Eastern World History

German tanks rolled unimpeded across the Russian steppes at the start of Hitler’s campaign against the Soviet Union. But in 1943, the so-called Slavic "untermensch" (subhumans) gain the initiative and transform the country into a hell for Hitler’s invasion forces. Nearly 100,000 Germans are captured after the Battle of Stalingrad at the beginning of the year. Ahead lies cold, hunger and ill-treatment, and only five percent of prisoners will return to Germany after the war.

Embark on a Captivating Journey through the Epochs of Human History.

In a forgotten chapter of history, 1.5 million Polish civilians - arbitrarily arrested by Stalin as enemies of the people following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 - were deported to slave-labor camps throughout the most inhospitable forests and steppes of the Soviet Union. The Ice Road is the gripping story of young Stefan Waydenfeld and his family, deported by cattle car in 1940 to the frozen wastes of the Russian arctic north.

Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.

No longer war, but not yet peace. A fascinating journey through 12 months of fear, hope, euphoria, and disappointment. A journalistic story about the most dramatic year of the 20th century. Grzebałkowska examines the fate of the last living witnesses of that time. She gives voices to the victims, but also the oppressors, especially when she can use them to show the post-war blending of roles and fates. 1945: War and Peace won the 2016 Nike Literary Audience Award.

At the conference held in Moscow in October 1943, American officials proposed to their Soviet allies a new operation in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany. The Normandy Invasion was already in the works; what American officials were suggesting until then was a second air front: The US Air Force would establish bases in Soviet-controlled territory, in order to "shuttle-bomb" the Germans from the Eastern front. Stalin, recalling the presence of foreign troops during the Russian Revolution, balked at the suggestion of foreign soldiers on Soviet soil.

Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, is one of the most famous events of Western history. It inaugurated the Protestant Reformation and has for centuries been a powerful and enduring symbol of religious freedom of conscience and of righteous protest against the abuse of power. But did it actually really happen? In this engagingly written, wide-ranging, and insightful work of cultural history, leading Reformation historian Peter Marshall reviews the available evidence and concludes that very probably, it did not.

After decades of concealing the full account of her experiences, Holocaust survivor Beatrice Sonders (Basia Gadzuik) writes her story of survival and courage in the face of ultimate horrors.

Dr Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist, specialising in forensic techniques to research the paths of Vikings who came to rest in British soil. By examining teeth that are now more than 1,000 years old, she can determine childhood diet and thereby where a person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain a death date down to the range of a few years. And her research offers new visions of the likely roles of women and children in Viking culture.

In the past the elders had encyclopaedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across the landscape and the stars in the sky, too. Yet most of us struggle to memorise more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines as the key, Lynne Kelly has identified the powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world.

In 1949, a newly minted branch of the CIA (the precursor of today’s National Clandestine Service), flush with money and burning with determination to roll back the Iron Curtain, embarked on the first paramilitary operation in the history of the agency. They hatched an elaborate plan, coordinated with the British Secret Intelligence Service, to foment popular rebellion and detach Albania, the weakest of the Soviet satellites in Europe, from Moscow’s orbit. The operation resulted in dismal failure and was shut down by 1954.

Rare eyewitness account of early, chaotic days of WWII - Nazi invasion of Poland, Siege of Warsaw, and first months of Occupation - written by a young working mother. Rulka Langer's eye for detail and lively storytelling bring to life, from her unique vantage point, the opening chapter of the struggle between good and evil which ultimately engulfed the entire globe.

Der Großvater erzählt dem Enkel vom Krieg - so wie er ihn erlebt hat - ohne Umschweife und verklärten Pathos. Die Fehler der Herrschenden werden stets von den einfachen Leuten mit Blut bezahlt. Das war schon zu allen Zeiten so. Nicht anders erging es einem steirischen Bergbauernsohn, der, in der Blüte seiner Jugend stehend, in den Fleischwolf der Ostfront geschmissen wurde. Das in einer Phase, wo der Krieg für das Dritte Reich so gut wie verloren war. Im Greisenalter erinnert sich der Bergbauernsohn an jene dunklen Stunden zurück, die ihn Zeit seines Lebens verfolgt haben.

Immediately after the armistice was signed in November, 1918, an American journalist asked Paul von Hindenburg who won the war against Germany. He was the chief of the German General Staff, co-architect with Erich Ludendorff of Germany's Eastern Front victories and its nearly war-winning Western Front offensives, and he did not hesitate in his answer. "The American infantry," he said. He made it even more specific, telling the reporter that the final death blow for Germany was delivered by "the American infantry in the Argonne."

Por mas de dos siglos, El arte de la guerra ha sido la guía mas completa de estrategia militar. Un clásico de la literatura china, se ha convertido en lectura esencial para quienes buscan el éxito, tanto en la vida personal como en los negocios.

From the prize-winning author of Ring of Steel, a gripping history of the First World War's longest and most terrible siege. In the autumn of 1914 Europe was at war. The battling powers had already suffered casualties on a scale previously unimaginable. On both the Western and Eastern fronts elaborate war plans lay in ruins and had been discarded in favour of desperate improvisation. In the West this resulted in the remorseless world of the trenches; in the East all eyes were focused on the old, beleaguered Austro-Hungarian fortress of Przemysl.

The Saga of the Most Mysterious Queen of Ancient Egypt Explore the Legend of Nefertiti! This exciting omnibus contains all four of M.L. Bullock's Desert Queen books--now in one big bundle!The Tale of Nefret Twin daughters of an ancient Bedouin king struggle under the weight of an ominous prophecy that threatens to divide them forever. Royal sibling rivalry explodes as the young women realize that they must fight for their future and for the love of Alexio, the man they both love. The Tale of Nefret chronicles their lives as they travel in two different directions. One sister becomes the ...

In the classic tradition of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, here for the first time in English is the timeless wisdom of China's greatest emperor, Tang Taizong (AD 598-649), which will show anyone who leads or manages how to achieve unparalleled results and an enduring legacy.

If the history of the Eastern Han dynasty were limited to the accomplishments of its scholars, scientists, and inventors, it would be a glorious saga of the innovation and creativity of the human mind. Anesthesia was first used during surgical procedures in the years of the Eastern Han emperors, earthquake tremors were measured, and perhaps, most remarkable of all, a process for manufacturing paper was developed by a eunuch of the imperial court.

This book tells the stories of the Muslims, Christians, Jews and others who made a courageous stand against the mass slaughter of Ottoman Armenians in 1915, the first modern genocide. Foreigners and Ottomans alike ran considerable risks to bear witness and rescue victims, sometimes sacrificing their lives. Diplomats, humanitarians, missionaries, lawyers and other visitors to the Empire stood up, including Tolstoy's daughter, Alexandra; Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who first established genocide as an international crime; and the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen.