American History Biographies

The New York Times bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor uses the same skills to teach how to access accurate information in a rapidly changing 24/7 news cycle and become better readers, thinkers, and consumers of media. We live in an information age, but it is...

The Presidency of George W. Bush is the first balanced academic study to analyze the entirety of his presidency - domestic, social, economic, and national security policies - as well as the administration's response to 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror. In so doing, John Robert Greene argues persuasively that the judgment of most scholars - that the Bush administration was a complete failure - has been made in haste and without the benefit of primary sources.

When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn’t make the cut. This glaring omission—later rectified by a panel of experts—raised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest...

The true story of the U.S. Army’s 240th Assault Helicopter Company and a Green Beret Staff Sergeant's heroic mission to rescue a Special Forces team trapped behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War, from New York Times bestselling author Eric Blehm. On May 2, 1968, a twelve-man Special...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From the bestselling author of The Taking of Jemima Boone, the unbelievable true story of a real-life Swiss Family Robinson (and their dog) who faced sharks, shipwreck, and betrayal. On December 10, 1887, a shark fishing boat disappeared. On board the doomed vessel were...

A superb collection of true-crime stories—written by Texas Monthly’s legendary feature writer Skip Hollandsworth—that reminds us why America is perennially obsessed with the genre. Skip Hollandsworth has been covering true crime since long before the podcasts, networks, and television...

Maya Angelou has fascinated, moved, and inspired countless readers with the first three volumes of her autobiography, one of the most remarkable personal narratives of our age. Now, in her fourth volume, The Heart of a Woman, her turbulent life breaks wide open with joy as...

No one could have predicted even two years ago that an African American would take the oath of office as president of the United States in January of 2009. For many, the occasion marks the climax to the civil rights movement and the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that Americans could be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. This collection, with about 400 letters from Americans of all walks of life, is being created to stand as a symbol of this exciting moment in history.

A gripping, behind-the-scenes account of the personalities and contending forces in Tokyo during the volatile decade that led to World War II, as seen through the eyes of the American ambassador who attempted to stop the slide to war. In 1932, Japan was in crisis. Naval officers had assassinated...

From the New York Times contributing opinion writer and award-winning author of Reading While Black, a riveting intergenerational account of his family’s search for home and hope “Powerful . . . McCaulley uses examples of his own family’s stories of survival over time to remind readers...

“This remarkable account of the 1961 race into space is a thrilling piece of storytelling….It is high definition history: tight, thrilling and beautifully researched.” (The Times, London, Front Page Lead Review) “Beyond has the exhilaration of a fine thriller, but...

The late, legendary auto executive Lee Iacocca poses a question for every American: Where have all the leaders gone? A business leadership memoir and profound reflection on American leadership. The most widely recognized business executive of all time asked the tough questions that America's...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects...

Robert Oppenheimer was among the most brilliant and divisive of men. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis in the race to develop the first atomic bomb—a breakthrough that was to have eternal ramifications for mankind and that made Oppenheimer...

New York Times BESTSELLER In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves. For John...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy “Satchel” Paige “Among the rare biographies of an athlete that transcend sports . . . gives us the man as well as the myth.”—The Boston Globe...

“The Life We Chose—an unforgettable story. A really great read.” —Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy and Casino and screenwriter of Goodfellas From Matt Birkbeck—investigative journalist and executive producer of Netflix’s #1 movie Girl in the Picture—a revelatory...

Performed by Jim Morrison, Patti Smith, Liz Phair, Oliver Ray, Tom Robbins, Frank Lisciandro, Anne Morrison Chewning, Sefton Graham, and Ian Morrison. Includes Jim Morrison’s final poetry recording, now available for the first time, at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles on his 27th...

“Gerald Ford is probably remembered more for how he got to the presidency than for what he did there. In this brilliant book, Richard Norton Smith tells the rest of the story. On every other page I found something I didn’t know, bringing new and important insights into how Ford kept the...

Now with a chapter on the chaos in the Trump administration, the New York Times bestselling, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions—and inactions—have defined the course of our country. What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from...