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China Road

Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.

The Loss of the Titanic

Learn more about the disaster that befell the Titanic and caused the untimely deaths of 1,517 passengers in this gripping first-hand account from survivor Lawrence Beesley. Originally published a mere nine weeks after one of the most profound maritime disasters in human history, The Loss of the Titanic shed new light on the tragedy and leveled troubling charges of classism against some of the rescuers.

The History of the Thirty Years' War

Tensions between Catholic and Protestant factions of the Roman Empire erupted into what became know as the Thirty Years' War in 1618. German poet, historian, philosopher and dramatist Friedrich Schiller writes about the effect this war had on the territories in which it was fought, most of which became modern-day Germany. Schiller wrote this history in part as a consequence of his interest in the freedom of man.

Blood and Religion

Former Guardian and Observer journalist explores the real reasons behind the Gaza pullout and the building of the West Bank wall -- arguing demography is the heart of the issue.

1491

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus’s landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness.

Their Finest Hour

"The second volume of Churchill's Nobel-Prize winning six-part chronicle of World War II. Their "finest hour" refers to Britain that struggled alone to survive overwhelming German advantage; detailed reconstruction of the bombing of London, the Battle of Britain. Churchill, here wartime Prime Minister, incorporate contemporary documentation and his own reminiscence."

The Monster of Florence

In the nonfiction tradition of John Berendt ("Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil") and Erik Larson ("The Devil in the White City"), New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence , Italy . In 2000, Douglas Preston fulfilled a dream to move his family to Italy. Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14 th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston , intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more. This is the true story of their search for--and identification of--the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy 's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster Of Florence , tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide-and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

Invictus

Soon to be a major motion picture from Academy Award(r)--winning director Clint Eastwood, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. After being released from prison and winning South Africa's first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: Use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodiment of white supremacist rule-to embody and engage a new South Africa as they prepared to host the 1995 World Cup. The string of wins that followed not only defied the odds, but capped Mandela's miraculous effort to bring South Africans together in a hard-won, enduring bond.

Helmet for My Pillow

Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war’s fiercest fighting took place.

Inside Delta Force

Now the inspiration for the CBS Television drama, "The Unit." Delta Force. They are the U.S. Army's most elite top-secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions, and no book has ever taken readers inside—until now.

Battle Cry of Freedom

Now featuring a new Afterword by the author, this handy paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War including the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. From there it moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering by each side, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict. The South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war, slavery, and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

A real-life tale of international intrigue and corruption, this work reveals the hidden mechanics of imperial control behind such major international events as the fall of the Shah, the death of Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, and the invasions of Panama and Iraq, as well as provides an inside view of the corrupt US-Saudi Arabian relationship.