Historical Memoirs

The complete war memoirs of the resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who led France out of its darkest hour during the Nazi occupation during World War II. “Faced with the political disaster, I had to become France.” This was how Charles de Gaulle answered the call of history. One of the few...

By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to a Gallup poll, the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists. Kissinger explores the relationship between this complex man's personality and the foreign policy he pursued.

In the romantic narrative of the Old West, two larger-than-life characters emerged as the perfect foils for each other - the rampant outlaw and the heroic peace officer. Without the villain, sheriffs would not have needed to uphold the law; and without the sheriff, villains would have had no law to break. Together, both personalities fought, lost, and triumphed amid shootouts, train robberies, and bank holdups against the backdrop of the lawless American frontier.

At President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's behest, Page Wilson left the US to serve in London with Ambassador Joseph Kennedy as he took up his post just before World War II began and the Blitz commenced. With the conflict in Europe already underway, Wilson, working with Kennedy, shares the grip of war with the men and women who are engaged against Germany.

Originally published in six volumes, which sold more than one million copies, Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln was praised as the most noteworthy historical biography of Sandburg’s generation. He later distilled this monumental work into one volume that critics and readers alike consider his greatest work of nonfiction, as well as the most distinguished, authoritative biography of Lincoln ever published.

Growing up in an Illinois prairie town, Sandburg listened to stories of old-timers who had known Lincoln. By the time this single-volume edition was competed, he had spent a lifetime studying, researching, and writing about our 16th president.

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

This is an exuberant group portrait of four extraordinary writers, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, and Edna Ferber, whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors captured the spirit of the 1920s.

The Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today's billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.

À Québec, en 1920, Marie-Anne Houde subissait un procès au cours duquel ont été étalés les détails scandaleux des supplices qu’elle aurait infligés à sa belle-fille, Aurore Gagnon, dite l’« enfant martyre ». Aurore Gagnon a-t-elle réellement subi un martyre? Rien n’est moins sûr. En revanche, il est probable que sa belle-mère, Marie- Anne Houde, ait été victime d’une erreur judiciaire...

French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said that "words are loaded pistols". In the hands of Russ Baker, they are hydrogen bombs. On each and every page of his masterpiece, Family of Secrets, he explodes the myths and lies that powerful forces have perpetrated on the American consciousness. He digs beneath the surface in a form of journalistic archeology to reveal the hidden history of one of America's most powerful families, leaving no stone unturned.

In life and in his grisly family suicide, Goebbels was one of Hitler's most loyal acolytes. Though powerful in the party and in wartime Germany, Longerich's Goebbels is a man dogged by insecurities and consumed by his fierce adherence to the Nazi cause. Longerich engages and challenges the careful self-portrait that Goebbels left behind in his diaries, and, as he delves deep into the mind of Hitler's master propagandist, Longerich discovers firsthand how the Nazi message was conceived. This complete portrait of the man behind the message is sure to become a standard for historians and students of the Holocaust for years to come.

Drawing from the author's original, uncensored journals, Fire follows Anaïs Nin's journey as she attempts to liberate herself sexually, artistically, and emotionally. While referring to her relationships with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and author Henry Miller, as well as a new lover, the Peruvian Gonzalo More, she also reveals that her most passionate and enduring affair is with writing itself.

In January 1947, the body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome mutilations led to a firestorm of publicity, city-wide panic, and an unprecedented number of investigative paths led by the LAPD—all dead ends. The Black Dahlia murder remained an unsolved mystery for over seventy years.

Plongez dans des histoires criminelles captivantes qui mettent en lumière certains des tueurs en série les plus sinistres et notoires de notre histoire collective. De HH Holmes, l'homme aux 200 meurtres, à Landru, le tueur en série français, en passant par le monstre de Montmartre Thierry Paulin et le mystérieux Monstre de Florence, chaque récit vous entraînera dans un univers sombre et terrifiant. Explorez les motivations complexes, les méthodes macabres et les enquêtes palpitantes liées à ces crimes épouvantables.

Plongez dans les sombres mystères des États-Unis avec la série incontournable "12 affaires de meurtres aux USA". Chaque épisode vous transportera dans les tréfonds de l'horreur criminelle américaine, vous laissant fasciné et effrayé. Découvrez notamment les secrets troublants de Patrick Wayne Kearney, le tueur au sac poubelle et préparez-vous à une plongée dans l'esprit tordu de Randy Woodfield, le redoutable I 5 Killer. Ne manquez pas cette série saisissante qui vous plongera dans les recoins les plus sombres de l'Amérique et vous captivera du premier au dernier meurtre.

Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse—offering her too many options of all the wrong kind. Her innate sensitivity left her vulnerable to the harsh realities of the street, where she was left to fend for herself before she reached double digits. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly teetered on the brink of disaster. But in 1953, a catastrophic twist of fate would catapult her out of obscurity and into the headlines.

Just before the small-time bootlegger Max Gerlach died, he tried to reveal his secret: he was the inspiration for the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It’s a nice story, but was he telling the truth? Veteran reporter Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon investigate this century-old literary mystery and uncover untold secrets about the Great American Novel.

For 700 years, Japan was ruled by military commanders who waged war against one another incessantly. Shogun tells the fascinating story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who finally unified and brought lasting peace to the nation. He established a new central government which enabled his descendants to rule Japan for the next 260 years—a period in which Japanese culture as we know it today flourished.

In 2013 Assata Shakur, founding member of the Black Liberation Army, former Black Panther and godmother of Tupac Shakur, became the first ever woman to make the FBI's most wanted list. Assata Shakur's trial and conviction for the murder of a white State Trooper in the spring of 1973 divided America. Her case quickly became emblematic of race relations and police brutality in the USA. While Assata's detractors continue to label her a ruthless killer, her defenders cite her as the victim of a systematic, racist campaign.

V13 : c'est le nom de code du procès des attentats terroristes qui, le vendredi 13 novembre 2015, ont causé 130 morts au Stade de France, sur des terrasses de l'est parisien, dans la salle de concert du Bataclan. 14 accusés, 1 800 parties civiles, 350 avocats, un dossier haut de 53 mètres : ce procès hors norme a duré neuf mois, de septembre 2021 à juin 2022. Je l'ai suivi, du premier au dernier jour, pour l'hebdomadaire L'Obs.