Best of
European-History

2015

KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps


Nikolaus Wachsmann - 2015
    The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone." In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning


Timothy Snyder - 2015
    Based on new sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think, and thus all the more terrifying.The Holocaust began in a dark but accessible place, in Hitler's mind, with the thought that the elimination of Jews would restore balance to the planet and allow Germans to win the resources they desperately needed. Such a worldview could be realized only if Germany destroyed other states, so Hitler's aim was a colonial war in Europe itself. In the zones of statelessness, almost all Jews died. A few people, the righteous few, aided them, without support from institutions. Much of the new research in this book is devoted to understanding these extraordinary individuals. The almost insurmountable difficulties they faced only confirm the dangers of state destruction and ecological panic. These men and women should be emulated, but in similar circumstances few of us would do so.  By overlooking the lessons of the Holocaust, Snyder concludes, we have misunderstood modernity and endangered the future. The early twenty-first century is coming to resemble the early twentieth, as growing preoccupations with food and water accompany ideological challenges to global order. Our world is closer to Hitler's than we like to admit, and saving it requires us to see the Holocaust as it was -- and ourselves as we are.  Groundbreaking, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Black Earth reveals a Holocaust that is not only history but warning.

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire


Roger Crowley - 2015
    But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire. In an astonishing blitz of thirty years, a handful of visionary and utterly ruthless empire builders, with few resources but breathtaking ambition, attempted to seize the Indian Ocean, destroy Islam and take control of world trade.Told with Roger Crowley's customary skill and verve, this is narrative history at its most vivid - an epic tale of navigation, trade and technology, money and religious zealotry, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, courage and terrifying brutality. Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts, it brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors - men such as Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire - who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and unleashed the forces of globalisation.

Ardennes Sniper


David Healey - 2015
    As German forces launch a massive surprise attack through the frozen Ardennes Forest, two snipers find themselves aiming for a rematch. Caje Cole is a backwoods hunter from the Appalachian Mountains of the American South, while Kurt Von Stenger is the deadly German “Ghost Sniper.” Having been in each other’s crosshairs before, they fight a final duel during Germany’s desperate attempt to turn the tide of war in what will come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Can the hunter defeat the marksman? Even in the midst of war, some battles are personal.

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine


Serhii Plokhy - 2015
    But today’s conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign nation. As award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine’s past in order to understand its fraught present and likely future.Situated between Europe, Russia, and the Asian East, Ukraine was shaped by the empires that have used it as a strategic gateway between East and West—from the Romans and Ottomans to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, all have engaged in global fights for supremacy on Ukrainian soil. Each invading army left a lasting mark on the landscape and on the population, making modern Ukraine an amalgam of competing cultures.

Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949


David Cesarani - 2015
    Based on decades of scholarship, documentation newly available from the opening of Soviet archives, declassification of Western intelligence service records, as well as diaries and reports written in the camps, Cesarani provides a sweeping reappraisal that challenges accepted explanations for the anti-Jewish politics of Nazi Germany and the inevitability of the “final solution.” The persecution of the Jews, as Cesarani sees it, was not always the Nazis’ central preoccupation, nor was it inevitable. He shows how, in German-occupied countries, it unfolded erratically, often due to local initiatives. For Cesarani, war was critical to the Jewish fate. Military failure denied the Germans opportunities to expel Jews into a distant territory and created a crisis of resources that led to the starvation of the ghettos and intensified anti-Jewish measures. Looking at the historical record, he disputes the iconic role of railways and deportation trains. From prisoner diaries, he exposes the extent of sexual violence and abuse of Jewish women and follows the journey of some Jewish prisoners to displaced persons camps. David Cesarani’s Final Solution is the new standard chronicle of the fate of a heroic people caught in the hell that was Hitler’s Germany.

The House by the Lake: A Story of Germany


Thomas Harding - 2015
    It had been her ‘soul place’ as a child, she said – a holiday home for her and her family, but much more – a sanctuary, a refuge. In the 1930s, she had been forced to leave the house, fleeing to England as the Nazis swept to power. The trip, she said, was a chance to see it one last time, to remember it as it was. But the house had changed. Nearly twenty years later Thomas returned to the house. It was government property now, derelict, and soon to be demolished. It was his legacy, one that had been loved, abandoned, fought over – a house his grandmother had desired until her death. Could it be saved? And should it be saved?He began to make tentative enquiries – speaking to neighbours and villagers, visiting archives, unearthing secrets that had lain hidden for decades. Slowly he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived there – a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widower and her children, a Stasi informant. All had made the house their home, and all – bar one – had been forced out. The house had been the site of domestic bliss and of contentment, but also of terrible grief and tragedy. It had weathered storms, fires and abandonment, witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war, and the dividing of a nation.As the story of the house began to take shape, Thomas realized that there was a chance to save it – but in doing so, he would have to resolve his own family’s feelings towards their former homeland – and a hatred handed down through the generations.The House by the Lake is a groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany over a tumultuous century, told through the story of a small wooden house. Breathtaking in scope, intimate in its detail, it is the long-awaited new history from the author of the bestselling Hanns and Rudolf.

Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide


Eric Bogosian - 2015
    In 1921, a tightly knit band of killers set out to avenge the deaths of almost one million victims of the Armenian Genocide. They were a humble bunch: an accountant, a life insurance salesman, a newspaper editor, an engineering student, and a diplomat. Together they formed one of the most effective assassination squads in history. They named their operation Nemesis, after the Greek goddess of retribution. The assassins were survivors, men defined by the massive tragedy that had devastated their people. With operatives on three continents, the Nemesis team killed six major Turkish leaders in Berlin, Constantinople, Tiflis, and Rome, only to disband and suddenly disappear. The story of this secret operation has never been fully told, until now. Eric Bogosian goes beyond simply telling the story of this cadre of Armenian assassins by setting the killings in the context of Ottoman and Armenian history, as well as showing in vivid color the era's history, rife with political fighting and massacres. Casting fresh light on one of the great crimes of the twentieth century and one of history's most remarkable acts of vengeance, Bogosian draws upon years of research and newly uncovered evidence. Operation Nemesis is the result -- both a riveting read and a profound examination of evil, revenge, and the costs of violence.

A History of Eastern Europe


Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius - 2015
    It has also been, and continues to be, pivotal in the course of world events. A History of Eastern Europe offers a sweeping 1,000-year tour with a particular focus on the region's modern history. In 24 insightful lectures, you'll observe waves of migration and invasion, watch empires rise and fall, witness wars and their deadly consequences - and come away with comprehensive knowledge of one of the world's most fascinating places.In examining this region's remarkable diversity and contested borders, you'll better understand the ever-present tension between the connections between East and West and the areas of marked contrast. These disparities were clear as the world globalized and the US and Soviet superpowers jockeyed for spheres of influence - epitomized by the imposition of the Iron Curtain across Europe and the rise of the Berlin Wall. And yet, throughout the 20th century and into current times, the connectedness of Eastern Europe to the rest of the world continues to be demonstrated beyond question. This region has made itself felt across the globe through:The political and cultural reverberations of peace movements and armed conflictsThe crises of huge population migrations and the new expressions of cultural and economic exchange they sparkThe successes and struggles of NATO and the European Union And more Explore the grand sweep of this epic history, from a series of early invasions to the rise of empires to the collapse of communism and into the new challenges of the 21st century. Meet brilliant poets, writers, artists, and other cultural figures who made an impact on Eastern European history.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia


Barry Cunliffe - 2015
    Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. An unashamedly big history, it charts the development of European, Near Eastern, and Chinese civilizations and the growing links between them by way of the Indian Ocean, the silk Roads, and the great steppe corridor (which crucially allowed horse riders to travel from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain within a year). Along the way, it is also the story of the rise and fall of empires, the development of maritime trade, and the shattering impact of predatory nomads on their urbanneighbours. Above all, as this immense historical panorama unfolds, we begin to see in clearer focus those basic underlying factors - the acquisitive nature of humanity, the differing environments in which people live, and the dislocating effect of even slight climatic variation - which have driven change throughout the ages, and which help us better understand our world today.

Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel


Daniel Allen Butler - 2015
    In France in 1940, then for two years in North Africa, then finally back in France again, at Normandy in 1944, he proved himself a master of armored warfare, running rings around a succession of Allied generals who never got his measure and could only resort to overwhelming numbers to bring about his defeat.And yet for all his military genius, Rommel was also naive, a man who could admire Adolf Hitler at the same time that he despised the Nazis, dazzled by a Führer whose successes blinded him to the true nature of the Third Reich. Above all, he was the quintessential German patriot, who ultimately would refuse to abandon his moral compass, so that on one pivotal day in June 1944 he came to understand that he had mistakenly served an evil man and evil cause. He would still fight for Germany even as he abandoned his oath of allegiance to the Führer, when he came to realize that Hitler had morphed into nothing more than an agent of death and destruction. In the end Erwin Rommel was forced to die by his own hand, not because, as some would claim, he had dabbled in a tyrannicidal conspiracy, but because he had committed a far greater crime – he dared to tell Adolf Hitler the truth.In Field Marshal historian Daniel Allen Butler not only describes the swirling, innovative campaigns in which Rommel won his military reputation, but assesses the temper of the man who finally fought only for his country, and no dark depths beyond.

Letters to Alice


Rosie James - 2015
    It’s a completely different from her quiet old world, but she’s determined to do her part. And the back-breaking work is made bearable with the help from her two new friends - bold, outspoken Fay and quiet, guarded Evie - and the letters that arrive from her childhood friend, Sam Carmichael...To Alice, Sam was always more than just a friend, but as the son of her wealthy employer, she never dared dream he could be more… But at least ever letter brings reassurance that he’s still alive and fighting on the frontline... Because it’s when all goes quiet on the letter front that nothing seems certain and it’s a reminder of how life – and hearts – are so fragile. A tale of true courage and the power of sheer determination, this un-put-downable WWII set saga is filled with warmth, humour and heart-wrenching emotion. Perfect for fans of Nadine Dorries, Katie Flynn and Dilly Court.

A Realm Divided: England in 1215


Dan Jones - 2015
    Weakened by the loss of Normandy, King John faced insurrection by his disgruntled barons. With the assistance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, they drew up a list of their demands. In June, in a quiet Thames-side water-meadow, John attached his regal seal - under oath - to a charter that set limits on regal power. In return, the barons renewed their vows of fealty. Groundbreaking though 'Magna Carta' was, it had scant immediate impact as England descended into civil war that would still be raging when John died the following year. Dan Jones's vivid account of the vicissitudes of feudal power politics and the workings of 13th-century government is interwoven with a exploration of the lives of ordinary people: how and where they worked, what they wore, what they ate, and what role the Church played in their lives.

When the Facts Change: Essays, 1995-2010


Tony Judt - 2015
    Some of Judt’s most prominent and indeed controversial essays felt outside of the scope of Reappraisals, most notably his writings on the state of Israel and its relationship to Palestine. There would be time, it was thought, to fit these essays into a larger frame. Sadly, this would not be the case, at least during the author’s own life. Now, in When the Facts Change, Tony Judt’s widow and fellow historian, Jennifer Homans, has found the frame, gathering together important essays from the span of Judt’s career that chronicle both the evolution of his thought and the remarkable consistency of his passionate engagement and intellectual élan. Whether the subject is the scholarly poverty of the new social history, the willful blindness of French collective memory about what happened to the country’s Jews during World War II, or the moral challenge to Israel of the so-called Palestinian problem, the majesty of Tony Judt’s work lies in his combination of unsparing honesty, intellectual brilliance, and ethical clarity. When the Facts Change exemplifies the utility, indeed the necessity, of minding our history and not letting cheerful fictions suffice in its place. An emphatic demonstration of the power of a great historian to connect us more deeply to the world as it was, as it is, and as it should be, it is a fitting capstone to an extraordinary body of work.

The Third Reich in History and Memory


Richard J. Evans - 2015
    In this brilliant and eye-opening collection, Richard J. Evans, the acclaimed author of the Third Reich trilogy, offers a criticalcommentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in recent years.Drawing on his most notable writings from the last two decades, Evans reveals the shifting perspectives on Nazism's rise to political power, its economic intricacies, and its subterranean extension into postwar Germany. Evans considers how the Third Reich is increasingly viewed in a broaderinternational context, as part of the age of imperialism; discusses the growing emphasis on the larger economic and cultural circumstances of the era; and emphasizes the development of research into Nazi society, particularly in the understanding of Nazi Germany as a political system based onpopular approval and consent. Exploring the complex relationship between memory and history, Evans also points out the places where the growing need to confront the misdeeds of Nazism and expose the complicity of those who participated has led to crude and sweeping condemnation, when insteadhistorians should be making careful distinctions.Written with Evans' sharp-eyed insight and characteristically compelling style, these essays offer a summation of the collective cultural memory of Nazism in the present, and suggest the degree to which memory must be subjected to the close scrutiny of history.

Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp


Leonard Berney - 2015
    T.D. is the only book to be published that recounts the events that led up to the British Army’s uncovering of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and its 60,000 prisoners, how the Army dealt with the unprecedented horror that existed in the camp, how the surviving prisoners were rescued, how the inmates were evacuated, how the Royal Army Medical Corps established the world’s largest hospital to care for the many thousands of sick and emaciated ex-inmates, how the survivors were rehabilitated and cared for, how they were repatriated to their own countries, why many thousand refused to return ‘home’ and the eventual establishment of the Belsen Displaced Persons camp, the largest DP camp in Germany. The author of this book was a senior British Army officer who participated in the liberation of the Camp, who was in charge of evacuating the ex-prisoners to the vast Rehabilitation Camp that the Army set up, and who was then appointed as the Commandant of that Camp until its management was handed over to the United Nations, and who gave evidence against the SS guards at the Belsen War Crimes Trial. Forewords by Nanette Blitz Konig, Belsen survivor and former classmate of Anne Frank, and Major-General Nicholas Eeles CBE, with the introduction by the Oscar®-nominated film director, Joshua Oppenheimer.

The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908 - 1923


Sean McMeekin - 2015
    As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the “wars of the Ottoman succession,” we know far less than we think. The Ottoman Endgame brings to light the entire strategic narrative that led to an unstable new order in postwar Middle East—much of which is still felt today.The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East draws from McMeekin’s years of groundbreaking research in newly opened Ottoman and Russian archives. With great storytelling flair, McMeekin makes new the epic stories we know from the Ottoman front, from Gallipoli to the exploits of Lawrence in Arabia, and introduces a vast range of new stories to Western readers. His accounts of the lead-up to World War I and the Ottoman Empire’s central role in the war itself offers an entirely new and deeper vision of the conflict. Harnessing not only Ottoman and Russian but also British, German, French, American, and Austro-Hungarian sources, the result is a truly pioneering work of scholarship that gives full justice to a multitiered war involving many belligerents. McMeekin also brilliantly reconceives our inherited Anglo-French understanding of the war’s outcome and the collapse of the empire that followed. The book chronicles the emergence of modern Turkey and the carve-up of the rest of the Ottoman Empire as it has never been told before, offering a new perspective on such issues as the ethno-religious bloodletting and forced population transfers which attended the breakup of empire, the Balfour Declaration, the toppling of the caliphate, and the partition of Iraq and Syria—bringing the contemporary consequences into clear focus.Every so often, a work of history completely reshapes our understanding of a subject of enormous historical and contemporary importance. The Ottoman Endgame is such a book, an instantly definitive and thrilling example of narrative history as high art.

The Great Siege of Malta: The Epic Battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Knights of St. John


Bruce Ware Allen - 2015
    John and their charismatic Grand Master, Jean de Valette. The Knights had been expelled from Rhodes by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and now stood as the last bastion against a Muslim invasion of Sicily, southern Italy, and beyond. The siege force of Turks, Arabs, and Barbary corsairs from across the Muslim world outnumbered the defenders of Malta many times over, and its arrival began a long hot summer of bloody combat, often hand to hand, embroiling knights and mercenaries, civilians and slaves, in a desperate struggle for this pivotal point in the Mediterranean.Bruce Ware Allen's The Great Siege of Malta describes the siege's geopolitical context, explains its strategies and tactics, and reveals how the all-too-human personalities of both Muslim and Christian leaders shaped the course of events. The siege of Malta was the Ottoman empire's high-water mark in the war between the Christian West and the Muslim East for control of the Mediterranean. Drawing on copious research and new source material, Allen stirringly recreates the two factions' heroism and chivalry, while simultaneously tracing the barbarism, severity, and indifference to suffering of sixteenth-century warfare.The Great Siege of Malta is a fresh, vivid retelling of one of the most famous battles of the early modern world--a battle whose echoes are still felt today.

Til We Meet Again: A Memoir of Love and War


Ray Whipps - 2015
    The two met when Betty tended to Ray after he was injured in a mortar blast. Both strong Christians, the two bonded over their shared faith, and as Betty nursed Ray back to health, they fell in love and vowed to marry after the war. However, soon after Ray returned to his unit, he was captured by German forces and held captive in Stalag VII, Germany’s largest prisoner of war camp. It was there that Ray’s faith was put to the ultimate test as he endured the most horrific weeks of his life—weeks marked by brutality, malnutrition, back-breaking labor, and near-constant death. The only thing that kept him alive was the dream of someday reuniting with Betty.Told in first person from Ray’s perspective, with personal wartime letters from Betty interspersed throughout, ’Til We Meet Again is a sweeping love story set amid the backdrop of WWII. The perfect combination of “in the trenches” battlefield accounts and classic 1940s romance, this memoir reads almost like a novel. It is an epic story of faith, hope, and love, and a nostalgic look back at one of the most memorable periods in American history.

Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts


Caroline Heller - 2015
    In Part I, Heller depicts the lives of her mother, father, uncle, and their close friends, who were all at the center of the Jewish literary and intellectual cafe culture in Prague during the 1930’s. Heller recreates the time and place in vivid detail—the expressions and clothing, the dialogue and gestures, thoughts, and emotions; her extensive historical knowledge transformed into a gripping narrative. As Hitler’s power continues to grow, the world and culture Heller’s family and friends treasured is destroyed forever, and they are all forced to flee the country and continent. Heller’s father, however, is captured at the border and imprisoned in Buchenwald for six years: his powerful letters to Heller’s mother and uncle form the centerpiece of the book.Part II begins at Caroline’s birth, and follows her childhood and coming of age, as she struggles to understand the mysteries of her parents’ lives, and her own life’s relation to the momentous historical events that shaped her family’s story. Poignant and moving, Heller’s memoir is a family history that reimagines the possibilities of the genre, a book for anyone who ever longed to know what life was like for our family and loved ones, in a world very different from our own.

Revolutions: The French Revolution (Revolutions, #3)


Mike Duncan - 2015
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The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution


Timothy Tackett - 2015
    Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights. How and why did the French Revolution's lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror?The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution offers a new interpretation of this turning point in world history. Timothy Tackett traces the inexorable emergence of a culture of violence among the Revolution's political elite amid the turbulence of popular uprisings, pervasive subversion, and foreign invasion. Violence was neither a preplanned strategy nor an ideological imperative but rather the consequence of multiple factors of the Revolutionary process itself, including an initial breakdown in authority, the impact of the popular classes, and a cycle of rumors, denunciations, and panic fed by fear--fear of counterrevolutionary conspiracies, fear of anarchy, fear of oneself becoming the target of vengeance. To comprehend the coming of the Terror, we must understand the contagion of fear that left the revolutionaries themselves terrorized.Tackett recreates the sights, sounds, and emotions of the Revolution through the observations of nearly a hundred men and women who experienced and recorded it firsthand. Penetrating the mentality of Revolutionary elites on the eve of the Terror, he reveals how suspicion and mistrust escalated and helped propel their actions, ultimately consuming them and the Revolution itself.

Behind Nazi Lines: My Father's Heroic Quest to Save 149 World War II POWs


Andrew Gerow Hodges - 2015
    The odds of their survival were long. The odds of escaping, even longer. But one-man had the courage to fight the odds . . . An elite British S.A.S. operative on an assassination mission gone wrong. A Jewish New Yorker injured in a Nazi ambush. An eighteen-year-old Gary Cooper lookalike from Mobile, Alabama. These men and hundreds of other soldiers found themselves in the prisoner-of-war camps off the Atlantic coast of occupied France, fighting brutal conditions and unsympathetic captors. But, miraculously, local villagers were able to smuggle out a message from the camp, one that reached the Allies and sparked a remarkable quest by an unlikely—and truly inspiring—hero. Andy Hodges had been excluded from military service due to a lingering shoulder injury from his college-football days. Devastated but determined, Andy refused to sit at home while his fellow Americans risked their lives, so he joined the Red Cross, volunteering for the toughest assignments on the most dangerous battlefields. In the fall of 1944, Andy was tapped for what sounded like a suicide mission: a desperate attempt to aid the Allied POWs in occupied France—alone and unarmed, matching his wits against the Nazi war machine. Despite the likelihood of failure, Andy did far more than deliver much-needed supplies. By the end of the year, he had negotiated the release of an unprecedented 149 prisoners—leaving no one behind. This is the true story of one man’s selflessness, ingenuity, and victory in the face of impossible adversity.

The Weight of Freedom


Nate Leipciger - 2015
    After the war. The words blended into the clang of the wheels. Would there ever be an end to the war?"Nate Leipciger, a thoughtful, shy eleven-year-old boy, is plunged into an incomprehensible web of ghettos, concentration and death camps during the German occupation of Poland. As he struggles to survive, he forges a new, unbreakable bond with his father and yearns for a free future. But when he is finally liberated, the weight of his pain will not ease, and his memories remain etched in tragedy. Introspective, complicated and raw, The Weight of Freedom is Nate's journey through a past that he can never leave behind.

Thirteen Years at the Russian Court


Pierre Gilliard - 2015
    

A Cup of Honey: The Story of a Young Holocaust Survivor, Eliezer Ayalon


Neile Sue Friedman - 2015
    I told him that I had not been able to tell my story. He said that it was my obligation to speak out and to tell the world about the Holocaust. He told me that I had survived for a reason-to tell the world what had happened to my family and to me. Suddenly I remembered that my mother had once told me the same thing-that it was beshert, or meant to be, that I survive to tell the story of my family.” -Eliezer Ayalon For ten-year-old Lazorek Hershenfis in Radom, Poland, life with his family is joyful. Lazorek’s father, Israel (known as “Srul”) operates a leather-cutting business from the front of the family’s sparsely furnished, one0romm apartment, and the family spends idyllic summers harvesting fruit from orchards in the nearby countryside. His brothers Mayer and Abush work as tailors to supplement the family’s income, slipping Lazorek occasional pocket money for the movies with friends. Lazorek’s sister Chaya is a kindergarten teacher and a playmate especially cherished, whether the game is catch the homemade balls of the challenging “strulkies” with stones. A deeply respected healer in the community, Lazorek’s beautiful mother Rivka shows him the meaning of caring unselfishly for others, from the breastfeeding the child of an ill friend as if it were her own and preparing special food for Lazorek himself to making middle-of-the-night visits to help sick neighbor. But what is given does not always appear to be returned in kind, as Lazorek discovers on his journey into the ghetto and the concentration camps. Although Lazorek’s father and mother sell much of their jewelry and silver for cash to pay for a visa to Palestine the British mandatory government denies the application. It is then that they lose hope of a better life, and according to Lazorek, events begin to happen so quickly that he runs out of time to be afraid. Lazorek survives and journeys to Palestine, taking the name Eliezer Ayalon. A new life begins.. . but can memories be forgotten? With “A Cup of Hone,” Neile Sue Friedman and Eliezer Ayalon impart the richness and endurance of the family love that inspires the Holocaust survivor to perpetuate the lives of those he lost by telling their story. “Neile played an essential role in bringing my part of this history to lights,” notes Mr. Ayalon. “I hope that by reading my story, as well as others like it, the next generation will learn the lessons of the Holocaust—that hate and intolerance were defeated by hope and courage.”

Marie Durand


Simonetta Carr - 2015
    Imprisoned in the Tower of Constance, Marie would spend the next thirty-eight years there. Simonetta Carr introduces us to the inspiring life of a woman who could have recanted her Protestant faith and gained release, but held fast to the truth and encouraged others to do so as well. Beautiful illustrations, a simply told story, and interesting facts acquaint young readers with the challenges facing Protestants in eighteenth-century France and show them that even a life spent in prison can be lived in service to Christ and others.

The Legacy of Us


Kristin Contino - 2015
    But when Ella passes away and Liz finds a cameo locket with a marriage proposal engraved inside (from a man who was not her grandfather), she realizes that sometimes a person's secrets are discovered only after they're gone. On top of losing Ella, Liz's career as a jewelry designer is stagnant and her love life lacks sparkle, too. When she reconnects with the one who got away, Liz thinks maybe things are finally starting to look up. But after a few drinks and a trip down a flight of stairs, Liz wakes up to realize the cameo is gone. Her ex offers to look for it, but so does Justin, the intriguing new guy in her apartment building. While dealing with her feelings for two very different men and generally trying to reinvent her mess of a life, Liz finds answers and solace in Ella's diary. The story of the cameo, and the relationship between her grandmother and great-grandmother, an outspoken socialite from Italy, inspires Liz to grow up and accept responsibility for her missteps. Eventually she must choose between the life she thought she wanted and the promise of something better.

Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy


K. Lang-Slattery - 2015
    On a cold November morning in 1938, Herman watches in horror as his cousin is arrested. As a Jew, he realizes it is past time to flee Germany, a decision that catapults him from one adventure to another, his life changed forever by the gathering storm of world events. Gradually, Herman evolves from a frustrated teenager, looking for a place to belong, into a confident U.S. Army Intelligence officer who struggles with hate and forgiveness. Immigrant Soldier tells a true story using the craft and style of a novel, totally drawing the reader into an extraordinary adventure.

A Habit of Resistance


Fernando A. Torres - 2015
    Sister Marie's latest novitiate is a young woman named Noele whose fiancé, René, fled to Paris only to find it overrun by the Nazis. Now back in sleepy Brassac, both René and Noele realize that decisions of love and liberation can never, truly, be avoided. Sister Marie is not unsympathetic to the emotions with which Noele battles; having gone through a similar struggle when she was young. The offbeat nuns must wrestle with how far to expand the margins of their vows, in hopes of saving their town and themselves. A Habit of Resistance is a humorous, but thought-provoking story of personal denial and redemption.

Before the Court of Heaven


Jack Mayer - 2015
    Winner of 13 book awards.2017 Independent Press Award - Winner - Historical Fiction 2017 Independent Press Award - Winner - General Fiction 2016 IndieReader Discovery Award - 1st Place - Fiction2015 Nautilus Book Award Winner - Fiction - Silver medal2016 Readers' Favorite Book Award - Gold Medal - Fiction -Social Issues2016 Finalist - Grand Prize (Eric Hoffer Award) - Fiction2016 Honorable Mention (Eric Hoffer Award) - Commercial Fiction 2016 Finalist - First Horizon Award (Eric Hoffer Award) - Fiction 2015 Finalist - Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award -Historical              Fiction2015 Mom's Choice Award - Gold Medal - Historical Fiction2015 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award - Best Novel Fall 20152015 Beverly Hills Book Awards - Finalist- "Faction" - fiction based on true stories.A Best Indie Book of 2015 - IndieReader (5-stars) Shelf Unbound - Notable Indie -2015 Best Indie Books.Germany, after World War I.  Ernst Techow, son of a magistrate, a child of privilege, joins the violent right-wing response to Germany's defeat. As a member of the para-military Free Corps and the murderous Organization C, he is recruited into a clandestine assassination network trying to bring down Germany's fledgling Weimar democracy.  These are the seeds of the Third Reich.  Ernst participates in the murder of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, the highest-ranking Jew in the Weimar Republic.While on trial for his life, Ernst receives an unfathomable offer of forgiveness that jolts his surety in the fascist cause and sets him on a complex and harrowing journey of redemption.  Throughout, he pursues his childhood sweetheart, Lisa.  They are star-crossed lovers, their passion inextinguishable, buffeted by the rising storm of Nazi ascendance.Before the Court of Heaven, though fiction, is populated by historical figures and accurately depicts events as they unfolded in Germany and beyond.  Animated as historical fiction, Before the Court of Heaven is an immunization against recurrence.

The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945


Guillaume Zeller - 2015
    The story of these men is unrecognized, submerged in the overall history of the concentration camps.From all countries and of all ages, the priests were gathered behind the barbed wire of Dachau according to an agreement wrested from the Reich by Vatican diplomacy. For eight years, both tragedies and magnificent gestures punctuated the journey of the clergy at Dachau, from the terrifying forced march of -Holy Week- in 1942 to the heroic voluntary confinement of priests in the barracks of those dying of typhoid, to the moving clandestine ordination of a young German deacon by a French bishop. Never in the course of history have so many priests, monks and seminarians been murdered in such a small area: 1,034 lost their lives.Beyond the personal journeys of which it is composed, the history of the priests at Dachau sheds new light on Hitler's system of concentration camps, on the intrinsic anti-Christian animus of Nazism and, beyond the strictly historical perspective, on faith and spiritual commitment. This book deals with many questions about the priest barracks, including:How does the experience of the priests at Dachau compare to those who were laymen? What were their privileges and what were their particular sufferings? Did the Nazi persecution against the clergy have ideological or political underpinnings? Did the faith and religious commitment of the priests reinforce them against the methodical dehumanization in the camps? Were their moral convictions, forged by the Gospel and the tradition of the Church, able to resist the perversion of values imposed by the SS? Did the sufferings endured by the priests at Dachau bear fruit within the ecclesiastical institution and also outside, at the peripheries of the Church?In Guillaume Zeller's recounting of this strange story, this fragment of the tragedy of the concentration camps allows us to learn answers to these and other intriguing questions.

Hans Sturm: A Soldier's Odyssey on the Eastern Front


Gordon Williamson - 2015
    However, few can match Hans Sturm in his astonishing rise from a mere private in an infantry regiment, thrown into the bloody maelstrom of the Eastern Front, to a highly decorated war hero. A young man who had displayed fearless heroism in combat, earning him some of Germany's highest military awards, Sturm hated bullies and injustice, and reacted in his normal pugnacious and outspoken manner when confronted with wrongdoing. From striking a member of the feared Sicherheitsdienst for his treatment of a Jewish woman, to refusing to wear a decoration he felt was tainted because of the treatment of enemy partisans, Sturm repeatedly stuck to his moral values no matter what the risk. Even with the war finally over, Sturm's travails would not end for another eight years as he languished in a number of Soviet labour camps until he was finally released in 1953. ** This electronic edition includes 60 black-and-white photographs **

Simple History: The Russian Revolution


Daniel Turner - 2015
    So they revolted!Step into early 20th century Russia and experience whatit was like for soldiers, workers and peasants as theircountry was led by Lenin into a Communist revolution.

City of Saints: A Pilgrimage to John Paul II's Kraków


George Weigel - 2015
    “Thus, in what follows, the story of Karol Wojtyła, St. John Paul II, and the story of Kraków are interwoven in a chronological pilgrimage through the life of a saint that reveals, at the same time, the dramatic history and majestic culture of a city where a boy grew into a man, priest, a bishop—and an apostle to the world.”With stunning photographs by Stephen Weigel and notes on the city’s remarkable fabric by Carrie Gress, City of Saints offers an in-depth look at a man and a city that made an indelible impression on the life and thought of the Catholic Church and the 21st century world.

European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche


Frank M. Turner - 2015
    His lectures—lucid, accessible, beautifully written, and delivered with a notable lack of jargon—distilled modern European history from the Enlightenment to the dawn of the twentieth century and conveyed the turbulence of a rapidly changing era in European history through its ideas and leading figures.  Richard A. Lofthouse, one of Turner’s former students, has now edited the lectures into a single volume that outlines the thoughts of a great historian on the forging of modern European ideas. Moreover, it offers a fine example of how intellectual history should be taught: rooted firmly in historical and biographical evidence.

Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain's Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940


John Kelly - 2015
    Everyone was on edge; civilization itself seemed imperiled. The Germans are marching. They have taken Poland, France, Holland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia. They now menace Britain. Should Britain negotiate with Germany? The members of the War Cabinet bicker, yell, lose their control, and are divided. Churchill, leading the faction to fight, and Lord Halifax, cautioning that prudence is the way to survive, attempt to usurp one another by any means possible. Their country is on the line. And, in Never Surrender, we feel we are alongside these complex and imperfect men, determining the fate of the British Empire.Drawing on the War Cabinet papers, other government documents, private diaries, newspaper accounts, and memoirs, historian John Kelly tells the story of the summer of 1940—the months of the “Supreme Question” of whether or not the British were to surrender. Impressive in scope and attentive to detail, Kelly takes readers from the battlefield to Parliament, to the government ministries, to the British high command, to the desperate Anglo-French conference in Paris and London, to the American embassy in London, and to life with the ordinary Britons. He brings to life one of the most heroic moments of the twentieth century and intimately portrays some of its largest players—Churchill, Lord Halifax, FDR, Joe Kennedy, Hitler, Stalin, and others. Never Surrender is a fabulous, grand narrative of a crucial period in World War II history and the men and women who shaped it.

Modern Albania: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe


Fred Abrahams - 2015
    Albanians who were not allowed to practice religion, travel abroad, wear jeans, or read "decadent" Western literature began to devour the outside world. They opened caf�s, companies, and newspapers. Previously banned rock music blared in the streets.Modern Albania offers a vivid history of the Albanian Communist regime's fall and the trials and tribulations that led the country to become the state it is today. The book provides an in-depth look at the Communists' last Politburo meetings and the first student revolts, the fall of the Stalinist regime, the outflows of refugees, the crash of the massive pyramid-loan schemes, the war in neighboring Kosovo, and Albania's relationship with the United States. Fred Abrahams weaves together personal experience from more than twenty years of work in Albania, interviews with key Albanians and foreigners who played a role in the country's politics since 1990--including former Politburo members, opposition leaders, intelligence agents, diplomats, and founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army--and a close examination of hundreds of previously secret government records from Albania and the United States. A rich, narratively-driven account, Modern Albania gives readers a front-row seat to the dramatic events of the last battle of Cold War Europe.

Shackleton's Heroes: The Epic Story of the Men Who Kept the Endurance Expedition Alive


Wilson McOrist - 2015
    His story, inflated by time and celebrity, has come to personify the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.Less well known, however, is the incredible but often forgotten tale of the Mount Hope Party (also known as the Ross Sea party)—six men who worked in the shadow of Shackleton’s greater cause. Sent to the opposite side of the Polar continent, these men dropped life-saving food and fuel depots across the Great Ice Barrier, ensuring that Shackleton had the supplies necessary to complete his mission. Unaware of Shackleton’s own failed task, the party persevered in their mission, facing insurmountable obstacles of life on the ice—exhaustion, starvation, and crippling frostbite—risking their lives for the safety of his.Stitching together the previously unpublished diaries of these unsung heroes, McOrist documents their pain and suffering, as well as the humor and camaraderie necessary for their survival. An incomparable record of sheer heroism and tragedy, Shackleton’s Heroes tells a story that history ought to remember—one of the indomitable human spirit in the most extreme conditions.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Stolen Legacy: Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin


Dina Gold - 2015
    The building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 in Berlin was seized by a German businessman with direct ties to the very top of the Nazi Party hierarchy and German Railways - the state-owned organization that participated in the logistics of sending millions of Jews across Europe to the death camps—and was the head of the Victoria Insurance Company, then and now one of Germany’s top insurance companies which, according to the book, played a role in insuring the Auschwitz death camp during World War Two.The book, written by the daughter of one of the original owners of the building, details the history of the Wolff family’s ownership of the building, its confiscation by the Nazis, and the family’s 50 year legal fight to reclaim ownership of the building, which was finally awarded to them in 2010. There has been no previous written account of a successful claim of a property seized by the Nazis in Germany. Former US Ambassador to the European Union, Stuart E. Eizenstat, has written the book’s foreword.

Paris at War: 1939-1944


David Drake - 2015
    Readers will relive the fearful exodus from the city as the German army neared the capital, the relief and disgust felt when the armistice was signed, and the hardships and deprivations under Occupation. David Drake contrasts the plight of working-class Parisians with the comparative comfort of the rich, exposes the activities of collaborationists, and traces the growth of the Resistance from producing leaflets to gunning down German soldiers. He details the intrigues and brutality of the occupying forces, and life in the notorious transit camp at nearby Drancy, along with three other less well known Jewish work camps within the city.The book gains its vitality from the diaries and reminiscences of people who endured these tumultuous years. Drake’s cast of characters comes from all walks of life and represents a diversity of political views and social attitudes. We hear from a retired schoolteacher, a celebrated economist, a Catholic teenager who wears a yellow star in solidarity with Parisian Jews, as well as Resistance fighters, collaborators, and many other witnesses.Drake enriches his account with details from police records, newspapers, radio broadcasts, and newsreels. From his chronology emerge the broad rhythms and shifting moods of the city. Above all, he explores the contingent lives of the people of Paris, who, unlike us, co­uld not know how the story would end.

Species with Amnesia: Our Forgotten History


Robert Sepehr - 2015
    But for each race that has died out, another has taken its place, with a selected few holding on to the memories and sacred knowledge of the past race. In our vanity we think we have discovered some of the great truths of science and technology, but we are in fact only just beginning to rediscover the profound wisdom of past civilizations. In many ways, we are like an awakening Species with Amnesia, yearning to reclaim our forgotten past.

Youth in Flames: A Teenager's Resistance and Her Fight for Survival in the Warsaw Ghetto


Aliza Vitis-Shomron - 2015
    In September 1939, when the Nazis began their reign of terror in Europe and invaded Poland, Aliza was eleven years old. In her diaries—furtively written on scraps of precious paper that she kept throughout the war—she described the history of her family, struggling to survive in the occupied Warsaw Ghetto. Those diaries and later writings formed the basis for this memoir. Becoming a member of Hashomer Hatzair, the noted youth movement in the Warsaw Ghetto, gave Aliza hope and encouraged her to fight for survival. As a result of an extraordinary series of “miracles,” Aliza managed to survive after being sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was among those liberated by American troops, and she has continued to tell the story throughout her life. Aliza is among the last of the Warsaw Ghetto survivors. She has been passionately lecturing around the world about the revolt, and she has escorted numerous youth groups on their visits to Poland. This book has been previously translated and published in Hungarian, Polish, and Hebrew.

Richard Hooker: A Companion to his Life and Work


W. Bradford Littlejohn - 2015
    Although scholarship on Hooker has witnessed a dramatic renaissance within the last generation, thus far this has tended to make Hooker less, not more accessible to general audiences, and interpreters have been sharply divided on the meaning of his theology. This book aims to draw upon recent research in order to offer a fresh portrait of Hooker in his original historical context, one in which it had not yet occurred to any Englishman to assume the label "Anglican," and to bring him to life for all branches of the contemporary church. Part One examines his life, writings, and reputation, puncturing several old myths along the way. Part Two seeks to establish Hooker's theological and pastoral vision, exploring why he wrote, how he wrote, whom he was seeking to persuade, and whom he was seeking to refute. Part Three analyzes key themes of Hooker's theology--Scripture, Law, Church, and Sacraments--and how they related to his late Reformation context. Finally, the concluding chapter proposes Hooker's method as a model for our confused contemporary age, combining fidelity to Scripture, historical awareness, and a pastorally sensitive pragmatism. "Richard Hooker is a name that many church people have heard of, but few have ever dipped into his works . . . Brad Littlejohn brings to bear an impressive range and depth of scholarship and critical insight to set Hooker in the context of the controversies of his time, and guides us through the maze of contemporary interpretations of Hooker's thought and significance." --Paul Avis, Professor of Theology, University of Leeds "Littlejohn's companion, Richard Hooker, offers a splendidly accessible introduction to the life and work of this eminent but popularly neglected early-modern English theologian and philosopher . . . This volume offers an excellent point of departure for both scholars and non-specialist readers." --Torrance Kirby, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, McGill University "Richard Hooker is the theologian of Anglicanism. But is he a theologian for Anglicans alone? Assuredly not! In this companion to Hooker, Littlejohn has produced a clearly written and accessible work that utilizes the recent resurgence of scholarly interest in Hooker to commend him to a wider audience. . . . It is sure to be a resource of choice for those seeking a way into the thought of this great post-Reformation divine." --Oliver D. Crisp, Fuller Theological Seminary W. Bradford Littlejohn (Ph.D, University of Edinburgh, 2013) is President of the Davenant Trust, an organization that supports historical research at the intersection of the church and academy. He also teaches philosophy at Moody Bible Institute. He is the author of several articles and book chapters on Richard Hooker and the Reformation period, and serves as editor of the Mercersburg Theology Study Series.

The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War


Arkady Ostrovsky - 2015
    So how did we go from the promise of those heady days to the autocratic police state of Putin’s new Russia? The Invention of Russia is a breathtakingly ambitious book that reaches back to the darkest days of the cold war to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation. With the deep insight only possible of a native son, Ostrovsky introduces us to the propagandists, oligarchs, and fixers who have set Russia’s course since the collapse of the Soviet Union, inventing a new and more ominous identity for a country where ideas are all too often wielded like a cudgel.  The Soviet Union yoked together dreamers and strongmen—those who believed in an egalitarian ideal and those who pushed for an even more powerful state. The new Russia is a cynical operation, where perpetual fear and war are fueled by a web of lies, as television presenters peddle the invasion of Ukraine and goad Putin to go nuclear. Twenty-five years after the Soviet flag came down over the Kremlin, Russia and America are again heading toward a confrontation—but this course was far from inevitable. With this riveting account of how we got here—of the many mistakes and false promises—Ostrovsky emerges as Russia’s most gifted chronicler.

Jerome and His Women


Joan O'Hagan - 2015
    When the Pontiff commissions Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin, it is a political masterstroke. Jerome’s Vulgate displaces the many alternative biblical texts and plays a critical role in establishing Christianity as a world religion. Yet Jerome is his own worst enemy and quickly alienates the ruling elite, many of whom are targets of his famously sarcastic wit.What is less known is that Jerome is assisted by a circle of aristocratic women who risk their lives in the pursuit of their ideals. Chief among them is the attractive young widow Paula, as devoted to Jerome as she is to his cause. Rumours circulate as his enemies plot to dispose of Jerome once and for all …Foreword by Richard Johnson, Emeritus Professor of Classics, Australian National University.

The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania Volume I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569


Robert I. Frost - 2015
    For 300 years the greatest power in Eastern Europe was the union between the kingdom of Poland and the grand duchy of Lithuania, one of the longest-lasting political unions in European history. Yet because it ended in the late-eighteenth century in what are misleadingly termed the Partitions of Poland, it barely features in standard accounts of European history.The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union 1385-1569 tells the story of the formation of a consensual, decentralised, multinational, and religiously plural state built from below as much as above, that was founded by peaceful negotiation, not war and conquest. From its inception in 1385-6, a vision of political union was developed that proved attractive to Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, and Germans, a union which was extended to include Prussia in the 1450s and Livonia in the 1560s. Despite the often bitter disagreements over the nature of the union, these were nevertheless overcome by a republican vision of a union of peoples in one political community of citizens under an elected monarch. Robert Frost challenges interpretations of the union informed by the idea that the emergence of the sovereign nation state represents the essence of political modernity, and presents the Polish-Lithuanian union as a case study of a composite state.The modern history of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus cannot be understood without an understanding of the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian union. This volume is the first detailed study of the making of that union ever published in English.

Latvia: A Short History


Mara Kalnins - 2015
    One branch of these migrants coalesced into a community which evolved a distinctive and remarkably robust culture and language, and which eventually developed into a loose federation of tribal kingdoms that stretched from the shores of the Baltic sea to the upper Dniepr river. But these small independent kingdoms were unable to resist the later invasion of the Teutonic Knights in 1201, an invasion that initiated nearly eight hundred years of helotry for the Latvians in their own domains. In the centuries of domination by successive European powers that followed, the inhabitants nonetheless preserved a powerful sense of identity, fostered by their ancient language, oral literature, songs and customs. These in turn informed and gave impetus to the rise of national consciousness in the nineteenth century and the political activities of the twentieth which brought the modern nation-state of Latvia into being. This book traces the genesis and growth of that nation, its endurance over centuries of conquest and oppression, the process by which it achieved its independence, and its status as a member of the European community in the twenty-first century.

Hitler at Home


Despina Stratigakos - 2015
    This provocative book exposes the dictator’s preoccupation with his private persona, which was shaped by the aesthetic and ideological management of his domestic architecture. Hitler’s bachelor life stirred rumors, and the Nazi regime relied on the dictator’s three dwellings—the Old Chancellery in Berlin, his apartment in Munich, and the Berghof, his mountain home on the Obersalzberg—to foster the myth of the Führer as a morally upstanding and refined man. Author Despina Stratigakos also reveals the previously untold story of Hitler’s interior designer, Gerdy Troost, through newly discovered archival sources.   At the height of the Third Reich, media outlets around the world showcased Hitler’s homes to audiences eager for behind-the-scenes stories. After the war, fascination with Hitler’s domestic life continued as soldiers and journalists searched his dwellings for insights into his psychology. The book’s rich illustrations, many previously unpublished, offer readers a rare glimpse into the decisions involved in the making of Hitler’s homes and into the sheer power of the propaganda that influenced how the world saw him.

Atlas of the Eastern Front: 1941–45


Robert Kirchubel - 2015
    This expansive collection of maps offers a visual guide to the theater that decided the fate of the war, spanning the thousands of miles from Berlin to the outskirts of Moscow, Stalingrad, East Prussia and all the way back. The accuracy and detail of the military cartography found in this volume illuminates the enormity of the campaign, revealing the staggering dimensions of distance covered and human losses suffered by both sides.

World War II: The Resistance


C. David North - 2015
    It was not until 1942 that widely dispersed underground organizations would band together to form a united opposition to the occupying Germans. It was not until then that resistance would become the Resistance - a disciplined multi-national movement that would play a significant part in the outcome of World War II. In each occupied nation, resistance groups would grow, gathering and sending information to London, planning increasingly complex sabotage operations, and assisting thousands of people, particularly Jews, in fleeing Nazi-occupied territories. Their actions would eventually become a focused counteroffensive against the German army in 1944, when Allied troops gathered in Great Britain to prepare for the invasion of France. As their widespread activity weakened German outposts in France and other occupied countries, the Allies would gain the foothold they needed to win the war. This is their story.

Self-Defense for Gentlemen and Ladies: A Nineteenth-Century Treatise on Boxing, Kicking, Grappling, and Fencing with the Cane and Quarterstaff


Thomas Hoyer Monstery - 2015
    This book is the magnum opus of this remarkable and colorful character, originally published in the 1870s as a series of newspaper articles and collected here for the first time. Colonel Monstery presents a unique look into the Victorian-era fighting world, describing styles such as British “purring” (shin-kicking), Welsh jump-kicking, and American rough-and-tumble fighting, and provides illustrated instruction in the art of gentlemanly self-defense with a cane, staff, or one’s bare hands. Fifty rare drawings and photographs from the period illuminate Monstery’s world, while an extensive glossary of terms and an introductory biography of Colonel Monstery—including fascinating details of his many duels as well as his groundbreaking devotion to teaching fencing and self-defense skills to women—update his text to make it accessible and useful to gentlemen and ladies of any era.CONTENTSColonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery: The Unknown American Martial Arts MasterI. Introduction.II. The Logic of Boxing.III. Standing and Striking.IV. Advancing to Strike and Feinting.V. Simple Parries in Boxing.VI. Parries with Returns.VII. Effective or Counter Parries in Boxing.VIII. Offence and Defense by Evasions.IX. Trips, Grips, and Back-Falls.X. Rules for a Set-to with Gloves.XI. Observations on Natural Weapons.XII. The Use of the Cane.XIII. The Use of the Cane (continued).XIV. The Use of the Staff.XV. The Use of the Staff (continued).Appendix: Monstery's Rules for Contests of Sparring and FencingGlossary

The Cast of a Hand: Based on a True Story of Love and Murder in Second Empire France


G.S. Johnston - 2015
    Violently attacked, tormented and trapped, she sifts through the truths and deceits of her marriage to self-made industrialist, Jean Kinck. Why had he lied? France, snug in the prosperity of Napoleon III’s Second Empire, is shocked by the vicious destruction of the bourgeois Kinck family. Under pressure from his superiors, the Chief of Police, Monsieur Claude, must unravel the baffling connections between the family and a mysterious young man, Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, a cold case, a famous palmist and France’s rising tide of dissatisfaction with the Emperor Napoleon III. The Cast of a Hand is an unforgettable love story and a murder mystery based on one of the most shocking crimes of 19th century Paris. GS Johnston’s razor sharp prose interweaves and cross-pollinates the two narratives, both desperately trying to arrive at the truth.

The Stuarts in 100 Facts


Andrea Zuvich - 2015
    It was one of the most turbulent periods in our history, remembered for fire, plague and high treason alongside baroque music and Pepys's famous diary - but what are the stories behind the facts? Andrea Zuvich leads us through this fascinating era, condensing over 100 years of turmoil into 100 informative, bitesize facts. The well-known myths and unlikely truths surrounding the Stuarts are thoroughly examined, from the deaths of kings and the discovery of brave new worlds to Tulip Mania and the dangers of drinking orange juice.

King John: Treachery and Tyranny in Medieval England: The Road to Magna Carta


Marc Morris - 2015
    If readers are not already familiar with him as the tyrant whose misgovernment gave rise to Magna Carta, we remember him as the villain in the stories of Robin Hood.Formidable and cunning, but also cruel, lecherous, treacherous and untrusting. Twelve years into his reign, John was regarded as a powerful king within the British Isles. But despite this immense early success, when he finally crosses to France to recover his lost empire, he meets with disaster. John returns home penniless to face a tide of criticism about his unjust rule. The result is Magna Carta – a ground-breaking document in posterity, but a worthless piece of parchment in 1215, since John had no intention of honoring it. Like all great tragedies, the world can only be put to rights by the tyrant’s death. John finally obliges at Newark Castle in October 1216, dying of dysentery as a great gale howls up the valley of the Trent. 16 pages of color and B&W illustrations

Threaten to Undo Us


Rose Seiler Scott - 2015
    You are no longer under the protection of the German army. All German citizens of the Third Reich are to evacuate.”At these words, Liesel and her young children are forced to flee their home. But losing the only home she has ever known is only the beginning. The brutal advance of Stalin’s forces into Poland results in a regime of terror and uncertainty, threatening to destroy Liesel’s family at every turn. Interrogated and imprisoned in a labour camp, her dream to re-unite with her husband and children seems impossible. Her only hope? A dangerous gamble, buoyed by a sliver of faith. Based on a true story, Threaten to Undo Us exposes shocking history in the shadow of World War Two.

Imprisoned: Drawings from Nazi Concentration Camps


Arturo Benvenuti - 2015
    His plan—his own Viae Crucis—was to meet with as many former prisoners of Nazi-fascist concentration camps as he could. He wanted not only to learn their stories, but to learn from their stories.He met with dozens of survivors from Auschwitz, Terezín, Mauthausen-Gusen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci, Banjica, Ravensbrück, Jasenovac, Belsen, and Gurs. Many of these men and women shared their memories with Benvenuti along with artwork they’d created during their internment with pencil, ink, and charcoal.After four decades of research, Benvenuti presented these original black-and-white pieces in Imprisoned. This stunning collection provides visuals that oftentimes even the most eloquent words and sentences cannot convey.In his foreword, chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi highlighted the importance of these reproductions, stating, “some have the immediate power of art; all have the raw power of the eye that has seen and that transmits its indignation.”

Hitler, Stalin & I: An Oral History


Heda Margolius Kovály - 2015
    Her bestselling memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her crime novel Innocence; or Murder on Steep Street—based on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppression—was named an NPR Best Book in 2015.In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Hitler, Stalin and I is based on interviews between Kovály and award-winning filmmaker Helena Treštíková. In it, Kovály recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, starving in the deprivations of the Lodz Ghetto, her escape from a death march out of Auschwitz, failing to find sanctuary amongst former friends in Prague as concentration camp escapee, participation in the liberation of Prague, and trying to live in a Stalinist country after her first husband was framed and executed for treason. Remarkably, Kovály, exiled in the United States after the brutal crushing of the Prague Spring, only had love for her country and continued to believe in its people. She returned to Prague in 1996.Heda had an enormous talent for expressing herself. She spoke with precision and was descriptive and witty in places. I admired her attitude and composure, even after she had such extremely difficult experiences. Nazism and Communism afflicted Heda's life directly with maximum intensity. Nevertheless, she remained an optimist.Helena Treštíková has made over fifty documentary films. Hitler, Stalin and I has garnered several awards in the Czech Republic and Japan.

Eisenhower's Armies: The American-British Alliance during World War II


Niall Barr - 2015
    Yet there were also constant tensions and disagreements that threatened to pull the alliance apart. This book highlights why the unprecedented level of cooperation between the very different American and British forces eventually led to victory but also emphasizes the tensions and controversies which inevitably arose. Based on considerable archival research on both sides of the Atlantic, this work considers the breadth and depth of the relationship from high-level strategic decisions, the rivalries and personalities of the commanders to the ordinary British and American soldiers who fought alongside one another. The book also looks back and demonstrates how the legacy of previous experience shaped the decisions of the war.Eisenhower's Armies is the story of two very different armies learning to live, work, and fight together even in the face of serious strategic disagreements. The book is also a very human story about the efforts of many individuals—famous or otherwise—who worked and argued together to defeat Hitler’s Germany. In highlighting the cooperation, tensions, and disagreements inherent in this military alliance, this work shows that Allied victory was far from pre-ordained and proves that the business of making this alliance work was vital for eventual success. Thus this dynamic new history provides a fresh perspective on many of the controversies and critical strategic decisions of World War II. As such, this book provides expert analysis of the Anglo-American military alliance as well as new insights into the ‘special relationship’ of the mid-twentieth century.

The Northern Lights: Celestial Performances of the Aurora Borealis


Daryl Pederson - 2015
    Shot with ultra-high definition cameras, this book of amazing photographs showcases a period of unusually high solar activity in the northern lights. These new photos take full advantage of the latest advances in photographic technology and the active solar storms of the past several years that cause the lights. With 160 images that have never been collected in book form, this book allows us to witness charged particles in the earth's atmosphere clash with electrons and protons released by the sun.

Hell Before Their Very Eyes: American Soldiers Liberate Concentration Camps in Germany, April 1945


John C. McManus - 2015
    In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler’s Germany.These men discovered the very depths of human-imposed cruelty and depravity: railroad cars stacked with emaciated, lifeless bodies; ovens full of incinerated human remains; warehouses filled with stolen shoes, clothes, luggage, and even eyeglasses; prison yards littered with implements of torture and dead bodies; and―perhaps most disturbing of all―the half-dead survivors of the camps. For the American soldiers of all ranks who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen, horrified that humans from ostensibly civilized societies were capable of such crimes.Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of firsthand accounts―including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections― Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history.

Maria Theresa of Austria


Regine Neuhauser - 2015
    The 23-year-old greenhorn turns out to be dynamite: with vigor, determination and great charm, Habsburg's only woman ruler parries the onslaught of a host of enemies, has 16 children in twenty years by her beloved husband, reforms her huge Habsburg Empire from head to toe and parties as if there were no tomorrow. Its focus on the strong, colorful personalities of Maria Theresa, her family and other leading figures of her age, makes this a most entertaining and immensely readable historical account.

Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of Agincourt 1415


Teresa Cole - 2015
    Yet before his twenty-seventh birthday the turn of fortune's wheel had brought him the crown of England. The kingdom he inherited as Henry V was deeply divided after the seizure of the throne by his father, the first Lancastrian king. Within a short time, however, by sheer force of personality and will, Henry had mended the rifts, pardoned and released prisoners, and united the whole country behind his claim not just to be King of England, but also King of France. One staggering victory against all the odds on the field of Agincourt brought him lasting fame, and took him within touching distance of succeeding in his claim. Henry V looks at the life and legacy of a king whose heroic achievements and tragic early death may truly be said to have changed the course of British history.

Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe—and Started the Protestant Reformation


Andrew Pettegree - 2015
    Within months, his ideas spread across Germany, then all of Europe; within years, their author was not just famous, but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.Luther came of age with the printing press, and the path to glory of neither one was obvious to the casual observer of the time. Andrew Pettegree is perhaps our most distinguished living historian of the print revolution, but he launched his career as a historian of the Reformation. That double vision positions him to comprehend this epic event, not simply as a religious story but also as a story about how ideas were carried and spread in new ways, by new things—things called mass-produced books. Printing was, and is, a risky business—the questions were how to know how much to print and how to get there before the competition. Pettegree illustrates Luther's great gift not simply as a theologian, but as a communicator, indeed, as the world's first mass-media figure, its first brand. He recognized in printing the power of pamphlets, written in the colloquial German of everyday people, to win the battle of ideas.But that wasn't enough—not just words, but the medium itself was the message. Fatefully, Luther had a partner in Wittenberg in the form of artist and businessman Lucas Cranach, who together with Wittenberg’s printers created the look of Luther's pamphlets, which included the distinct highlighting of the words "Martin Luther of Wittenberg" on the title page. Cranach also created the iconic portraits of Luther that made the reformer such a familiar figure to his fellow Germans. Together, Luther and Cranach created a product that spread like wildfire—it was both incredibly successful and widely imitated. Soon Germany was overwhelmed by a blizzard of pamphlets, with Wittenberg at its heart; the Reformation itself would blaze on for more than a hundred years.Publishing in advance of the Reformation’s 500th anniversary, Brand Luther fuses the history of religion, of printing, and of capitalism—the literal marketplace of ideas—into one enthralling story, revolutionizing our understanding of one of the pivotal figures and eras in all of human history.

Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer


Scott H. Hendrix - 2015
    The author presents Luther as a man of his time: a highly educated scholar and teacher and a gifted yet flawed human being driven by an optimistic yet ultimately unrealized vision of "true religion." This bold, insightful account of the life of Martin Luther provides a new perspective on one of the most important religious figures in history, focusing on Luther's entire life, his personal relationships and political motivations, rather than on his theology alone. Relying on the latest research and quoting extensively from Luther's correspondence, Hendrix paints a richly detailed portrait of an extraordinary man who, while devout and courageous, had a dark side as well. No recent biography in English explores as fully the life and work of Martin Luther long before and far beyond the controversial posting of his 95 Theses in 1517, an event that will soon be celebrated as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation."

The Man Within: Winston Churchill an Intimate Portrait


Alison Carlson - 2015
    It tells his story — his childhood, his family, his passions, his friends, his life—and has been chosen as the official commemorative book of the Churchill Centre on the fiftieth anniversary of his passing. A percentage of royalties goes to the Churchill Centre UK and to other Churchill 2015 charities.

We Had A Job To Do: World War II Through The Eyes of Those Who Served


Theresa Anzaldua - 2015
     Follow a soldier who fought on Patton's Third Army and who landed on Omaha Beach at 9.a.m. on D-Day; a female Army Air Forces nurse who made helping veterans her life's work; a fighter pilot who flew with the African-American unit known as the Tuskegee Airmen and who was on one of the two teams that won the first Top Gun meet after the war; a guard in a top-secret intelligence base outside of Washington, D.C. where top german weapons scientists were interrogated; a female aircraft mechanic who served int he Navy and is still active in veterans affairs seventy years later; a gunner on a B-17 heavy bomber who was shot down and spent fourteen months in German prison camps; an airman in General Curtis LeMay's 20th Air Force, the unit that dropped the atomic bombs, and more. Get to know some of the patriots who served in World War II. The author is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, B.A. (English Literature and Philosophy) and M.A. (Philosophy) and Harvard Law School, J.D. Her mother served in World War II in the U.S. Army, her father served in the war in the U.S. Navy, her maternal uncle served in the war in the British Marines Commandos and fought in Normandy on D-Day, and another maternal uncle was killed in a training accident in Texas while serving in the U.S. Army. Her grandfather was wounded fighting for Britain in World War I.

Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey


Lerna Ekmekçioğlu - 2015
    Following World War I, as the victorious Allied powers occupied Ottoman territories, Armenian survivors returned to their hometowns optimistic that they might establish an independent Armenia. But Turkish resistance prevailed, and by 1923 the Allies withdrew, the Turkish Republic was established, and Armenians were left again to reconstruct their communities within a country that still considered them traitors. Lerna Ekmekcioglu investigates how Armenians recovered their identity within these drastically changing political conditions.Reading Armenian texts and images produced in Istanbul from the close of WWI through the early 1930s, Ekmekcioglu gives voice to the community's most prominent public figures, notably Hayganush Mark, a renowned activist, feminist, and editor of the influential journal Hay Gin. These public figures articulated an Armenianess sustained through gendered differences, and women came to play a central role preserving traditions, memory, and the mother tongue within the home. But even as women were being celebrated for their traditional roles, a strong feminist movement found opportunity for leadership within the community. Ultimately, the book explores this paradox: how someone could be an Armenian and a feminist in post-genocide Turkey when, through its various laws and regulations, the key path for Armenians to maintain their identity was through traditionally gendered roles.

The Munich Art Hoard: Hitler's Dealer and His Secret Legacy


Catherine Hickley - 2015
    When Hildebrand Gurlitt's trove became public in November 2013, it caused a worldwide media sensation. Catherine Hickley has delved into archives and conducted dozens of interviews to uncover the story behind the headlines. Her book illuminates a dark period of German history, untangling a web of deceit and silence that has prevented the heirs of Jewish collectors from recovering art stolen from their families more than seven decades ago by the Nazis. Hickley recounts the shady history of the Gurlitt hoard and brings its story right up to date, as 21st-century politicians and lawyers puzzle over the inadequacies of a legal framework that to this day falls short in securing justice for the heirs of those robbed by the Nazis. Hickley is a leading voice in German arts and culture and an expert on Nazi-looted art and appeared on the Imagine documentary on Gurlitt in 2014.

The Scrap


Gene Kerrigan - 2015
    In the last hours of the 1916 Easter Rising, 20-year old Charlie Saurin came face to face with his Commander-in-Chief, Patrick Pearse.In a final gamble, Pearse had a desperate plan to save the collapsing rebellion.It required the sacrifice of Saurin and his comrades.The Scrap is the true story of the rising, from first-hand evidence, as seen by one rebel unit - F Company, 2nd Battalion - following them from the first skirmish in Fairview to the inferno of the GPO.Told in the context of some of the major events of that week, the story of F Company brings alive the excitement, the humour, the horror and the contradictions of that decisive moment in the creation of the Irish state.

Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813, Volume 1. The War of Liberation, Spring 1813


Michael V. Leggiere - 2015
    Michael Leggiere reveals how, in the spring of 1813, Prussia, the weakest of the Great Powers, led the struggle against Napoleon as a war of national liberation. Using German, French, British, Russian, Austrian and Swedish sources, he provides a panoramic history which covers the full sweep of the battle for Germany from the mobilization of the belligerents, strategy and operations to coalition warfare, diplomacy and civil-military relations. He shows how Russian war weariness conflicted with Prussian impetuosity, resulting in the crisis that almost ended the Sixth Coalition in early June. In a single campaign, Napoleon drove the Russo-Prussian army from the banks of the Saale to the banks of the Oder. The Russo-Prussian alliance was perilously close to imploding only to be saved at the eleventh-hour by an armistice.

West Point History of World War II, Vol. 1


United States Military Academy - 2015
    Now the USMA has developed a new military history series for the public featuring the story of World War II in two volumes, of which this is the first. The West Point History of World War II combines the expertise of preeminent historians with hundreds of maps and images, many created for this volume or selected from Army collections. The first volume offers a balanced narrative analyzing the rising tide of Axis conquest from 1939 to mid-1942, ranging from battlefield decisions to operational and strategic plans, all set in their proper political context. The closing chapter provides a thematic treatment of the mobilization of the warring nations’ economies and home fronts for the conduct of total war. The West Point History of World War II has been tested, checked, and polished by West Point cadets, faculty, and graduates to make this the best military history of its kind.

Ancient Scandinavia: An Archaeological History from the First Humans to the Vikings


T. Douglas Price - 2015
    Not until the end of the last Ice Age when the melting of huge ice sheets left behind a fresh, barren land surface, about 13,000 BC, did the firsthumans arrive and settle in the region. The archaeological record of these prehistoric cultures, much of it remarkably preserved in Scandinavia's bogs, lakes, and fjords, has given us a detailed portrait of the evolution of human society at the edge of the inhabitable world.In this book, distinguished archaeologist T. Douglas Price provides a history of Scandinavia from the arrival of the first humans to the end of the Viking period, ca. AD 1050. The first book of its kind in English in many years, Ancient Scandinavia features overviews of each prehistoric epochfollowed by illustrative examples from the region's rich archaeology. An engrossing and comprehensive picture of change across the millennia emerges, showing how human society evolved from small bands of hunter-gatherers to large farming communities to the complex warrior cultures of the Bronze andIron Ages, cultures which culminated in the spectacular rise of the Vikings at the end of the prehistoric period. The material evidence of these past societies--arrowheads from reindeer hunts, megalithic tombs, rock art, beautifully wrought weaponry, Viking warships--give vivid testimony to theancient peoples of Scandinavia and to their extensive contacts with the remote cultures of the Arctic Circle, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean

The Lost Town: Bringing Back Trochenbrod


Avrom Bendavid-Val - 2015
    It thrived as a tiny Jewish kingdom unnoticed and unknown to most people, even though it was “the big city” for surrounding Ukrainian and Polish villages. The people of Trochenbrod vanished in the Holocaust, and soon nothing remained of this vibrant 130-year-old town but a mysterious double row of trees and bushes in a clearing in the forest. In this new book, Avrom Bendavid-Val makes Trochenbrod’s true story accessible, enjoyable, and memorable for young readers. The Lost Town follows his adventures while uncovering the lost history of the magical place where his father was born and raised. An imagined Trochenbrod was the setting for Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Everything is Illuminated , and the movie by the same name.

Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740


Mark G. Hanna - 2015
    Hanna explores the often overt support of sea marauders in maritime communities from the inception of England's burgeoning empire in the 1570s to its administrative consolidation by the 1740s. Although traditionally depicted as swashbuckling adventurers on the high seas, pirates played a crucial role on land. Far from a hindrance to trade, their enterprises contributed to commercial development and to the economic infrastructure of port towns.English piracy and unregulated privateering flourished in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean because of merchant elites' active support in the North American colonies. Sea marauders represented a real as well as a symbolic challenge to legal and commercial policies formulated by distant and ineffectual administrative bodies that undermined the financial prosperity and defense of the colonies. Departing from previous understandings of deep-sea marauding, this study reveals the full scope of pirates' activities in relation to the landed communities that they serviced and their impact on patterns of development that formed early America and the British Empire.

For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619-1918


Richard Bassett - 2015
    Bassett shows how the Imperial Austrian Army, time and again, was a decisive factor in the story of Europe, the balance of international power, and the defense of Christendom. Moreover it was the first pan-European army made up of different nationalities and faiths, counting among its soldiers not only Christians but also Muslims and Jews. Bassett tours some of the most important campaigns and battles in modern European military history, from the seventeenth century through World War I. He details technical and social developments that coincided with the army’s story and provides fascinating portraits of the great military leaders as well as noteworthy figures of lesser renown. Departing from conventional assessments of the Habsburg army as ineffective, outdated, and repeatedly inadequate, the author argues that it was a uniquely cohesive and formidable fighting force, in many respects one of the glories of the old Europe.

Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp


Mark Celinscak - 2015
    With breathtaking thoroughness, Distance from the Belsen Heap documents what they saw and how they came to terms with those images over the course of the next seventy years. On the basis of research in more than seventy archives in four countries, Mark Celinscak analyses how these military personnel struggled with the intense experience of the camp; how they attempted to describe what they had seen, heard, and felt to those back home; and how their lives were transformed by that experience. He also brings to light the previously unacknowledged presence of hundreds of Canadians among the camp’s liberators, including noted painter Alex Colville.Distance from the Belsen Heap examines the experiences of hundreds of British and Canadian eyewitnesses to atrocity, including war artists, photographers, medical personnel, and chaplains. A study of the complicated encounter between these Allied soldiers and the horrors of the Holocaust, Distance from the Belsen Heap is a testament to their experience.

Coventry: Thursday, 14 November 1940


Frederick Taylor - 2015
    Only after eleven hours of continual bombardment by the German Luftwaffe could its people emerge from their half-sunk Anderson shelters and their cellars, from under their stairs or kitchen tables, to venture up into their wounded city. That long night of destruction marked a critical moment in the Second World War. It heralded a new kind of air warfare, one which abandoned the pursuit of immediate military goals and instead focused on obliterating all aspects of city life. It also provided the push America needed to join Britain in the war. But while the Coventry raid was furiously condemned publically, such effective enemy tactics provided Britain's politicians and military establishment with a 'blueprint for obliteration', to be adapted and turned against Germany. A merciless four-year war of attrition had begun. In this important work of history Frederick Taylor draws upon numerous sources, including eye witness interviews from the archives of the BBC which are published here for the first time, to reveal the true repercussions of the bombing of Coventry in 1940. He teases out the truth behind the persistent rumours and conspiracy theories that Churchill knew the raid was coming, assesses this significant turning point in modern warfare, looks at how it affected Britain's status in the war, and considers finally whether this attack really could provide justification for the horror of Dresden, 1945.

The Enigma Of Adolf Hitler


Leon Degrelle - 2015
    But has the real Hitler been discovered by any of them?“The enigma of Hitler is beyond all human comprehension”This piece is from the introduction by Leon Degrelle (1906- 1994) to the second volume of his uncompleted series of books on Hitler’s life and legacy, which was provisionally titled “The Hitler Century”, illustrated by TGSNTtv

Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books


Mark Glickman - 2015
    Nazi soldiers and civilians emptied Jewish communal libraries, confiscated volumes from government collections, and stole from Jewish individuals, schools, and synagogues. Early in their regime the Nazis burned some books in spectacular bonfires, but most they saved, stashing the literary loot in castles, abandoned mine shafts, and warehouses throughout Europe. It was the largest and most extensive book-looting campaign in history. After the war, Allied forces discovered these troves of stolen books but quickly found themselves facing a barrage of questions. How could the books be identified? Where should they go? Who had the authority to make such decisions? Eventually the military turned the books over to an organization of leading Jewish scholars called Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.—whose chairman was the acclaimed historian Salo Baron and whose on-the-ground director was the philosopher Hannah Arendt—with the charge of establishing restitution protocols. Stolen Words is the story of how a free civilization decides what to do with the material remains of a world torn asunder, and how those remains connect survivors with their past. It is the story of Jews struggling to understand the new realities of their post-Holocaust world and of Western society’s gradual realization of the magnitude of devastation wrought by World War II. Most of all, it is the story of people —of Nazi leaders, ideologues, and Judaica experts; of Allied soldiers, scholars, and scoundrels; and of Jewish communities, librarians, and readers around the world.

Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations


Eli Rubenstein - 2015
    Once they are no longer able to, who will tell their stories?For more than 25 years the March of the Living has brought together survivors and students from all over the world to ensure that first-hand accounts of the Holocaust are not lost. During their visits to Poland, where millions of innocent people were enslaved and murdered by Nazi Germany during WWII, survivors, those who helped them, and liberators all share their memories with young people. As they walk through concentration camps, ghettos, and towns depleted of Jewish communities, a special bond forms as the original witnesses to the Holocaust pass their mantle to a new generation whose task it is to remember what they hear and see. Moving photographs and firsthand accounts show us the remarkable passing of the torch to the young of many faiths and cultures who become the new witnesses, carrying the torch toward a future of peace. Based on an acclaimed exhibit of photographs launched at the United Nations.Message from His Holiness, Pope Francis:"I ask you to convey to the organizers of the March of the Living my closeness to them and their mission. All the efforts for fighting in favor of life are praiseworthy and have to be supported without any kind of discrimination. For this reason I am very close to these initiatives, that are not only against death but also against the thousands of discriminatory phobias that enslave and kill."

Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland


Karl Schlögel - 2015
    The Western response to Russian aggression has been uncertain and hesitant in handling the unfamiliar yet large nation of Ukraine, a country with a complicated past, and one whose history is little known in the rest of Europe.In Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland, Karl Schlögel presents a picture of a country which lies on Europe’s borderland and in Russia’s shadow. In recent years, Ukraine has been faced, along with Western Europe, with the political conundrum resulting from Russia’s actions and the ongoing Information War. As well as exploring this present-day confrontation, Schlögel provides detailed, fascinating historical portraits of a panoply of Ukraine’s major cities: Lviv, Odessa, Czernowitz, Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk and Yalta – cities whose often troubled and war-torn histories are as varied as the nationalities and cultures which have made them what they are today, survivors with very particular identities and aspirations. Schlögel feels the pulse of life in these cities, analysing their more recent pasts and their challenges for the future.

Clouds Over Markota


Kathleen Hegedus - 2015
    Endre and Ilonka's lives are on a collision course and will soon become intertwined through their shared jeopardy as they struggle to find ways to survive not only the war, but also the brutally oppressive Soviet occupation.

When Europe Was a Prison Camp


Otto Schrag - 2015
    One, a memoir written by the father in 1941; the other, begun by the son in the 1980s, fills in the story of himself and mother, supplemented by historical research. The result is both personal and provocative, involving as it does issues of history and memory, fiction and “truth,” courage and resignation. This is not a “Holocaust memoir.” The Schrags were Jews, and Otto was interned, under execrable conditions, in southern France. But Otto, with the help of a heroic wife, escaped the camp before the start of massive transfers of prisoners “to the East,” and Peter and his mother escaped from Belgium before the Jews were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. Still, the danger and suffering, the comradeship and betrayal, the naïve hopes and cynical despair of those in prison and those in peril are everywhere in evidence.

Promised You a Miracle: UK80-82


Andy Beckett - 2015
    Here, Andy Beckett recreates an often misunderstood moment of transition, with all its potential and uncertainty: the first precarious years of Margaret Thatcher's government. By the end of 1982, the country was changing, leaving the kinder, more sluggish postwar Britain decisively behind, and becoming the country we have lived in ever since: assertive, commercially driven, outward-looking, often harsher than its neighbours.

The Cambridge History of the Second World War, Volume I: Fighting the War


John Robert Ferris - 2015
    It mattered greatly who won, and fighting was the essential determinant of victory or defeat. In Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of the Second World War a team of twenty-five leading historians offer a comprehensive and authoritative new account of the war's military and strategic history. Part I examines the military cultures and strategic objectives of the eight major powers involved. Part II surveys the course of the war in its key theatres across the world, and assesses why one side or the other prevailed there. Part III considers, in a comparative way, key aspects of military activity, including planning, intelligence, and organisation of troops and matérial, as well as guerrilla fighting and treatment of prisoners of war.

After the Fall


Lisa Bingham - 2015
    Now, she turns her eye to the Pacific in this gorgeous WWII tale of courage, fear, and love on an island doomed to fall.At the dawn of WWII, the Philippines is a haven for those intent on shedding their pasts and reinventing themselves. Lt. Riley Gilhouley―The Great Gilhouley―keeps the troops well stocked in contraband as he seeks the attention of Maj. Rosemary Dodd, a by-the-book officer who leads her nurses with expert care. Ex-priest John Macklin searches for absolution, but finds himself tangling with Glory Bee O’Halloran, a stripper hired to take off just enough clothing to throw the troops into a frenzy.But when, mere hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attack the Philippines, the island haven explodes into the chaos of battle.Thrown from the passion of Gilhouley’s arms into the harsh realities of war, Rosemary begins to question everything she once held dear. As their stolen moments together blossom into something more, Gilhouley’s secret missions behind enemy lines threaten to end what has only begun. Trapped, Glory Bee has nowhere to run, putting herself and her secret, unborn child in danger. All too quickly, the only thing separating her from the advancing enemy is a fallen priest with a haunted past who promises to keep her safe. The two of them are drawn together in a desperate bid for survival, but John knows his growing love for Glory Bee is at odds with his need to strike back at an old enemy.Set amid the heartbreak of a besieged country waiting in vain for help to arrive, this stunning novel blends a meticulous eye for history with limitless heart. Bingham, a master of the genre, has penned a novel that will stand the test of time.

Sing What You Cannot Say


Cathy Raymond - 2015
    She is also a prisoner in Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp. Despite her dire circumstances, Anna defiantly offers the other prisoners hope by hiding coded messages in the music she secretly composes. Emily Thurgood is a modern day music history professor who specializes in the music created and performed by prisoners in Nazi camps during the Holocaust, but her research is in danger of being compromised by a stressful path to tenure, a rocky romantic relationship, and the sudden murder of a university librarian. The police draw unexpected connections between Emily and the murder victim. When Emily finds a mysterious musical clue left in her office, she takes matters into her own hands and embarks on a complicated mission to prove her innocence. Her search leads her to the Czech Republic, to the concentration camp Terezin, and to times gone past as she attempts to find a killer and unravel a musical mystery. It all comes back to Anna Katz. In the end, Anna might be the only one who can save Emily from being charged with murder.

Landscapes of Communism: A History Through Buildings


Owen Hatherley - 2015
    Ransacking the urban planning of the grand imperial past, it set out to transform everyday life, its sweeping boulevards, epic high-rise and vast housing estates an emphatic declaration of a non-capitalist idea. Now, the regimes that built them are dead and long gone, but from Warsaw to Berlin, Moscow to post-Revolution Kiev, the buildings, their most obvious legacy, remain, populated by people whose lives were scattered and jeopardized by the collapse of communism and the introduction of capitalism.Landscapes of Communism is an intimate history of twentieth-century communist Europe told through its buildings; it is, too, a book about power, and what power does in cities. In exploring what that power was, Hatherley shows how much we can understand from surfaces - especially states as obsessed with surface as the Soviets were. Walking through these landscapes today, Hatherley discovers how, in contrast to the common dismissal of 'monolithic' Soviet architecture, these cities reflect with disconcerting transparency the development of an idea over the decades, with its sharp, sudden zigzags of official style: from modernism to classicism and back; to the superstitious despotic rococo of high Stalinism, with its jingoistic memorials, palaces and secret policemen's castles; East Germany's obsession with prefabricated concrete panels; and the metro systems of Moscow and Prague, a spectacular vindication of public space that went further than any avant garde ever dared.But most of all, Landscapes of Communism is a revelatory journey of discovery, plunging us into the maelstrom of socialist architecture. As we submerge into the metros, walk the massive, multi-lane magistrale and pause at milk bars in the microrayons, who knows what we might find?

Serendipity's Footsteps


Suzanne Nelson - 2015
    Dalya is the daughter of a cobbler in 1930s Berlin, and though she is only fifteen, she knows she will follow in her father’s footsteps. When she is forced into a concentration camp one violent November night, she must leave behind everything she knew and loved. Ray is a modern-day orphan, jagged around the edges in every possible way. She sees an impulsive escape to New York as her only chance at happiness; there, she knows she’ll be able to convert her sorrows into songs. Pinny is an unwavering optimist and Ray’s unintended travel companion on her passage to a new life. She inherited from her eccentric mother a fascination with shoes as a means of transformation and expression. A single pair of shoes entwines these lives. How these women connect across different times and places is an unforgettable story of strength, love, bravery, memory, and the serendipity that binds us all together.

I Am a Victor: The Mordechai Ronen Story


Mordecai Ronen - 2015
    By the time he turned eleven years old, the world had gone mad. He became one of the millions of Jews to be shipped to a Nazi death camp. How he survived that ordeal and what followed is the incredible story told in these pages. That Mordechai is alive today is nothing short of a miracle. His is an incredible story of triumph and unwavering determination to survive, which is what he did against all odds in the Nazi death camps. The journey that began in the Holocaust carried Ronen through the establishment of Israel, immigration to Canada, and finally to an emotional return to Auschwitz, this time as a guest of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who called that moment one of the most extraordinary he had seen in his four decades in politics.

Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection


T.M. Devine - 2015
    There was even denial that the Scots unlike the English had any significant involvement in slavery. Scotland saw itself as a pioneering abolitionist nation untainted by a slavery past. This book is the first detailed attempt to challenge these beliefs.Written by the foremost scholars in the field, with findings based on sustained archival research, the volume systematically peels away the mythology and radically revises the traditional picture. In doing so the contributors come to a number of surprising conclusions. Topics covered include national amnesia and slavery, the impact of profits from slavery on Scotland, Scots in the Caribbean sugar islands, compensation paid to Scottish owners when slavery was abolished, domestic controversies on the slave trade, the role of Scots in slave trading from English ports and much else.The book is a major contribution to Scottish history, to studies of the Scots global diaspora and to the history of slavery within the British Empire. It will have wide appeal not only to scholars and students but to all readers interested in discovering an untold aspect of Scotland's past.

CHARTRES CATHEDRAL: The Missing or Heretic Guide


Freddy Silva - 2015
     So, for anyone visiting or interested in Chartres cathedral, here is a guide book with a difference: it gives you the information others leave out — the important things orthodox religion would rather you didn’t know. Such as the Druidic origins of the site, the truth behind Chartres' famous stained glass, the locations of subtle energies, sacred geometry, coded esoteric knowledge, the origin and purpose of the Gothic, and how and why this great plan was implemented by the Knights Templar. Armed with this guide, you will not only see, hear and feel this sermon in stone, you will separate yourself from the common herd. Copiously illustrated with 100 images, personable, and written by bestselling author, alternative history researcher (and frequent pilgrim to Chartres) Freddy SIlva.

Delacroix


Simon Lee - 2015
    Written in a lively and accessible style, and incorporating the latest scholarship on the artist, Lee provides fresh analyses into the life and times of Delacroix and uncovers the creative process behind his most famous works.

Scotland: A History from Earliest Times


Alistair Moffat - 2015
    As wellas focusing on key moments in the nation’s history such as the Battle of Bannockburn and the Jacobite Risings, Moffat also features other episodes in history that are perhaps less well documented. From prehistoric timber halls to inventions and literature, Moffat’s tale explores the drama of battle, change, loss and invention interspersed with the lives of ordinary Scottish folk, the men and women who defined a nation.

Duel of Wits


Peter Churchill - 2015
    The SOE, similar to the American OSS (predecessor of the CIA) was formed to conduct espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe, and to aid local resistance movements. The book describes Churchill's training in England and his four missions into occupied France, including two harrowing night-time parachute drops and two submarine landings. Notable too is the underlying love story with Odette Sansom, another Allied agent (code-named Lise), who along with Churchill were captured, imprisoned, and tortured for two years until the war's end. Churchill's narrative ends with their capture by the Germans; his prison experiences are related in The Spirit in the Cage, published in 1954.

Patricians and Emperors: The Last Rulers of the Western Roman Empire


Ian Hughes - 2015
    The book is divided into four parts. The first sets the background to the period, including brief histories of Stilicho (395-408) and Aetius (425-454), explaining the nature of the empire and the reasons for its decline. The second details the lives of Ricimer (455-472) and his great rival Marcellinus (455-468) by focusing on the stories of the numerous emperors that Ricimer raised and deposed. The third deals with the Patricians Gundobad (472-3) and Orestes (475-6), as well as explaining how the barbarian general Odoacer came to power in 476. The final part outlines and analyses the Fall of the West and the rise of barbarian kingdoms in France, Spain and Italy.This is a very welcome book to anyone seeking to make sense of this chaotic, but crucial period.

Who Betrayed the Jews?: The Realities of Nazi Persecution in the Holocaust


Agnes Grunwald-Spier - 2015
    In many cases they regarded themselves as Hungarians, Frenchmen, etc,. First and Jews second, so persecution came as a terrible shock to them. Many had fought for their country in the First World War, but this offered very little protection - not even for those awarded the Iron Cross. They were forced out of their professions and universities. Their neighbours and school friends betrayed them to the authorities. In turn the authorities 'legally' withdrew their rights and also stripped them of their possessions under Aryaniszation policies. Many who believed themselves to be Christian were affected by the Nazis' ruthless racial laws and foudn themselves and their children categorized as 'half-breeds'. Bodies such as the police and railway companies co-operated with the Nazis in transporting Jews to their detahs or to be subjected to unspeakable medical experiments. The betrayal did not end in 1945 as there is evidence of Holocaust survivors being attacked as they returned home.

Writing the War: Chronicles of a World War II Correspondent


Anne Kiley - 2015
    The correspondence between Charles Kiley and Billee Gray also tells the poignant tale of two young people in love but forced apart by the circumstances of war. Edited by Charles and Billee's daughter, son, and son-in-law, this never-before-published compilation of letters is a striking example of the heroic, call-to-duty spirit that characterized "the greatest generation."Charles was a soldier-journalist for the U.S. Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper and reported on the war from London, Normandy, Paris, Reims, Belgium, and Germany. As the sole reporter allowed direct access to Eisenhower's staff, he was the only reporter on the scene when the German high command was negotiating its unconditional surrender on May 7, 1945. Among his army newspaper friends and colleagues was Andy Rooney, later CBS correspondent and 60 Minutes commentator. Billee, like many young women of her time, witnessed the war years from the home front and filled vital civilian roles--defense-industry plant worker, Red Cross volunteer, war bonds salesgirl, and civil defense plane-spotter--and wrote about it all in her letters to Charles. Peppered with fascinating details about soldiers' and civilians' lives, and including Stars and Stripes articles and personal photographs of the era, Writing the War is both important history and a tribute to two remarkable people as well as their extraordinary generation.

Mileva Marić Einstein: Life with Albert Einstein


Radmila Milentijević - 2015
    Numerous biographies that have dealt with Einstein have contributed little to a deeper understanding of Mileva Marić and her role in Albert Einstein’s life. This is the first in-depth study of Mileva Marić Einstein and her complex life-long relationship with Einstein. It attempts to explain why she failed to realize her potential in her own right. It offers new insights into Einstein’s private life and character, and brings to light Mileva’s role in Einstein’s personal and scientific development. This book is based on the correspondence between Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein. While Mileva Marić preserved most of Einstein’s letters to her, most of her letters to him have been lost or destroyed, along with evidence of her contributions to Einstein’s scientific achievements. Those letters that have survived resonate with a compelling voice. Consequently, the author has chosen to let Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein tell the story of their lives together in their own words as much as possible. It reveals a detailed dramatic picture of Einstein and Mileva, until now unknown to the world.Mileva Marić was the only woman to enter the Section of Mathematics and Physics at the elite Polytechnic in Zurich in 1896. She was a person of extraordinary intelligence and talent. However, when Mileva met Albert Einstein that year, her fate became bound to his life and ambition. Raised in a patriarchal Serbian family, she was willing to sacrifice her own academic career and even her visibility to the dream of achieving something greater, together. Mileva’s decision to put her exceptional talents in the service of Einstein’s career led to her invaluable contributions to his scientific achievements. Einstein wrote about her as an “equal” referring to “our new studies,” “our investigations,” “our views,” “our theory,” “our paper,” ”our work on relative motion.” He also relied heavily on Mileva for emotional support at a critical time in his life. “Without you I lack self-confidence, pleasure in work . . . without you my life is no life.” Before their marriage, she bore Einstein a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption to protect Einstein’s career, an act that cast a heavy shadow over the remainder of her life. Einstein married Mileva in defiance of strong opposition from his parents. She wasn't beautiful, she was older, she walked with a limp and she wasn't Jewish. “You are ruining your future and blocking your path through life . . . That woman cannot gain entrance to a decent family,” his mother wrote to him. Yet, Einstein was magnetically drawn to her independence, strength and formidable intellect during the most creative period of his entire life.As Einstein’s reputation and adulation surged so did his womanizing. Einstein’s conduct in ending their marriage was so brutal that it dismayed even their closest friends and came perilously close to destroying Mileva. Although Einstein resisted, the divorce decree awarded all future Nobel Prize money to Mileva as her property. This was poetic justice, for it represented a symbolic measure of recognition for her contributions to Einstein’s scientific achievements.Despite their bitter divorce, they shared concern for their two sons, and maintained a steady, if often troubled, relationship until Mileva’s death. Einstein sought the comfort of her company, stayed at her Zurich apartment numerous times, and tried to provide help in his own way when she needed it. While sometimes touchingly considerate, Einstein was vindictive and brutal when challenged or hurt.A true understanding of Einstein as both a man and a genius, is impossible without a detailed study of the woman who loved Einstein so deeply with an emotional and intellectual bond that bore a very rare fruit. It changed our view of the universe.