41 covers the entire scope of the elder President Bush’s life and career, including his service in the Pacific during World War II, his pioneering work in the Texas oil business, and his political rise as a Congressman, U.S. Representative to China and the United Nations, CIA Director, Vice President and President. The book shines new light on both the accomplished statesman and the warm, decent man known best by his family.

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.

Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier’s incredible rise has been well documented. Now, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing.

James L. Haley's CAPTIVE PARADISE is the story of King Kamehameha I, The Conqueror, who unified the islands through terror and bloodshed, but whose dynasty succumbed to inbreeding; of Gilded Age tycoons like Claus Spreckels, who brilliantly outmaneuvered his competitors; of firebrand Lorrin Thurston, who was determined that Hawaii be ruled by whites; and of President McKinley, who presided over the eventual annexation of the islands.

In 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer endured his worst year but began his best poem. The father of English literature did not enjoy in his lifetime the literary celebrity that he has today --- far from it. The middle-aged Chaucer was living in London, working as a midlevel bureaucrat and sometime poet, until a personal and professional crisis set him down the road leading to THE CANTERBURY TALES. Brought to life by Paul Strohm, this is the story of the birth of one of the most celebrated literary creations of the English language.

As 1945 opened, America was on surprisingly congenial terms with China’s Communist rebels --- their soldiers treated their American counterparts as heroes, rescuing airmen shot down over enemy territory. Chinese leaders talked of a future in which American money and technology would help lift China out of poverty. Mao Zedong himself held friendly meetings with U.S. emissaries, vowing to them his intention of establishing an American-style democracy in China. By year’s end, however, cordiality had been replaced by chilly hostility and distrust.

On the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death, Boris Johnson celebrates the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the 20th century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized reality, he portrays --- with characteristic wit and passion --- a man of contagious bravery, breathtaking eloquence, matchless strategizing and deep humanity.

In the depths of the Great War, with millions dead and no imaginable end to the conflict, societies around the world began to buckle. The heart of the financial system shifted from London to New York. The strain of the war ravaged all economic and political assumptions, bringing unheard-of changes in the social and industrial order. A century after the outbreak of fighting, Adam Tooze revisits this seismic moment in history, challenging the existing narrative of the war, its peace and its aftereffects.

Graham Robb reveals the ancient secrets of the Celts, demonstrates the lasting influence of Druid science, and recharts the exploration of the world and the spread of Christianity. A pioneering history grounded in a real-life historical treasure hunt, THE DISCOVERY OF MIDDLE EARTH offers nothing less than an entirely new understanding of the birth of modern Europe.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was the greatest jazz composer of the 20th century --- and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. A semifinalist for the National Book Award, DUKE peels away countless layers of Ellington’s evasion and public deception to tell the unvarnished truth about this creative genius.

Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria onto what is today San Salvador, in the Bahamas, and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In EMPIRE'S CROSSROADS, British American historian Carrie Gibson traces the story of this coveted area from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba, and from discovery through colonialism to today.

Bob Hope is a household name. However, as Richard Zoglin shows in this revelatory biography, there is still much to be learned about this most public of figures --- from his secret first marriage and his stint in reform school, to his indiscriminate womanizing and his ambivalent relationship with Bing Crosby and Johnny Carson. Hope could be cold, self-centered, tight with a buck, and perhaps the least introspective man in Hollywood. But he was also a dogged worker, gracious with fans and generous with friends.

The Chelsea Hotel, since its founding by a visionary French architect in 1884, has been an icon of American invention: a cultural dynamo and haven for the counterculture, all in one astonishing building. Sherill Tippins, author of the acclaimed FEBRUARY HOUSE, delivers a masterful and endlessly entertaining history of the Chelsea and of the successive generations of artists who have cohabited and created there.

After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the United States was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago. In IRON HORSES, Walter Borneman recounts the rivalries, contested routes, political posturing and business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.

In LIKE DREAMERS --- winner of the Everett Family Jewish Book of the Year Award (a National Jewish Book Award) and the RUSA Sophie Brody Medal --- acclaimed journalist Yossi Klein Halevi interweaves the stories of a group of 1967 paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem, tracing the history of Israel and the divergent ideologies shaping it from the Six-Day War to the present.

Andrew Roberts’ NAPOLEON is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s 33,000 letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife, Josephine. Roberts traveled to 53 of Napoleon’s 60 battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena.

In the U.S., Britain's George III, the protagonist of A ROYAL EXPERIMENT, is known as the king from whom Americans won their independence and as "the mad king." But in Janice Hadlow’s biography, he is another character altogether --- compelling and relatable. The struggle of King George --- along with his wife, Queen Charlotte, and their 15 children --- to pursue a passion for family will surprise history buffs and delight a broad swath of biography readers and royal watchers.

From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Frances Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.

In THE SPHINX, Nicholas Wapshott recounts how an ambitious and resilient Franklin Delano Roosevelt --- nicknamed "the Sphinx" for his cunning, cryptic rapport with the press --- devised and doggedly pursued a strategy to sway the American people to abandon isolationism and take up the mantle of the world's most powerful nation.

In STALIN, Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs. STALIN also gives an intimate view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography of power, bringing to the fore fresh materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police.

When Glenn Kurtz stumbles upon an old family film in his parents’ closet in Florida, he has no inkling of its historical significance or of the impact it will have on his life. The film, shot long ago by his grandfather on a sightseeing trip to Europe, includes shaky footage of Paris and the Swiss Alps, with someone inevitably waving at the camera. Astonishingly, David Kurtz also captured on color 16mm film the only known moving images of the thriving, predominantly Jewish town of Nasielsk, Poland, shortly before the community’s destruction.

In the fall of 1944, a massive American bomber carrying 11 men vanished over the Pacific islands of Palau, leaving a trail of mysteries. Now, in a spellbinding narrative, Wil S. Hylton weaves together the true story of the missing men, their final mission, the families they left behind, and the real reason their disappearance remained shrouded in secrecy for so long.

The Republic of Venice was the first great economic, cultural and naval power of the modern Western world. After winning the struggle for ascendency in the late 13th century, the Republic enjoyed centuries of unprecedented glory. THE VENETIANS illuminates the character of the Republic during these illustrious years by shining a light on some of the most celebrated personalities of European history.