The Low Countries: A History


Anthony Bailey - 2016
    Here, from British historian and New Yorker senior writer Anthony Bailey is the dramatic story of the Low Countries - Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg - from the early days of nomads and barbarian invaders to the birth of towns and cities to the rise and decline of world prominence and finally to the dark and tragic days of World War II.

My Life


David Lange - 2005
    His Labour government introduced sweeping new legislation that unchained the country from its old conservative bonds, established the world's first nuclear free state and let loose a free market economic agenda that radically transformed the country. It was a rapid climb to the very top for the overweight doctor's son from working class South Auckland. As leader during the final years of the Cold War he confronted the agendas of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and lived through the political upheavals of the fall of the Soviet Union, post-apartheid South Africa and Rajiv Ghandi's India. Along the way he memorably defeated the Reverend Jerry Falwell in a famous Oxford Union debate about the morality and sanity of the nuclear arms race, and negotiated the aftermath of the tragic bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French agents in Auckland harbour.

The 100-Yard War: Inside the 100-Year-Old Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry


Greg Emmanuel - 2004
    It transcends the years, the standings, and all other distractions. And thanks to the countless remarkable football games between Michigan and Ohio State--and hundreds of thousands of devoted alumni and followers--the rivalry is now an enormous cultural event.

Mussolini: History in an Hour


Rupert Colley - 2014
    Famed for his dictatorial style, his political cunning and admired – initially – by Hitler, Mussolini led the National Fascist Party and ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. In so doing, he paved the way towards Italy’s defeat in World War Two, and some of the 20th century’s most destructive ideologies and practices.Following expulsion from Italian Socialist Party, Mussolini denounced all efforts of class conflict, and instead later commanded a Fascist March on Rome to become the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history. Thereafter he set about dismantling the apparatus of democracy and initiated what would become known as the one-party totalitarian state. With World War II came defeat, humiliation and his bloody deposing. Explaining his ideologies, policies, actions and flaws, ‘Mussolini: History in an Hour’ is the concise life of the man whose ideas helped create some of the worst horrors of the modern history.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…

So Few Got Through: Gordon Highlanders with the 51st Division from Normandy to the Baltic


Martin Lindsay - 2000
    The original 51st had gotten separated from the main British army before Dunkirk in 1940 and had been captured at St. Vale'ry, the surrender being taken by Irwin Rome in person. The reconstituted 51st had fought Rome in the desert and knew that 10,000 Scotsmen were now entering their fourth year in German prison camps.The original edition of So Few Got Through appeared just after the war and chronicles the campaigns of the 1st Gordon Highlanders from Normandy to V-E Day. Martin Lindsay was the Gordons' commander and his book has long been considered the best account of a British battalion in the war.

The Great War Generals on the Western Front, 1914-1918


Robin Neillands - 1998
    They sent hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths on the Western Front - often needlessly. But is it fair? In this explosive book, Robin Neillands challenges the popular myth about the incompetence and callousness of the Great War generals and examines the battles of the Western Front through the eyes of the officers to explain the circumstances that led them to plan and fight as they did.The death toll on the Western Front provides the main evidence against the generals but Neillands examines many other factors and spreads responsibility far beyond the generals and their staff, asking the questions:· Why was Britain so unprepared for a European war in 1914?· What role did the British politicians play?· What was the truth behind Anglo-French relations?· Can the Australians and Canadians really take credit for the great victories of the War?· Was the arrival of the American army really decisive?· Was any general really equipped with the knowledge and information to deal with the horrors of trench warfare?· How much of what we now believe about the Great War is true?This thoroughly researched and controversial book shatters many assumptions about the commanders who led the British Army through the Great War. It essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the conflict. ‘Absolutely first class: an eye opener for those brough up on the First World War myths’ –Major-General Julian Thompson, CB, OBE‘One of our most readable military historians’ –The Birmingham Post‘A highly readable and thought-provoking book’ –Peter Simkins, Senior Historian at the Imperial War MuseumRobin Neillands is the author of several acclaimed works on the First World War including ‘The Old Contempibles: The British Expeditionary Force, 1914’, ‘Attrition: The Great War on the Western Front, 1916’ and ‘The Death of Glory’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice


Maureen Faulkner - 2007
    Mumia Abu-Jamal was unanimously convicted of the crime by a racially mixed jury based on: the testimony of several eyewitnesses, his ownership of the murder weapon, matching ballistics, and Abu-Jamal’s own confession.After his conviction, however, a national anti-death penalty movement was started to “Free Mumia;” Mike Farrell, Ed Asner, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jesse Jackson rallied on his behalf, and led the charge.  For his part, while on death row, Abu-Jamal published several books, delivered radio commentaries, was a college commencement speaker, found himself named an Honorary Citizen of France, and had his defense coffers enhanced by ticket sales from a sold out (16,000-person) concert featuring Rage Against the Machine.Here, from Maureen Faulkner and acclaimed talk show host / journalist Michael Smerconish, is the first book to carefully and definitively lay out the case against Abu-Jamal, and those who’ve elevated him to the status of political prisoner. Smerconish, a lawyer, has provided pro bono legal counsel to Faulkner for over a decade and knows both the legal intricacies and personal subtleties of the case like no other person.  He’s personally acquainted himself with the more than five thousand pages of trial transcript.  “My reading starkly revealed that Abu-Jamal murdered Danny Faulkner in cold blood and that the case tried in Philadelphia in 1982 bore no resemblance to the one being home-cooked by the Abu-Jamal defense team.”As Abu-Jamal’s lawyers contemplate their final appeal, Faulkner and Smerconish weave a compelling, never-before-told account of one fateful night and the 25-year-long rewriting of history.

Serial Killers: Shocking, Gripping True Crime Stories of the Most Evil Murderers


Brian Innes - 2017
    Yet they endlessy fascinate and continue to capture the public's attention with their strange charisma and deadly deeds. From Jack the Ripper to Ted Bundy and the Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, these killers transfix us with their ability to commit utterly savage acts of cruelty and depravity. Only with modern police detection methods and psychological profiling, have these figures that have existed throughout human history finally been identified in the deadliest category: serial killers. These methods, the killers' characters and their crimes are described here in fascinating and terrifyingly gripping detail. The whole history of serial killers is brought to life in 50 chapters, including: Herman Webster Mudget, Devil in the White City John Christie, 10 Rillington Place murders Zodiac Killer Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, The Moors Murderers Ted Bundy Fred and Rosemary West Jeffrey Dahmer Aileen Wuornos Harold Shipman, Dr Death

Supreme Whispers: Conversations with Judges of the Supreme Court of India 1980-89


Abhinav Chandrachud - 2018
    Based on 114 intriguing interviews with nineteen former chief justices of India and more than sixty-six former judges of the Supreme Court of India, Abhinav Chandrachud opens a window to the life and times of the former judges of India's highest court of law and in the process offers a history that largely remained in oblivion for a long time.

A Spy In Vienna: A Paul Muller Novel of Political Intrigue


William N. Walker - 2018
    It is the second Paul Muller novel set in Europe before World War II. Muller is recruited to become a spy to resist Hitler's campaign to absorb Austria into the German Reich and, from his perch in Vienna, finds himself at the epicenter of the desperate struggle to preserve Austrian independence. Muller plays a dangerous game in helping Austria oppose Hitler's demands and he hatches a bold plan to divert Austria's gold reserves so they stay out of Hitler's grasp. The novel captures this gripping drama in rich and vivid detail as political pressures mount and the threat of war looms. A Spy in Vienna re-creates for readers the fraught atmosphere of 1930's, when the threat of Nazi violence hung over Europe. Aficionados of that epoch will relish the authenticity of the novel, which reawakens the tensions and turbulence of the era, with its undercurrent of violence and fear. The narrative recaptures the urgency of the crisis as repeated confrontations escalated to an explosive conclusion. Today, sitting at the safe remove of eighty years, we know the outcome. Hitler's bald aggression prevailed; his takeover of Austria became a crucial stepping stone leading to World War II. But the characters in the novel know none of this; for them, the events they are caught up in are frightening and bewildering, confronting them with dire choices and fearful consequences. The novel transports the reader into that contemporary maelstrom of intrigue and danger—combining real history with a compelling story. Admirers of Paul Muller in Danzig will revel in his new adventures in Vienna, as once again he confronts Nazi tyranny.

Law and Revolution


Harold J. Berman - 1983
    Out of this upheaval came the Western idea of integrated legal systems consciously developed over generations and centuries.Harold J. Berman describes the main features of these systems of law, including the canon law of the church, the royal law of the major kingdoms, the urban law of the newly emerging cities, feudal law, manorial law, and mercantile law. In the coexistence and competition of these systems he finds an important source of the Western belief in the supremacy of law.Written simply and dramatically, carrying a wealth of detail for the scholar but also a fascinating story for the layman, the book grapples with wideranging questions of our heritage and our future. One of its main themes is the interaction between the Western belief in legal evolution and the periodic outbreak of apocalyptic revolutionary upheavals.Berman challenges conventional nationalist approaches to legal history, which have neglected the common foundations of all Western legal systems. He also questions conventional social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the origin of modem Western legal systems and has therefore misjudged the nature of the crisis of the legal tradition in the twentieth century.

England During the Dark Ages


John Richard Green - 1895
    Complete with maps and illustrations the work reveals the momentous events that were occurring in England during the Dark Ages.

Baseball When the Grass Was Real: Baseball from the Twenties to the Forties, Told by the Men Who Played It


Donald Honig - 1975
    They shared their memories with him and the result is a book packed with nostalgia, statistics, action, revelations—an extraordinary oral history of baseball in the halcyon days beween the two world wars. Babe Ruth, Lefty Grove, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig, and many others are brought to life through the recollections of Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Bucky Waters, Billy Herman, Cool Papa Bell, Spud Chandler, Pete Reiser, and a host of others. Those were the days when the grass was real, salaries were modest, Bob Feller was America's most famous seventeen-year-old, and idealism was in full swing. "Baseball builds your pride," said pitcher Wes Ferrell, who played it in order "to be a better guy."

Born Under a Lucky Star: A Red Army Soldier's Recollections of the Eastern Front of World War II


Ivan Philippovich Makarov - 2020
    That was on his first day at the front.Thrown into an open field to face German tanks and artillery fire, with only rifles and machine guns to defend themselves with, almost 2,000 men of his regiment were wiped out in only six days at the Eastern Front. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty.In his raw and trenchant memoir, Ivan recounts the terror and despair faced by a Red Army soldier on the Eastern Front.He has no sympathy for Stalin and his incompetent commanders, who sought awards and recognition at the expense of their soldiers’ lives. He simply wanted to serve his country.It is rare to find first-hand accounts of the Great Patriotic War from Red Army soldiers, as many did not survive to tell the tale. For the first time, Ivan reveals his gripping recollections of battles, times, places, and people encountered throughout World War II, from when he was drafted in 1941 until their victory in 1945.These recollections he dared not put on paper until 1992.

The Windsor Knot: Charles, Camilla, and the Legacy of Diana


Christopher Wilson - 2002
    In The Windsor Knot, one of Fleet Street's most experienced journalists gives you an inside look at one of the most infamous love triangles in history. Branded as "the other woman" Camilla still shoulders the blame for the failure of Charles and Diana's "fairytale" marriage -- despite the fact that an apparent truce was made between mistress and princess in the last year of Diana's life. Now, locked in a perpetual struggle to gain acceptance from the British public -- and, more importantly, from the Royal Family -- Charles and Camilla persevere. Tracing more than three decades of love, passion, and deception, The Windsor Knot ties up all the loose ends of a liaison hidden in plain sight. The Palace won't speak of it, but Christopher Wilson tells all.