Historical Memoirs

The searing accounts of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Evgeniia Ginsberg, and Varlam Shalamov opened the world's eyes to the terrors of the Soviet Gulag. But not until now has there been a memoir of life inside the camps written from the perspective of an actual employee of the Secret police. In this riveting memoir, superbly translated by Deborah Kaple, Fyodor Mochulsky describes being sent to work as a boss at the forced labor camp of Pechorlag in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle.

In the World is the second instalment of Maxim Gorky’s autobiographical trilogy. Published in 1916, the book depicts Gorky’s experiences as a young adult, portraying his encounters with an array of characters from different social classes and conveying his observations of society at large. Gorky skilfully depicts the struggles, dreams and complexities of the lower classes, highlighting the social inequalities prevalent in Russia during the later 19th century.

It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.

Se cumplen cinco siglos de la Conquista de México, y a lo largo de este tiempo Hernán Cortés ha desempeñado un claro papel en el imaginario colectivo de la nación: el de villano. Sin embargo, para Christian Duverger esta apreciación no podría ser más injusta. Lejos del ambicioso y sanguinario invasor que los libros de texto han urdido, el historiador francés presenta en esta biografía en dos tomos a un humanista, un hombre de armas y de letras que vio en las tierras americanas la posibilidad, no de trasplantar una copia de la sociedad castellana, sino de inventar un mundo nuevo. Para Cortés, el mestizaje era la clave de este proyecto cultural.

Most of us never get to test ourselves in combat. As a UH-1 Helicopter pilot flying in the jungle highlands of South Vietnam, Warrant Officer Jim Crigler and the men he flew with were tested daily. Coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s was challenging for most young men of that era. Throw in drugs, free love, draft notices, the Vietnam War, and a country deeply divided, and you have one of the most important books of this genre. This true story is a raw, bold, introspective autobiography.

Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, "the Kid", who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of 21, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw.

The Terrible Truth About the Truth is an all-in-one dramatic, romantic, horrific, true story, not without some humor. As a Tutsi who experienced a number of close calls during the Tutsis genocide conducted by extremists Hutus, Emma identifies herself as a Tutsi and a genocide survivor, but many of her compatriots question that reality.

Award-winning writer Rich Cohen excavates the real stories behind the legend of infamous criminal enforcers Murder, Inc. and contemplates the question: Where did the tough Jews go?

In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened.

From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history—the most intimate and richly readable account we have had—of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier...

In 1920, in small-town America, the ubiquitous dry goods store was usually owned by Jews and often referred to as "the Jew store". That's how Stella Suberman's father's store, Bronson's Low-Priced Store, in Concordia, Tennessee, was known locally. The Bronsons were the first Jews to ever live in that tiny town of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware, one barber shop, one beauty parlor, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches.

For readers of Caste, the coming-of-age story of a Dalit individual that illuminates systemic injustice in India and its growing impact on US society “A moving personal story and a useful educational examination of persistent discrimination”—Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Sahitya Akademi...

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER Featured in The New York Times's Nonfiction to Read This Spring Black transgender luminary Tourmaline brings to life the first definitive biography of the revolutionary activist Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most important and remarkable figures in LGBTQIA+ history...

After losing her high-octane job as an entertainment blogger, Noelle Hancock was lost. About to turn 29, she'd spent her career writing about celebrities' lives and had forgotten how to live her own. Unemployed and full of self-doubt, she had no idea what she wanted out of life. She feared change - in fact, she feared almost everything. Once confident and ambitious, she had become crippled by anxiety, lacking the courage required even to attend a dinner party - until inspiration struck one day in the form of a quote on a chalkboard in a coffee shop.

Between August and October 1720, two female pirates named Anne Bonny and Mary Read terrorized the Caribbean in and around Jamaica. Despite their short career, they became two of the most notorious pirates during the height of the eighteenth-century Golden Age of Piracy. In a world dominated by men, they became infamous for their bravery, cruelty and unwavering determination to escape the social constraints placed on women during that time.

Eknath Easwaran grew up in Gandhi's India and was deeply inspired by him. As a young man, he read Gandhi's weekly articles and visited his ashram, walking with Gandhi and observing him in deep meditation during his prayer service. What fascinated Easwaran was Gandhi's magnificent spiritual transformation - from a shy, ineffectual lawyer to the Mahatma, the "great soul" who led millions of Indians in their successful nonviolent struggle for independence.

The Prime Ministers is the first and only insider account of Israeli politics from the founding of the Jewish State to the near-present day. It reveals stunning details of life-and-death decision-making, top-secret military operations and high level peace negotiations. The Prime Ministers brings listeners into the orbits of world figures, including Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.

There are few women in English history more famous or controversial than Queen Anne Boleyn. In this vivid and engaging account of the triumphant and harrowing final year of Queen Anne Boleyn's life, the author reveals a very human portrait of a brilliant, passionate, and complex woman.

Wallis Simpson stole the king's heart and rocked the monarchy - but she was not Edward VIII's first or only love. Before Wallis dominated his life, he adored three other women: Rosemary Leveson Gower, the girl he wanted to marry; Freda Dudley Ward, the Prince's long-term mistress; and Thelma Furness, his twice-married American lover. Each one of the three women in this book could have changed the course of history. In examining their lives and impact on the heir to the throne, Rachel Trethewey questions whether he ever really wanted to be king....