Western Wars

Between the two armies, at the confluence of the two rivers, sits a rich prize, a vast plantation run by young, beautiful Mrs. Hawkland. At any moment Union or Confederate forces could seize her land and set fire to her home to prevent the enemy from doing so first. Confederate officer Jamie Russell comes to her plantation by chance, only to find that that she is no stranger; his dreams of their brief but passionate encounter fill his nights as war fills his days.

Art looting is commonly recognized as a central feature of Nazi expropriation. After the war, the famed Monuments Men (and women) recovered several hundred thousand pieces from the Germans' makeshift repositories. Well-publicized restitution cases, such as that of Gustav Klimt's luminous painting featured in the film Woman in Gold, illustrate the legacy of Nazi looting in the art world today. But what happened to looted art that was never returned to its rightful owners?

On a dark day in April 1865, a band of former Confederate guerrillas slaughtered more than 40 Comanches, most of them women and children. This began a six-month reign of terror along the Santa Fe Trail as Comanche chief, White Eagle, took his revenge. The US Cavalry was assigned the task of tracking White Eagle and his warriors down. Lieutenant Colonel Ignatius O'Sullivan's orders were to either bring them in or kill them.

The leafy Avenue de Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris' hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son, Phillip, at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high.

It is 1857. Under President James Buchanan, the battle lines for America’s coming conflagration are being violently drawn. As the burning questions of slavery scorches the nation, another savage war takes shape in the West. In the far-off New Mexico territory, blue-coated soldiers hurl a challenge against the implacable Mimbreno Apaches: surrender or die. And in the Indians’ ranks stands the brave called Sunny Bear - the powerful, blond-haired warrior and medicine man.

The bloody two-day battle of Shiloh changed the course of the American Civil War. The conflagration at Shiloh had its roots in the strong Union advance that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. The offensive collapsed General Albert S. Johnston's advanced line in Kentucky and forced him to withdraw to northern Mississippi. Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border.

Military historian Richard Holmes turns his attention to the infamous First World War trench line, the Western Front. Of the nine million British and Dominion soldiers who were killed in action in the Great War, most died here. In this thorough examination of the role the Front played in the war, the eminent historian Richard Holmes considers its initial creation, the rapid expansion of the British army (which led to problems with the supply of men and munitions), the challenge of coping with life and death at the Front, and the regular attempts by soldiers to "break the trench". He also examines two major battles in detail.

The bloody barbarism of the Civil War scarred Morgan’s soul as well as his body. He sent so many soldiers to Hell and almost joined them when he was struck by a bullet from the sniper known as the Arkansas Traveler. The only man to ever survive the notorious Rebel’s sharpshooting skills, Morgan finds himself back in the assassin’s sights. But the ex-Confederate isn’t the only one gunning for Morgan.

Nine thousand men of the First British Airborne Division were parachuted into the peaceful countryside that surrounded Arnhem. Their objective was to capture and hold the bridge over the Rhine ahead of the advancing British Second Army. Nine days later, after some of the fiercest street-fighting of the war, 2,000 paratroopers managed to escape to safety.

Hitler's Collaborators focuses the spotlight on one of the most controversial aspects of the Nazi wartime occupation of Europe: the citizens of those countries who helped Hitler. Author Philip Morgan moves away from the usual suspects and focuses instead on the businessmen and civil servants who felt obliged to cooperate with the Nazis. These were the people who faced the most difficult choices and dilemmas by dealing with the various Nazi authorities and agencies, and it was their choices which had the greatest impact on the lives and livelihoods of their fellow countrymen.

During the First World War, the British army's most consistent German opponent was Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Commanding more than a million men as a General, and then Field Marshal, in the Imperial German Army, he held off the attacks of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French and then Sir Douglas Haig for four long years. But Rupprecht was to lose not only the war, but his son and his throne. In Haig's Enemy, Jonathan Boff explores the tragic tale of Rupprecht's war - the story of a man caught under the wheels of modern industrial warfare.

The Battle for Galveston 1862. The island city of Galveston, a vital port where blockade runners bring key supplies into the Confederacy from abroad, is suddenly occupied by the Union, blockaded by navy vessels, cut off from the Texas mainland by the enemy. Jamie Russell, an artillery officer in the Valverde Battery and veteran of battles in New Mexico, has a personal stake in the safety of the city - his sister Emma and their Aunt May are trapped there. But Jamie also has the ear of General Magruder in Houston.

It was against all odds for Allied pilots shot down over Nazi-occupied Europe to evade the enemy. British Intelligence service MI-9 infiltrated their agents into Nazi-occupied Europe to help these stranded pilots behind enemy lines and get them safely back to England.

February 20, 1933: on an unremarkable day during a harsh Berlin winter, a meeting of twenty-four German captains of industry and senior Nazi dignitaries is being held in secret in the plush lounges of the Reichstag. They are there to "stump up" funding for the accession to power of the National Socialist Party and its fearsome Chancellor. This inaugural scene sets the tone of consent which will lead to the worst possible repercussions.

Catherine wrestles with self-pity after a machine-shop accident. With her fiancé and brothers on the front lines in France, she must find a new way to fight on the home front. At her side are her steadfast GWR friends, among them Maggie, facing the loss of her father and family home, and Lily, desperate for news of her childhood sweetheart. All are determined to keep morale high and do their bit to win the war.

Harney County, Oregon, 1968: Nick Drake has a chest full of medals and enough demons to fill a duffel bag. He's been trained to kill but was never retrained to rejoin society. Drake flees to the lonesome high desert in search of redemption and takes a job patrolling wildlife refuges where the only conflicts are keeping out stray cows and ticketing poachers. But then he stumbles across a girl's body ritually placed in a gully. Her murder is only the beginning, and Drake must face humanity's heart of darkness once again if he's to stop a killer from turning even more gullies into graves.

A brutal siege. A forgotten heroine. A war-torn romance. And a historian determined to uncover the truth. Untold millions who saw Band of Brothers can finally know the whole story of what happened to American soldiers and civilians in Bastogne during that arduous Winter of 1944/45. In the television version of Band of Brothers, a passing reference is made to an African nurse assisting in an aid station in Bastogne. When military historian Martin King watched the episode, he had to know who that woman was; thus began a multi-year odyssey.

The "stirring," definitive history of America's decisive role in winning World War I (Wall Street Journal). The American contribution to World War I is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, and yet it has all but vanished from view. Historians have dismissed the American war effort...

Matt Stone rode into Markleeville one hot dusk, with a wind at his back that promised summer thunder. He was tall and lean, with a narrow, clean-shaven face above the collar of his oilskin duster. His eyes were a hard pale blue, like chips of ice, and his black hair was long like an Apache's and held back with a strip of leather. The coat was open, revealing a buckskin vest and the pair of silver Colts at his hips. He rode a huge, sleek black horse with a bullet scar showing in white hairs across one flank. Its name was Lucky.

The story of Texas Ranger Zack Branson continues when he is reassigned to El Paso, Texas. He collaborates with his cousin, US Marshal Cal Branson, to try to control the rustling and banditry on the border between the US and Mexico. Zack and Cal chase a group of Mexican bandits across the Rio Grande River, confront them in a cantina at a small pueblo, and get involved in a shootout. While Cal is honeymooning, Zack and El Paso County Sheriff White go after cattle rustlers that were busted out of jail. Who will walk away and who will die is uncertain until the last shot is fired.