Adult

In the spring of 1553, three ships sailed northeast from London into uncharted waters. The scale of their ambition was breathtaking. Drawing on the latest navigational science and the new spirit of enterprise and discovery sweeping the Tudor capital, they sought a northern passage to Asia and its riches. This exceptional endeavour was one of the boldest in British history, and its impact was profound. Although the “merchant adventurers” failed to reach China as they had hoped, their achievements would lay the foundations for England’s expansion on a global stage.

THE OPIUM WAR is both the story of China’s first conflict with the West and an analysis of the country’s contemporary self-image. It explores how China’s national myths mold its interactions with the outside world, how public memory is spun to serve the present; and how delusion and prejudice have bedeviled its relationship with the modern West.

Now marking its bicentennial, the War of 1812 remains the least understood of America’s wars. Neither side gained a clear triumph, but in truth it was our second war of independence, settling once and for all that America would never again submit to Britain. It featured humiliating disasters and stirring successes. Here, Hugh Howard brings a forgotten conflict alive and offers a vivid portrait of two key figures at its center: President James Madison and his charismatic, courageous first lady Dolley. 

History is about so much more than memorizing facts. It is, as more than half of the word suggests, about the story. And, told in the right way, it is the greatest one ever written: Good and evil, triumph and tragedy, despicable acts of barbarism and courageous acts of heroism. MIRACLES AND MASSACRES is history as you've never heard it told. It's incredible events that you never knew existed. And it's stories so important and relevant to today that you won't have to ask, Why didn't they teach me this? 

It was the final speech of a long day when hundreds of thousands gathered on the Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. lifted the crowd when he told of his dream that all Americans would join together to realize the founding ideal of equality. His speech still inspires us 50 years later, but its very power has also narrowed our understanding of the march. In this insightful history, William P. Jones restores the march to its full significance.

The president and Mrs. Lincoln personally comforted the wounded troops who flooded wartime Washington. In 1862, Lincoln spent July 4th riding in a train of ambulances carrying casualties from the Peninsula Campaign to Washington hospitals. He saluted the “One-Legged Brigade” assembled outside the White House as “orators,” their wounds eloquent expressions of sacrifice and dedication. These are among the unforgettable scenes in LINCOLN'S CITADEL, a fresh, absorbing narrative history of Lincoln’s leadership in Civil War Washington.

Inside Spain as well as outside, many believe --- wrongly --- that under Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship, nothing truthful or imaginatively worthwhile could be said or written or shown. In FRANCO'S CRYPT, Jeremy Treglown argues that oversimplifications like these of a complicated, ambiguous actuality have contributed to a separate falsehood: that there was and continues to be a national pact to forget the evils for which Franco’s side (and, according to this version, his side alone) was responsible.

For America, the mid-19th century was an era of vast expectation and expansion: the country dreamed big, craved new lands, developed new technologies, and after too long a delay, finally confronted its greatest moral failure: slavery. Brenda Wineapple explores these feverish, ecstatic, conflicted years when Americans began to live within new and ever-widening borders; fought a devastating war over parallel ideals of freedom and justice; and transformed their country, at tragic cost, from a confederation into one nation, indivisible.

Following the end of World War II, more than 10,000 German civilians trapped in the Red Army’s way pack aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff. Soon after the ship leaves port, three Soviet torpedoes strike it, inflicting catastrophic damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the Baltic. Drawing on interviews with survivors, as well as the letters and diaries of those who perished, award-wining author Cathryn Prince reconstructs this forgotten moment in history.

In September 1967, after three years of landmark civil rights laws and three months of devastating urban riots, the football season began at Louisiana’s Grambling College and Florida A&M. The teams were led by two extraordinary coaches, and they featured the best quarterbacks ever at each school. BREAKING THE LINE brings to life the historic saga of the battle for the 1967 black college championship, culminating in a riveting, excruciatingly close contest.