Adult

Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. In this illuminating history, Charles Emmerson liberates the world of 1913 from this “prelude to war” narrative, and explores it as it was, in all its richness and complexity. Traveling from Europe to Asia, he provides a panoramic view of a world crackling with possibilities, its future still undecided, its outlook still open.

Renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson leads us through space as much as time: from the Nile's mystical sources to Thebes, the fertile Delta, Giza, and finally, to the pulsating capital city of Cairo, where the Arab Spring erupted on the bridges over the Nile. Along the way, he introduces us to mysterious and fabled characters. With matchless erudition and storytelling skill, through a lens equal to both panoramas and close-ups, Wilkinson brings millennia of history into view.

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914, he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917, he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.

Sixty years after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea, the Korean War has not yet ended. Sheila Miyoshi Jager presents the first comprehensive history of this misunderstood war, one that risks involving the world’s superpowers --- again. Her sweeping narrative ranges from the middle of the Second World War --- when Korean independence was fiercely debated between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill --- to the present day, as North Korea, with China’s aid, stockpiles nuclear weapons while starving its people.

The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science and philosophy. But understanding these uniquely influential people has been hampered by their diffusion across the entire Mediterranean. Most ancient Greeks did not live in what is now Greece but in settlements scattered across Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Russia and Ukraine. Acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall’s INTRODUCING THE ANCIENT GREEKS is the first book to offer a synthesis of the entire ancient Greek experience.

In 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, the Continental Congress declared independence, and George Washington crossed the Delaware. We are familiar with these famous moments in American history, but we know little about the extraordinary events occurring that same year far beyond the British colonies. In this distinctive history, Claudio Saunt tells an intriguing, largely untold story of an immense and restless continent connected in surprising ways.

One of our finest narrative historians, Lawrence James has written a genuinely new biography of Winston Churchill, one focusing solely on his relationship with the British Empire. As a young army officer in the late 19th century serving in conflicts in India, South Africa and the Sudan, his attitude toward the Empire was the Victorian paternalistic approach --- at once responsible and superior. This ground-breaking volume reveals the many facets of Churchill’s personality: a visionary leader with a truly Victorian attitude toward the British Empire.

From 1951 to 1967, Egypt pursued a secret program to build military rockets that could have conceivably posed a threat to neighboring Israel. Because such an ambitious project required Western expertise, the Egyptian leader president Nasser hired West German scientists, many of them veterans of the Nazi rocket program at Peenemünde and elsewhere. These covert plans soon came to the attention of Israel’s legendary secret service, Mossad, and caused deep alarm in Tel Aviv.

Roger Fredericks, a leading golf instructor and golf fitness pioneer who has worked with the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer, takes readers on a step-by-step journey to explain precisely why golfers have a hard time improving and, more importantly, what to do about it. In THE FLEXIBLE GOLF SWING, he lays out his commonsense approach and explains in detail the true fundamentals of the golf swing and precisely how the mechanics are merely symptoms of how a body functions.

In OWN YOUR GAME, Dave Stockton --- one of the most sought-after coaches in golf --- recreates the experience of riding 18 holes with him at one of his highly sought-after corporate outings. He explains how any player can learn to use his or her mind effectively --- both in the microcosm of the shot at hand and in plotting a way through a round. Amateur golfers are tired of trying to imitate the swings of the pros --- to mostly disastrous results. Stockton gives players the tools and the freedom to play better with the swing they currently have.