Historical Nonfiction

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE Every day, thousands of new secrets are created by the United States government. What is all this secrecy really for? And whom does it benefit? “A brilliant, deeply unsettling look at the history and inner workings of ‘the dark state'.... At a...

This is the fascinating story of the French regime in Canada. Few periods in the history of North America can equal it for romance and color, drama and suspense, great human courage and far-seeing aspiration. Costain, who writes history in the terms of the people who lived it, wrote of this book...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE From National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer comes the gripping story of Pope Pius XI’s secret relations with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. This groundbreaking work, based on seven...

From the winner of the Edgar Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize, a cultural history of “everyday madness” The Book of Phobias and Manias is a thrilling compendium of 99 obsessions that have shaped us all, the rare and the familiar, from ablutophobia (a horror of washing) to syllogomania (a...

The first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi has inspired millions around the globe through her work as a human rights lawyer defending women and children against a brutal regime in Iran. Now Ebadi tells her story of courage and defiance in the face of a government out...

J. E. B. Stuart: The Soldier and the Man is the first thoroughly scrutinized study of the life and service of the Civil War's most famous cavalryman. James Ewell Brown Stuart led the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry to the all-but-complete satisfaction of his superiors. Being human, Stuart occasionally underperformed.

The New York Times bestseller now in paperback with a new epilogue. In March 1836, the Mexican army led by General Santa Anna massacred more than two hundred Texians who had been trapped in the Alamo. After thirteen days of fighting, American legends Jim Bowie and Davey Crockett died there...

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.

An exquisite, lyrical foray into the world of deep-sea divers, the obsession and madness that oceans inspire in us, and the story of submarine inventor Peter Madsen's murder of journalist Kim Wall—a captivating blend of literary prose, science writing, and true crime "[A] thrilling study of an...

Field marshal and statesman Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951) was the most acclaimed and the most hated Finn of the twentieth century. After three decades of loyal and distinguished service in the Russian Tsarist army, he returned to his homeland in 1917 to defend its new independence. This iconic figure led the Finnish forces as Commander-in-Chief during both World Wars, then ended his career as President of Finland.

Lincoln’s Lady Spymaster has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher...

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil—when Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government to dismantle the KKK The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as “the...

Illuminates the far-reaching harms of believing that natural means “good,” from misinformation about health choices to justifications for sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies. People love what’s natural: it’s the best way to eat, the best way to parent, even the best way to...

Beginning with the death of Stalin in 1953, the "sixties" era in the Soviet Union was just as vibrant and transformative as in the West. The ideological romanticism of the revolutionary years was revived, with renewed emphasis on egalitarianism, equality, and the building of a communist utopia. Mass terror was reined in, great victories were won in the space race, Stalinist cultural dogmas were challenged, and young people danced to jazz and rock and roll. Robert Hornsby examines this remarkable and surprising period.

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus's cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting "Death to Judas!" In this book, Maurice Samuels gives listeners new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus's early life in Paris, his promising career as a French officer, the false accusation leading to his imprisonment on Devil's Island, the fight to prove his innocence that divided the French nation, and his life of quiet obscurity after World War I.

The solar system most of us grew up with included nine planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the discovery of a lifetime: a tenth planet, Eris, slightly bigger than Pluto. But instead of its resulting in one more planet...

Was the outcome of the First World War on a knife edge? In this major new account of German wartime politics and strategy Holger Afflerbach argues that the outcome of the war was actually in the balance until relatively late in the war. Using new evidence from diaries, letters, and memoirs, he fundamentally revises our understanding of German strategy from the decision to go to war and the failure of the western offensive to the radicalization of Germany's war effort under Hindenburg and Ludendorff and the ultimate collapse of the Central Powers.

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending...

The murder of Sarah Payne, Adam the Thames Torso, the London bombings, the Night Stalker and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. The solving of all these cases can be linked to one man: Ray Fysh, a beer-swigging Charlton Athletic fan from Woolwich, a natural raconteur, and also one of the finest forensic detectives the country has ever seen. Ray began work for the Met Police in the 1970s when forensic investigation was seen as little more than a geeky side show, only in existence to confirm or eliminate evidence. But by the mid '90s Ray and his team had made huge progress in their field.

With Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, the bestselling author of Alone and Hero, takes a novel approach to World War I by telling its history through the lives of the soldier-poets whose verses memorialize the war's unimaginable horrors. He begins with Rupert Brooke and the halcyon days before violence engulfed his generation—destroying the self-contented world of Edwardian England—and ends with the tragic death of Wilfred Owen, killed only days before the armistice brought an end to a war that took over 25,000,000 lives.