Europe America

While the Great War raged across the trench-lined battlefields of Europe, a hidden conflict took place in the distant hinterlands of the turbulent Mexican Republic. German officials and secret-service operatives plotted to bring war to the United States through an array of schemes and strategies, from training a German-Mexican army for a cross-border invasion, to dispatching saboteurs to disrupt American industry, and planning for submarine bases on the western coast of Mexico.

This is the text of an address given by the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to the American Club in London on April 12, 1917, on the subject of America's declaration of war against Germany. Lloyd George stated that President Woodrow Wilson's decision to go to war would bring instant succor to the Allies already engaged in the war against Germany and its allies.

The Oak Island Enigma is a gripping history of the mystery of Oak Island and its "Money Pit". It details the early discoveries: the shaft with its platforms, the drainage tunnels from the ocean that fill the shaft with sea water, the many attempts to find what the construction hides and protects.

Some 70 years before the Mayflower sailed, a small group of English merchants formed the world's first joint-stock company. Back then, in the mid-16th century, England was a small and relatively insignificant kingdom on the periphery of Europe. Struggling with a single export - woolen cloth - the merchants were forced to seek new markets and trading partners. As this absorbing account shows, innovation and risk-taking were at the heart of the settlement of America, as was the profit motive.

The rousing story of Lafayette - “adopted son” of George Washington - and his vital role in the American Revolution. In this long-overdue history of Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, acclaimed French author Gonzague Saint Bris recounts Lafayette’s invaluable contributions to the American War of Independence and, later, the French Revolution of 1789.

Berlin, 1933. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered academic from Chicago, has, to his own and everyone else's surprise, become America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proves to be a turning point in history. Dodd and his family, most notably his vivacious daughter, Martha, observe at first-hand the many changes - some subtle, some disturbing, and some horrifically violent - that signal Hitler's consolidation of power. Dodd has little choice but to associate with key figures in the Nazi party.

In November 1861, the American Civil War was still a relatively young conflict, and both sides were still jockeying for the upper hand.

Il Seicento è definito dagli storici "il Secolo di ferro", perché secolo delle grandi guerre fra le Corone (come la sanguinosa e lunga Guerra dei Trent'anni), dei contrasti sociali, delle rivolte contadine e delle rivoluzioni (come quella di Cromwell), delle carestie, delle pestilenze, ma anche delle colonizzazioni delle Americhe da parte delle potenze marittime europee (Inghilterra, Spagna, Francia, Portogallo). È dunque un secolo caratterizzato da aspri conflitti (si pensi alla continuazione delle guerre di religione fra cattolici e protestanti) e numerose trasformazioni.

Many ancient civilizations have influenced and inspired people in the 21st century, and the Greeks and Romans continue to fascinate the West today, but of all the world’s civilizations, none have intrigued people more than the Mayans, whose culture, astronomy, language, and mysterious disappearance all continue to captivate people. In the past decade especially, there has been a renewed focus on the Mayans, whose advanced calendar led many to speculate the world would end on the same date the Mayan calendar ended in 2012.

The Wright Brothers initially underestimated the difficulties involved in flying, and they were apparently surprised by the fact that so many others were working on solving the “problem of human flight” already. Decades before their own historic plane would end up in the National Air & Space Museum, Wilbur and Orville asked the Smithsonian for reading materials and brushed up on everything from the works of their contemporaries to Leonardo Da Vinci.

Standing in history like a milestone marking the boundary between one era and the next, the Potsdam Conference brought together the leaders of the three major Allied powers - the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom - for the last time at the end of World War II and at the threshold of the Cold War. A follow up to the Yalta Conference just five months earlier, Potsdam attempted to work out the contours of the postwar world.

De entre todos los conflictos acaecidos en la historia de América, la guerra de 1812 es uno de los más singulares, y clave en el devenir americano. Fue una batalla llena de sorpresas e ironías - las debilidades de ambas partes en el conflicto a lo largo de los dos años de lucha constante terminarían por convertirse en sus respectivas fortalezas.

Creadas durante la Edad Media como instituciones socio económicas que promovían un trato justo en el cual los encomendados o siervos retribuían equitativamente en trabajo o especies a sus señores o encomenderos, las encomiendas se convirtieron en el eje de un sistema de trabajo forzado de los pueblos indígenas a favor de los conquistadores extranjeros a lo largo del proceso de colonización española de América y Filipinas.

Licenciado en Historia y Diplomado en Estudios Avanzados en la especialidad de Historia Moderna, Mario Escobar (1971-) ha escrito numerosos artículos y libros sobre la Inquisición, la Reforma Protestante y las sectas religiosas. Trabaja como director ejecutivo de una ONG y es director de la revista Nueva Historia para el Debate, colaborando como columnista en distintas publicaciones.

The notorious Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, the subject of multiple documentaries, movies, and other pop culture mediums, is remembered for its oppression, barbarous torture, and religious tyranny. It was roughly around this time that a period of European exploration began.

First printed in 1977, Cops and Bobbies has become "one of the two or three consensus classics in the history of police", according to Roger Lane, author of Murder in America. In this second edition, Wilbur R. Miller provides a new preface in which he discusses how police historiography changed in the 20 years after the book's initial publication.

Alcatraz, the Maze, Rikers, Bangkwang, Sabaneta, ADX Florence - the names alone can chill the blood. Along with La Santé, Diyarbakir, Tadmor, and Carandiru, these are 10 of the toughest prisons in the world. Their walls have housed those guilty of some of the most heinous crimes in history - and frequently served as virtual torture chambers for those whose only crime is to fight for their political beliefs. Some have been the scene of massacres and other atrocities, while others house their inmates in conditions judged inhumane and degrading.

In the summer of 1941, the Atlantic Charter marked the first of many meetings between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Charter laid out eight articles promoting ideals such as equality among nations and promising post-war freedom of the seas. It was ironic that in a conference concerning war aims, the United States was still a neutral country and the British were far from sure they could win the war against Germany.

En las profundidades de la selva amazónica, donde la ambición y la locura se entrelazan como raíces venenosas, Lope de Aguirre se alza no como un simple demente, sino como el reflejo más brutal de la conquista española. Este libro, una inmersión en la psique de un hombre que desafió imperios y sucumbió a sus propios demonios, revela cómo la violencia colonial forjó monstruos.

In Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic, historian Peter C. Mancall reveals how Europeans and Native Americans thought about a natural world undergoing rapid change in the century following the historic voyages of Christopher Columbus. Through innovative use of oral history and folklore maintained for centuries by Native Americans as well as original use of manuscript atlases, paintings that depict European representations of nature, and texts that circulated across the ocean, he reveals how the encounter between the old world and the new changed the fate of millions.