War Years

George Arliss (1868-1946) was an actor, author, playwright, and filmmaker who decided to spend his retirement years during World War II in London, literally Ground-Zero for German bombers. He took care of his blind and seriously ill wife amidst nightly aerial assaults from Nazi planes, V-1 and V-2 rockets flying over their home. Throughout the bombardments, Arliss maintained a lively correspondence with his American friends who were safely located in the states. Now for the first time, the George Arliss wartime letters have been published and vividly echo the 21st century trauma endured by ...

Sprawling across the Pacific, this untold story follows the crew of the newly-built "vengeance ship" USS Astoria, named for her sunken predecessor lost earlier in the war. At its center lies US Navy Captain George Dyer, who vowed to return to action after suffering a horrific wound. He accepted the ship's command in 1944, knowing it would be his last chance to avenge his injuries and salvage his career. Yet with the nation's resources and personnel stretched thin by the war, he found that just getting the ship into action would prove to be a battle.

Twelve Years a Slave is the 1853 narrative of former slave Solomon Northup. He was born free in New York and kidnapped and sold into slavery. It was famously adapted for film in 2013.

In 1965, Col. Thomas "Jerry" Curtis's helicopter was shot down over North Vietnam. He was immediately captured and spent seven and a half years confined in a filthy cell at the notorious Hanoi prison camp. Thousands of miles from home and unable to communicate with his wife and children, Jerry endured months of solitary confinement, suffocating heat, freezing cold, grueling physical and psychological torture, constant hunger, and unimaginable mental duress.

In the fall of 1944, a massive American bomber carrying eleven men vanished over the Pacific islands of Palau, leaving a trail of mysteries. According to mission reports from the Army Air Forces, the plane crashed in shallow water - but when investigators went to find it, the wreckage wasn't there. Witnesses saw the crew parachute to safety, yet the airmen were never seen again. Some of their relatives whispered that they had returned to the United States in secret and lived in hiding. But they never explained why.

The 12 months known in history as the Year of the Four Emperors was a pivotal chapter in the long epoch of the Roman Empire. It marked the tumultuous end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the advent of a year of civil war, renewal and realignment, the result of which was the establishment of a new era and the founding of a new (and arguably more rational and responsible) imperial dynasty.

Are You Brave Enough to Face the Next Century? Read these decade-by-decade predictions for the future. In Final Warning, a fearless analysis of our world’s trajectory, the next hundred years (2025–2125) unfold as an unrelenting nightmare. This is nonfiction that reads like a political thriller, delivering relentless urgency and gut-wrenching revelations. Global capitalism is dying, and with it goes the stability of modern civilization. The dominoes are already falling, and no one will be spared in the fallout. Read it now, before reality catches up to these predictions: Constant warfare...

Based on a true story, Found at Sea is the account of how 19-year-old Pete O’Brien, while attempting to circumnavigate the globe, is interrupted on his journey by his arrest on drug charges in Bangkok, Thailand and incarcerated in a prison in the heart of that city, along as what follows when he is eventually deported to the custody of a U.S. Consul in Singapore. Once arrived there, he is offered employment aboard an American merchant vessel as an alternative to a flight back to the United States in disgrace and the day that he boards a consulate launch for a trip out into Singapore ...

In his 80s, Peter William Tremayne recounts 60 years of high-risk adventures from all corners of the world: as far south as Antarctica, as deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, as high as the peaks of the Himalaya, to name just a few. Often reckless, always challenging, Peter realizes it’s time to share his escapades before his luck, or time runs out. The incredible flying and climbing adventures of one of New Zealand’s most unique mountaineers and pilots, yet unsung and forgotten in his country of birth.

Robert E. Lee, one of the most famous figures in American history, vanished after his dramatic surrender at Appomattox. In fact, he lived only another five years, during which time he did more than any other American to heal the wounds between North and South during the tempestuous postwar period.

Rufus R. Dawes (1838-1899) was just 23 years old when the Civil War broke out. He became a captain in the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, one of the regiments forming the "Iron Brigade" of the Union Army of the Potomac. First published in 1890, this work records his regiment’s routine and operational actions, including Second Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Petersburg. Dawes also recorded details about daily camp life and individual soldiers.

1347 is a year of war and unrest. England's army is fighting in France, encouraging the Scots to invade their old enemy. Thomas of Hookton, sent back to England to follow an ancient trail which suggests his family once owned the Holy Grail, instead becomes embroiled in the savage fight when the Scots come to Durham. Out of the horror he finds a new companion for the quest, but also discovers a new enemy in a Dominican Inquisitor.

In the first of the three volumes of his projected comprehensive narrative history of the role of law in America from the colonial years through the twentieth century, G. Edward White takes up the central themes of American legal history from the earliest European settlements through the Civil War.

Chaplain James D. Johnson chose to accompany his men, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields - in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. Through his compelling narration, he takes us into the hearts of frightened young boys and the minds of experienced men.

Diana Jean Schemo covered the Air Force Academy's sexual assault scandal in 2003, one of a series of academy embarrassments that have included drug use, rape complaints, and charges of evangelical officers pushing Christianity on cadets of all faiths. Today, the institution is in flux - a fascinating time to look at the changes being made and the experience of today's cadets. Schemo followed a handful of academy cadets through the school year. From the admissions process and basic training to graduation.

The final volume of Taylor Branch's monumental, much honored, and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement (America in the King Years), At Canaan's Edge covers the final years of King's struggle to hold his non-violent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement, hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration, the country torn apart by Vietnam, and his own attempt (and failure) to take the Freedom Movement north.

Captain Alatriste is the story of a fictional 17th-century Spanish soldier who, after being wounded in battle during the Thirty Years' War, is forced to retire from the army. Now he lives the comparatively tame, though hardly quiet, life of a swordsman-for-hire in Madrid. Approached with an offer of work, Alatriste is told to go with another hired blade to an unfamiliar part of the city at midnight and wait.

The opening years of the French and Indian War were disastrous for the British. Hindered by quarrelsome provincial councils, incompetent generals, and the redcoats' inability to adapt to wilderness warfare, Britain was losing the war. Learning that most of Britain's military resources were allocated to Louisbourg, the French launched a campaign along the weakened frontier. French Commander Louis-Joseph de Montcalm and his American Indian allies laid siege to Fort William Henry; Monro could not hold out and was forced to surrender.

Nazis & Reds: A Chronology of the Prewar Years, is the first installment in The Protocols series, a series chronicling the rise of authoritarianism in the modern era from the Industrial Revolution to the implementation of the Final Solution in January 1942. The focus of Nazis & Reds is primarily the 1930s, a decade remarkably similar to our own. Like all the books in the series, Nazis & Reds is the continuing story of people caught in events. It is composed of carefully annotated excerpts taken from diaries, memoirs, newspaper and magazine articles, speeches, trial records, situation ...

In the chaos and confusion following the defeat of English army at Bannockburn, the northern counties of England came under immediate and grave risk of attack by the victorious Scottish forces under Robert Bruce. With the English now demoralised and in disarray, the defence of the border counties fell to those lords whose lands were at greatest risk. In many cases they paid “tribute” to the Scots for their lands to be protected. But in Carlisle and the two counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, the English fought back. The Constable of Carlisle, a city that had once been a part of ...