Historical Fiction World History

A professor shows a colleague a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer - but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of stories that trace ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration.

Summer 1944: Yugoslavia is locked in a war within a war. In addition to fighting the German occupation, warring factions battle each other. Hundreds of Allied airmen have been shot down over this volatile region, among them American lieutenant Bill Bogdonavich. Though grateful to the locals who are risking their lives to shelter and protect him from German troops, Bogdonavich dreams of the impossible: escape.

Based on a true story originally written by one of the survivors, Neta Lohnes Frazier's account of seven children traveling westward still has the power to astonish. In the 1840s, the Sager family set off on the Oregon Trail, a dangerous and adventure-filled journey. Tragedy struck when both the mother and father succumbed to fever, orphaning the youngsters - one just a newborn. The entire wagon train adopted them, until they arrived at the Whitman Mission in Oregon.

Thessaloniki lived in a time when Alexander the Great was racing across the known world conquering all in his path. She was his half-sister living the privileged life of a Macedonian Princess. Under the protective eye of Olympias she learned to see everyone as an enemy. Then Alexander perishes. Suddenly, she finds herself thrust forward onto the political stage as those around her struggle for power. In a world, where loyalty is for sale, and words are empty promises, she must find a way to survive—even if that means turning to her enemies.

Rick Nagano is a graduate student in the history department at USC, struggling to make rent on the South Los Angeles apartment near the neighborhood where his family once lived. When he lands a job as a research assistant for the elderly Mrs. W--, the heir to an oil fortune, he sees it at first simply as a source of extra cash. But as he grows closer to the iconoclastic, charming, and feisty Mrs. W--, he gets drawn into a world of privilege and wealth far different from his racially mixed, blue-collar beginnings.

Alternating between nineteenth-century Europe and present-day New England, this tale follows the great British painter J. M. W. Turner - and his scene of artists, intellectuals, and lovers - and Henry, a middle-aged family man whose otherwise mundane existence is disrupted by the discovery of The Center of the World, Turner’s controversial painting of Helen of Troy that had been thought lost forever.

张骞奉命出使西域，欲联系月氏人以夹击匈奴而解除汉朝边患。张骞历尽艰险，九死一生，广闻博见，最终开通了中原与西域的丝绸通商之路……張騫奉命出使西域，欲聯繫月氏人以夾擊匈奴而解除漢朝邊患。張騫歷盡艱險，九死一生，廣聞博見，最終開通了中原與西域的絲綢通商之路……

Weimar, 1945. Poco después de la liberación del campo de concentración de Buchenwald, siete hombres pertenecientes a la Regia Marina Italiana se adentran en el cementerio de la ciudad y se dirigen hacia una sórdida explanada cubierta de estacas numeradas. Una vez allí se sitúan delante de la que tanto trabajo y suerte, a partes iguales, les ha costado encontrar: la número 262, donde, según el registro, reposan los restos de una unbekannte Frau («mujer desconocida»). Al arrancarla, observan el nombre de pila que ha estado oculto hasta entonces y que les confirma el gran valor de su misión.

Al terminar la Guerra de Independencia de Venezuela y tras la muerte del Libertador Simón Bolívar en 1830, los campesinos no volvieron a sus tierras sino siguieron guerreando entre ellos. Mientras, algunos habitantes de la Isla de Córcega, en el Mar Mediterráneo, decidieron buscar mejor fortuna en América y llegaron al Puerto de Carúpano.

中国历史的面儿上有数不尽的精彩故事，给今人极大的启迪。英雄打江山讲述的创业智慧，为臣之道反映的职场生存法则，道义和利益面前折射的人性高贵……中國歷史的面兒上有數不盡的精彩故事，給今人極大的啟迪。英雄打江山講述的創業智慧，為臣之道反映的職場生存法則，道義和利益面前折射的人性高貴……

April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Nazis are collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are vastly overpowering the Japanese in the Pacific. For a group of pilots in their early 20s who were trained during the twilight of the war, the biggest concern is that they'll never actually see real action and will go home without having a chance to face the enemy.

Irene Radford offers new and old stories that reach from a weapon of mass destruction that could change the outcome of the U.S. Civil War, the truth behind why the ballet Giselle disappeared for nearly fifty years, pirates in Indonesia questioning whether we should control technology or be controlled by it, to a glimpse of Princess Victoria coming of age as secret operatives try to protect her from madmen acting in the name of long dead Lord Byron.

In 1913, before there is a rumor of war in Europe, Matthias Wrenn and Con Hatchel, lifelong friends from Ballyrannel in the Irish midlands, decide to see the world at the expense of the king of England and join the British army. A year later, while en route to India, their troop ship is recalled and they soon find themselves in the European slaughterhouse that was World War I.

Winner of the Housatonic Book Award A New York Times Editors' Choice! One of Booklist’s “Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022” One of the Los Angeles Times's “10 Books to Add to Your Reading List” One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads “A bighearted, widescreen American...

La difícil situación que viven en la Galicia rural, obligará a José y Jesús a emigrar en el verano de 1931, a La Habana. Durante el trayecto en el trasatlántico Orinoco conocerán a Armando y Mara se cruzan en su camino para empezar a ser parte importante de sus vidas. La nueva tierra, llena de oportunidades, es testigo de su evolución, a base de un encomiable esfuerzo personal y de su condición de trabajadores incansables. La década de los 50 será el momento álgido en la vida de los protagonistas de esta historia.

A toy soldier. A butter dish. A compass. Mundane objects, perhaps, but to the remarkable authors in this collection, artifacts such as these have inspired stories that go to the heart of the human experience of World War I. Each author was invited to choose an object that had a connection to the war - a writing kit for David Almond, a helmet for Michael Morpurgo - and use it as the inspiration for an original short story.

Born in a cabin deep in the backwoods of Kentucky and growing up in a family considered the poorest of the poor, Abraham Lincoln rose to become the 16th president of the United States. As president, he guided the United States through the Civil War, helped end slavery in America, and strengthened the federal government. This third installment in the Making of America series continues the story of the first 100 years of America's constitutional history, a story that began with Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson.

After rising to national fame as the general who defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson ran for president as a political outsider, championing the interest of common farmers and frontiersmen. Determined to take down the wealthy, well-educated East Coast elites, he pledged to destroy the national bank, which he believed was an engine of corruption serving the interest of bankers and industrialists. A staunch nationalist, he sought to secure and expand the nation's borders.

Set on a Bengali noble's estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip. Her attempts to resolve the irreconciliable...

From the critically acclaimed writer of A Different Sun, a Southern coming-of-age novel that sets three very different young people against the tumultuous years of the American civil rights movement... Tacker Hart left his home in North Carolina as a local high school football hero, but returns...