Best of
World-History

1958

The Generalship Of Alexander The Great


J.F.C. Fuller - 1958
    He had a small army--seldom exceeding 40,000 men--but a constellation of bold, revolutionary ideas about the conduct of war and the nature of government. J. F. C. Fuller, one of the foremost military historians of the twentieth-century, was the first to analyze Alexander in terms of his leadership as a general. He has divided his study into two parts. The first, entitled "The Record," describes the background of the era, Alexander's character and training, the structure of the Macedonian army, and the geography of the world that determined the strategy of conquest. The second part, "The Analysis," takes apart the great battles, from Granicus to Hydaspes, and concludes with two chapters on Alexander's statesmanship. In a style both clear and witty, Fuller imparts the many sides to Alexander's genius and the full extent of his empire, which stretched from India to Egypt.

The Zimmermann Telegram


Barbara W. Tuchman - 1958
    Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era   In January 1917, the war in Europe was, at best, a tragic standoff. Britain knew that all was lost unless the United States joined the war, but President Wilson was unshakable in his neutrality. At just this moment, a crack team of British decoders in a quiet office known as Room 40 intercepted a document that would change history. The Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message to the president of Mexico, inviting him to join Germany and Japan in an invasion of the United States. How Britain managed to inform the American government without revealing that the German codes had been broken makes for an incredible story of espionage and intrigue as only Barbara W. Tuchman could tell it.  Praise for The Zimmermann Telegram   “A true, lucid thriller . . . a tremendous tale of hushed and unhushed uproars in the linked fields of war and diplomacy . . . Tuchman makes the most of it with a creative writer’s sense of drama and a scholar’s obeisance to the evidence.”—The New York Times  “The tale has most of the ingredients of an Eric Ambler spy thriller.”—Saturday Review

The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush


Pierre Berton - 1958
    For the steamer Portland bore two tons of pure Klondike gold. And immediately, the stampede north to Alaska began. Easily as many as 100,000 adventurers, dreamers, and would-be miners from all over the world struck out for the remote, isolated gold fields in the Klondike Valley, most of them in total ignorance of the long, harsh Alaskan winters and the territory's indomitable terrain. Less than a third of that number would complete the enormously arduous mountain journey to their destination. Some would strike gold. Berton's story belongs less to the few who would make their fortunes than to the many swept up in the gold mania, to often unfortunate effects and tragic ends. It is a story of cold skies and avalanches, of con men and gamblers and dance hall girls, of sunken ships, of suicides, of dead horses and desperate men, of grizzly old miners and millionaires, of the land — its exploitation and revenge. It is a story of the human capacity to dream, and to endure.

A Diplomatic History of the American People


Thomas A. Bailey - 1958
    

The Myth of the Negro Past


Melville J. Herskovits - 1958
    Originally published in 1941, his unprecedented study of black history and culture recovered a rich African heritage in religious and secular life, the language and arts of the Americas.

Arnhem


R.E. Urquhart - 1958
    The story of the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem involved not only an Airborne Corps of three Divisions but also the bulk of the British 2nd Army in Europe. Gen. Urquhart has told the story of those fateful nine days clearly, frankly and, despite the terrible circumstances, not without humor.It ranks as an important work, describing an operation which opened with such high hopes and left its name forever as a feat of the highest endurance and valor.

East Asia: The Great Tradition


Edwin O. Reischauer - 1958
    A History of East Asian Civilization, #1.History of China, Japan & Korea from early times to the first half of the 19th century.