Amazons --- fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world --- were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting and sexual freedom? National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.

BAND OF GIANTS brings to life the founders who fought for our independence in the Revolutionary War. Here, Jack Kelly captures the fraught condition of the war --- the bitterly divided populace, the lack of supplies, the repeated setbacks on the battlefield, and the appalling physical hardships. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the most remarkable feats in world history.

Doris Kearns Goodwin describes the broken friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. With the help of the “muckraking” press, Roosevelt had wielded the Bully Pulpit to challenge and triumph over abusive monopolies, political bosses and corrupting money brokers. Roosevelt led a revolution that he bequeathed to Taft only to see it compromised as Taft surrendered to money men and big business.

Fifty years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, presidential historian Robert Dallek delivers a new portrait of the president and his inner circle of advisors --- their rivalries, personality clashes and political battles. Here, Dallek analyzes the brain trust whose contributions to the successes and failures of Kennedy’s administration --- including the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam --- were indelible.

Robert Darnton recreates three historical worlds in which censorship shaped literary expression in distinctive ways. In 18th-century France, censors, authors and booksellers collaborated in making literature by navigating the intricate culture of royal privilege. Shaken by the Sepoy uprising in 1857, the British Raj undertook a vast surveillance of every aspect of Indian life, including its literary output. And in Communist East Germany, censorship was a component of the party program to engineer society.

Martin Luther King, Jr. died in one of the most shocking assassinations the world has known, but little is remembered about the life he led in his final year. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley recounts the final 365 days of King's life, revealing the minister's trials and tribulations, all of which he had to rise above in order to lead and address the racism, poverty and militarism that threatened to destroy our democracy.

The Plantagenets reigned over England longer than any other family --- from Henry II to Richard III. Four kings were murdered, two came close to deposition, and another was killed in a battle by rebels. Shakespeare wrote plays about six of them, further entrenching them in the national myth. Based on major contemporary sources and recent research, acclaimed historian Desmond Seward provides, in one volume, the first readable overview of the whole extraordinary dynasty.

The definitive account of the landmark 1969 Ryder Cup in which Jack Nicklaus's startling concession of the final hole resulted in the first draw in the Cup’s history, DRAW IN THE DUNES is a story of personal and professional conflict, from the nervousness at the very beginning of the Ryder Cup --- when one man could not tee his golf ball --- to the nerve displayed by Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin, who battled each other up to the final moment of the final match.

Acclaimed historian Paul Johnson chronicles Dwight D. Eisenhower's modest childhood in Kansas, his college years at West Point, and his rapid ascent through the military ranks, culminating in his appointment as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. Many elements of Eisenhower’s presidency speak to American politics today, including his ability to balance the budget and skill in managing an oppositional Congress.

Many are familiar with the story of the much-married King Henry VIII of England and the celebrated reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I. But it is often forgotten that the life of the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother and Elizabeth’s grandmother, spanned one of England’s most dramatic and perilous periods. Now Alison Weir presents the first modern biography of this extraordinary woman, whose very existence united the realm and ensured the survival of the Plantagenet bloodline.

In this powerful but fair-minded narrative, British author Nick Bunker tells the story of the last three years of mutual embitterment that preceded the outbreak of America’s war for independence in 1775. It was a tragedy of errors, in which both sides shared responsibility for a conflict that cost the lives of at least 20,000 Britons and a still larger number of Americans. At the heart of the book lies the Boston Tea Party, an event that arose from fundamental flaws in the way the British managed their affairs.

FRONT PORCH POLITICS is a vivid and authoritative people’s history of a time when Americans followed their outrage into the streets. Addressing today’s readers, it is also a field guide for effective activism in an era when mass movements may seem impractical or even passé. The distinctively visceral, local and highly personal politics that Americans practiced in the 1970s and 1980s provide a model of citizenship participation worth emulating if we are to renew our democracy.

Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD offers a new interpretation of American history. It forces readers to reckon with the violence at the root of American supremacy, but also with the survival and resistance that brought about slavery's end --- and created a culture that sustains America's deepest dreams of freedom.

The great Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud was the only Plains Indian to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the American government to sue for peace in a conflict named for him. At the peak of their chief’s powers, the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States. But unlike Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now his incredible story can finally be told.

General Patton died under mysterious circumstances in the months following the end of World War II. For almost 70 years, there has been suspicion that his death was not an accident --- and may very well have been an act of assassination. KILLING PATTON takes readers inside the final year of the war and recounts the events surrounding Patton's tragic demise, naming the many powerful people who wanted him dead.

From Lyndon Johnson’s election in 1964, the greatest popular-vote landslide in American history, to the pivotal 1966 midterms, when Ronald Reagan burst forth onto the national stage, LANDSLIDE brings alive a country transformed --- by riots, protests, the rise of television, the shattering of consensus --- and the two towering personalities whose choices in those moments would reverberate through the country for decades to come.

With a painstaking reexamination of original documents, James Tobin uncovers the twisted chain of accidents that left FDR paralyzed; reveals how polio recast Roosevelt’s fateful partnership with his wife, Eleanor; and shows that FDR’s true victory was not over paralysis but over the ancient stigma attached to the crippled.

How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Simon Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers and innovators. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.

The 1920s in New York City was a time of freedom, experimentation and passion --- with Harlem at the epicenter. White men could go uptown to see jazz and modern dance, but women who embraced black culture too enthusiastically could be ostracized. MISS ANNE IN HARLEM focuses on six of the unconventional, free-thinking women who crossed race lines and defied social conventions to become a part of the culture and heartbeat of Harlem.

In REBEL YELL, S. C. Gwynne delves deep into Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s private life, including the loss of his young beloved first wife and his regimented personal habits. It traces Jackson’s brilliant 24-month career in the Civil War, the period that encompasses his rise from obscurity to fame and legend; his stunning effect on the course of the war itself; and his tragic death, which caused both North and South to grieve the loss of a remarkable American hero.

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns present an intimate history of three extraordinary individuals from the same family --- Theodore, Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The three were towering personalities, but THE ROOSEVELTS shows that they were also flawed human beings who confronted in their personal lives issues familiar to all of us: anger and the need for forgiveness, courage and cowardice, confidence and self-doubt, loyalty to family and the need to be true to oneself.

In SUCH TROOPS AS THESE, acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander presents a compelling case for Stonewall Jackson as a supreme military strategist and the greatest general in American history. Fiercely dedicated to the cause of Southern independence, Jackson would not live to see the end of the War. But his military legacy lives on and finds fitting tribute in this book.

In the late 1930s, the German–American Bund was a small but powerful national movement, determined to conquer the United States government with a fascist dictatorship. But while they dreamed of a Swastika Nation, politicians, a rising legal star, a newspaper columnist, and denizens of the criminal underworld utilized their respective means and muscle to bring down the movement and its dreams of a United Reich States.

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.
 

In TO MAKE MEN FREE, Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Grand Old Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession, revealing the insidious cycle of boom and bust that has characterized the Party since its inception. While in office, progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln's vision of economic freedom and expanded the government, attacking the concentration of wealth and nurturing upward mobility. But they and others like them have been continually thwarted by powerful business interests in the Party.

The last great campaign of John F. Kennedy’s life was not the battle for reelection he did not live to wage, but the struggle for a sustainable peace with the Soviet Union. TO MOVE THE WORLD recalls the extraordinary days from October 1962 to September 1963, when JFK marshaled the power of oratory and his remarkable political skills to establish more peaceful relations with the Soviet Union and a dramatic slowdown in the proliferation of nuclear arms.

TUDORS is the story of England's most famous monarchs, the plots between and against them, and a nation on its way from chaos to stability. Above all, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of the Anglican Church. Peter Ackroyd’s book shows a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, and one of the most enigmatic. Now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the 28th President.

In 1945, one world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale, great cities around the world lay in ruins, and the ground was laid for more horror to come. In YEAR ZERO, an examination of the postwar years is intertwined with author Ian Buruma's father's attempted reentry into “normalcy” after his experience as a prisoner of war.