World History

Day of Infamy is Walter Lord's gripping, vivid re-creation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941. The listener accompanies Admiral Nagumo's task force as it sweeps toward Hawaii; looks on while warning after warning is ignored on Oahu; and is enmeshed in the panic, confusion, and heroism of the final attack.

For thousands of years, we have set out sailing for all kinds of reasons - for battle, for infinite wealth, for the excitement of exploring the unknown, and for escape from the mundane. We have always had a primal relationship with the sea - even those who have never been to sea remain fascinated by the seafaring life and tales of salty adventure. Now in a brand–new series collection, The Best Sailing Stories Ever Told brings together such diverse authors as Charles Dickens, Jack London, John Masefield, Stephen Crane, Herman Melville, and dozens more.

From his perspective in Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli's aim in this classic work was to resolve conflict with the ruling prince, Lorenzo de Medici. Machiavelli based his insights on the way people really are rather than an ideal of how they should be. This is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power. Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince, a king, or a president.

A sweeping and revelatory new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists. ""THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY."" — Scientific American The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s...

In this groundbreaking work, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. It is a story that spans 13,000 years of human history, beginning when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life.

In 2009, three US professors with access to Adolf Hitler’s alleged remains startled the world with scientific DNA proof that the skull and bones that Russia had claimed since the end of World War II were Hitler’s actually belonged to a middle-aged woman whose identity remains unknown.

Limber up, ready the troops, and prepare your bowels: Rivals 3! Even More Frenemies Who Changed the World takes a hilarious look at the petty squabbles and bitter feuds that shaped history.

Since the secret of Bletchley Park was revealed in the 1970s, the work of its codebreakers has become one of the most famous stories of the Second World War. But cracking the Nazis' codes was only the start of the process. Thousands of secret intelligence workers were then involved in making crucial information available to the Allied leaders and commanders who desperately needed it.

Livingstone's first book revolutionized the way European readers saw Africa and made him a hero in England. He returned again to the Zambesi with his brother Charles and others, this time with more equipment and funds. Again he faced hippopotami, crocodiles, impossible terrain, and disease, but his greatest enemies on this trip prove to be human. The British eventually lost faith in the expedition, but Livingstone proved in the end to have had tremendous foresight.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world...

In this entertaining and enlightening guide, best-selling historian Philip Matyszak introduces us to the people who lived and worked there. In each hour of the day we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.

Long before the pyramids rose from the sands of Egypt or Rome’s legions marched across Europe, a great river civilization stirred beneath the vast skies of East Asia. Along the banks of the Yellow River, where floods carved both destruction and fertility into the earth, humanity planted the seeds of the world’s oldest continuous civilization. This is not merely the story of a nation—it is a saga spanning over five thousand years, a chronicle of emperors and rebels, poets and warriors, philosophers and visionaries, whose dreams shaped not just a people, but the very soul of human endurance.

When Autobiography of a Yogi first appeared in 1946, it was acclaimed as a landmark work in its field. The New York Times hailed it as "a rare account". Newsweek pronounced it "fascinating". The San Francisco Chronicle declared, "Yogananda presents a convincing case for yoga, and those who 'came to scoff' may remain 'to pray." Today it is still one of the most widely read and respected books ever published on the wisdom of the East.

You think you know about Christmas celebrations? Get ready to discover the truth behind it all! You just need an audiobook that reveals how almost every "timeless" tradition is a product of invention, pagan rituals, and brilliant marketing.

In 1900, an 18-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol, inspired by raucous late-night conversations at the Lapin Agile cabaret, Picasso and his friends resolved to shake up the world.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth, and ancient monasteries built over 1,000 years ago. Shehadeh’s love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography.

Relive the magic of captivating legends and folktales in this rich collection on Celtic Mythology. In 58 BCE, when Julius Caesar – the famous Roman general – wrote a commentary on the Gallic wars, he described the “Celt” speaking people who lived in the area then known as the Gaul. These people had their own culture, gods, and beliefs – called Celtic Mythology – which were very different from the Romans. The influence of this mythology, however, was not limited to a small territory.

This book is considered a prophetical novel foretelling the advent of nuclear weapons. A constant theme in Wells’ work, such as his 1901 nonfiction book Anticipations, was the role of energy and technological advance as a determinant of human progress. The novel opens with this: "The story of mankind is the history of the attainment of external power. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal...."

A propulsive, never-before-told story of one family’s shocking involvement as Nazi and Japanese spies during WWII and the pivotal role they played in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It began with a letter from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. World War II. Nazi spies. Christine...

When people think of the Holocaust, they think of Auschwitz, of Dachau; and when they think of justice for this terrible chapter in history, they think of Nuremberg. Not of Russia or the Ukraine, and certainly not a town called Kharkov. But in reality, the first war-crimes trial against the Nazis was in this idyllic, peaceful Ukrainian city, which is fitting, because it is also where the Holocaust actually began.