national hero, the last military figure to conjure up the romantic stirrings once evoked by George Armstrong Custer and Robert E. Lee. But he was also one of America’s most divisive figures, a man whose entire career was steeped in controversy. Was he an avatar or an anachronism, a brilliant strategist or a vainglorious mountebank? Drawing on a wealth of new sources, Arthur Herman delivers a biography that peels back the layers of myth --- both good and bad --- and exposes the marrow of the man beneath.

In the summer of 1925, Ernest Hemingway traveled to Pamplona for the infamous running of the bulls. He then channeled that trip’s drunken brawls, sexual rivalry, midnight betrayals and midday hangovers into a novel that redefined modern literature. Lesley Blume tells the full story behind Hemingway’s legendary rise for the first time, revealing how he created his own image as the bull-fighting aficionado, hard-drinking literary genius and expatriate bon vivant. In all its youth, lust and rivalry, the Lost Generation is illuminated here as never before.

Marc Morris examines afresh the forces that drove Edward I throughout his relentless career: his character, his Christian faith, and his sense of England's destiny --- a sense shaped in particular by the tales of the legendary King Arthur. He also explores the competing reasons that led Edward's opponents (including Robert Bruce) to resist him. The result is a sweeping story, immaculately researched yet compellingly told, and a vivid picture of medieval Britain at the moment when its future was decided.

The founders established the post office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time, it was the U.S. government’s largest and most important endeavor. This was no conventional mail network, but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind 13 quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen --- a radical idea that appalled Europe’s great powers. Winifred Gallagher presents the history of the post office as America’s own story, told from a fresh perspective over more than two centuries.

The end of communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. So how did we go from the promise of those heady days to the autocratic police state of Putin’s new Russia? THE INVENTION OF RUSSIA reaches back to the darkest days of the cold war to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation. Arkady Ostrovsky introduces us to the propagandists, oligarchs and fixers who have set Russia’s course since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Arrested, charged and convicted of a brutal race-based killing, Henry Hays, a member of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America, was sentenced to death --- the first time in more than half a century that the state of Alabama sentenced a white man to death for killing a black man. On behalf of the victim’s grieving mother, legendary civil rights lawyer Morris Dees filed a civil suit against the members of the local Klan unit involved and the UKA, the largest Klan organization. Charging them with conspiracy, Dees put the Klan on trial, resulting in a verdict that would level a deadly blow to its organization.

Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851. Because he was neglected by academics for so long and made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove him to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale. Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained his own.

Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s protégé and the political leader of India, believed Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand. But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in street-gang fighting, and a cycle of riots spiraled out of control. From jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the searing tale told in MIDNIGHT'S FURIES explains all too many of the headlines we read today.

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, A MILLION YEARS IN A DAY reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted. In this entertaining romp through human history, Greg Jenner explores the gradual --- and often unexpected --- evolution of our daily routines.

David Hepworth, an ardent music fan and well-regarded critic, was 21 in 1971, the same age as many of the legendary artists who arrived on the scene. Taking us on a tour of the major moments, the events and songs of this remarkable year, Hepworth shows how musicians came together to form the perfect storm of rock and roll greatness, starting a musical era that would last longer than anyone predicted. Those who joined bands to escape things that lasted found themselves in a new age, its colossal start being part of the genre's staying power.

NEW ENGLAND BOUND reclaims the lives of so many long-forgotten enslaved Africans and Native Americans in the 17th century. Based on new evidence, Wendy Warren links the growth of the northern colonies to the Atlantic slave trade, demonstrating how New England’s economy derived its vitality from the profusion of slave-trading ships coursing through its ports. She documents how Indians were systematically sold into slavery in the West Indies and reveals how colonial families like the Winthrops were motivated not only by religious freedom but also by their slave-trading investments.

NO BETTER FRIEND tells the remarkable story of Royal Air Force technician Frank Williams and Judy, a purebred pointer, who met in a World War II internment camp. Judy was fiercely loyal, with a keen sense for who was friend and who was foe, and the pair's relationship deepened throughout their captivity. When the prisoners suffered beatings, Judy would interrupt by barking. She survived bombings and other near-death experiences and became a beacon for the men, who saw in her survival a flicker of hope for their own.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN RUSSIA is the untold true story of the larger-than-life billionaire oligarchs who surfed the waves of privatization to reap riches after the fall of the Soviet regime: “Godfather of the Kremlin” Boris Berezovsky, a former mathematician whose first entrepreneurial venture was running an automobile reselling business, and Roman Abramovich, his dashing young protégé who built a multi-billion-dollar empire of oil and aluminum.

Rinker Buck’s bestseller is an epic account of traveling the length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way --- in a covered wagon with a team of mules, an audacious journey that hasn’t been attempted in a century --- which also chronicles the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country.

At 2:00 a.m. on August 2, 1943, U.S. Patrol Torpedo boat PT-109, captained by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, was struck by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri near the Solomon Islands. Despite injuring his back, Lt. Kennedy led his battered and exhausted men on a harrowing three-and-a-half-mile swim to a tiny uninhabited island. Desperate for food and water, Kennedy set off on a solo reconnaissance mission, scouting two larger islands two-and-a-half miles away. For six days they lived off coconuts and kept out of sight of passing Japanese patrols until they were rescued.

Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. As she gradually learned about the extent of her father’s brutality after his death, Svetlana could no longer keep quiet. In 1967 she shocked the world by defecting to the United States, leaving her two children behind. With access to KGB, CIA and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana’s daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana’s incredible life.

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over 400 years, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society --- where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics --- a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.

General Sherman’s 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet he proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family. As a soldier, Sherman evolved from a spirited student at West Point into a general who steered the Civil War’s most decisive campaigns. Lamenting casualties, Sherman sought the war’s swift end by devastating Southern resources in the Carolinas and on his famous March to the Sea.