There are wars and sieges, scandals and seductions, fountains playing in deserted squares and crowds thronging the markets.And there is a dark undertone too, of shadowy corners and dead ends, prisons and punishment.The language and way of thinking of the Venetians sets them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land.'The moon rules Venice,' Ackroyd writes: 'It is built on ocean shells and ocean ground; it has the aspect of infinity.It is the floating world... changing and variable and accidental.'This book, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to thatsensual, surprising realm. We could have no better guide - reading Ackroyd's Venice is, in itself, a glorious journey and the perfect holiday.

    In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. That divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

    In the process, the book generates an astonishing wealth of original and fascinating insights on all major aspects of humankind's remarkable journey through the ages, engaging a wide range of disciplines.

    The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.

    Allen, author of Remember Pearl Harbor and George Washington, Spy Master comes a sweeping, dramatic history of the Americans who fought alongside the British on the losing side of the American Revolution. Allen’s compelling account comprises an epic story with a personal core, an American narrative certain to spellbind readers of Tom Fleming, David McCullough, and Joseph Ellis. The first book in over thirty years on this topic in Revolution War history, Tories incorporates new research and previously unavailable material drawn from foreign archives, telling the riveting story of bitter internecine conflict during the tumultuous birth of a nation.

    In Lower Manhattan, on a field in Pennsylvania, and along the banks of the Potomoc, the United States suffered the single largest loss of life from an enemy attack on its soil.In November 2002 the United States Congress and President George W. Bush established by law the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission. This independent, bipartisan panel was directed to examine the facts and circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks, identify lessons learned, and provide recommendations to safeguard against future acts of terrorism. This volume is the authorized edition of the Commission's final report. This volume is the authorized edition of the Commission's final report.

    Superb." - Thomas Edsall, New York Times columnistWhat's happening in global politics, and is there a thread that ties it all together? As if overnight, many Democrats revolted and passionately backed a socialist named Bernie Sanders; the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, in a stunning rebuke; the vituperative billionaire Donald Trump became the presidential nominee of the Republican Party; and a slew of rebellious parties continued to win election after election in countries like Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Austria, and Greece.John B. Judis, one of America's most respected political analysts, tells us why we need to understand the populist movement that began in the United States in the 1890s and whose politics have recurred on both sides of the Atlantic ever since. The Populist Explosion is essential reading for anyone hoping to grasp a global political system that is only just beginning what will be a long-running and highly consequential readjustment.

    Marines’ Dong Ha Combat Base. Intense fighting develops in nearby Dai Do as the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, known as “the Magnificent Bastards,” struggles to eject NVA forces from this strategic position.Yet the BLT 2/4 Marines defy the brutal onslaught. Pressing forward, America’s finest warriors rout the NVA from their fortress-hamlets–often in deadly hand-to-hand combat. At the end of two weeks of desperate, grinding battles, the Marines and the infantry battalion supporting them are torn to shreds. But against all odds, they beat back their savage adversary. The Magnificent Bastards captures that gripping conflict in all its horror, hell, and heroism.“Superb . . . among the best writing on the Vietnam War . . . Nolan has skillfully woven operational records and oral history into a fascinating narrative that puts the reader in the thick of the action.”–Jon T. Hoffman, author of Chesty“Real and gripping . . . combat with all the warts on.”–Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, USMC (Ret.)

    Although almost six centuries old, the Battle of Agincourt still captivates the imaginations of men and women on both sides of the Atlantic. It has been immortalized in high culture (Shakespeare's Henry V) and low (the New York Post prints Henry's battle cry on its editorial page each Memorial Day). It is the classic underdog story in the history of warfare, and generations have wondered how the English -- outnumbered by the French six to one -- could have succeeded so bravely and brilliantly. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, eminent scholar Juliet Barker casts aside the legend and shows us that the truth behind Agincourt is just as exciting, just as fascinating, and far more significant. She paints a gripping narrative of the October 1415 clash between outnumbered English archers and heavily armored French knights. But she also takes us beyond the battlefield into palaces and common cottages to bring into vivid focus an entire medieval world in flux. Populated with chivalrous heroes, dastardly spies, and a ferocious and bold king, Agincourt is as earthshaking as its subject -- and confirms Juliet Barker's status as both a historian and a storyteller of the first rank.

    As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. During his term, he helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865."

    Army. Defying all known accepted military practice -- and indeed, the laws of physics -- they believed that a soldier could adopt a cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. With firsthand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades and shows how they are alive today within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in postwar Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners of war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have 100 debleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces Command Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the U.S. military associated with the mysterious mass suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? The Men Who Stare at Goats answers these and many more questions.

    Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man

    Its coherence and ambition are unmatched by other military literature. On War is full of sharp observation, biting irony, and memorable phrases, the most famous being, "War is a continuation of politics by other means."About the AuthorExcept for a brief stint in 1812 when he served in the Russian army, Clausewitz spent his whole career, from the age of twelve until his death in 1831, in the Prussian army. He fought in all the major Prussian campaigns against France, and his most fateful experience - the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, in which Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army - inspired him to write On War.

    Mankind is reengineering the planet, investing up to ten trillion dollars per year in transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure linking the world’s burgeoning megacities together. This has profound consequences for geopolitics, economics, demographics, the environment, and social identity. Connectivity, not geography, is our destiny. In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle and the South China Sea to explain the rapid and unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets—a race China is now winning, having launched a wave of infrastructure investments to unite Eurasia around its new Silk Roads. The United States can only regain ground by fusing with its neighbors into a super-continental North American Union of shared resources and prosperity.Connectography offers a unique and hopeful vision for the future. Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and technologies have eliminated the need for resource wars; ambitious transport corridors and power grids are unscrambling Africa’s fraught colonial borders; even the Arab world is evolving a more peaceful map as it builds resource and trade routes across its war-torn landscape. At the same time, thriving hubs such as Singapore and Dubai are injecting dynamism into young and heavily populated regions, cyber-communities empower commerce across vast distances, and the world’s ballooning financial assets are being wisely invested into building an inclusive global society. Beneath the chaos of a world that appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.Advance praise for Connectography“Connectography is ahead of the curve in seeing the battlefield of the future and the new kind of tug-of-war being waged on it. Khanna’s scholarship and foresight are world-class. . . . A must-read for the next president.”—Chuck Hagel, former U.S. secretary of defense “This bold reframing is an exciting addition to our ongoing debate about geopolitics and the future of globalization.”—Dominic Barton, global managing partner, McKinsey & Company “This is probably the most global book ever written. It is intensely specific while remaining broad and wide. Its takeaway is that infrastructure is destiny: Follow the supply lines outlined in this book to see where the future flows.”—Kevin Kelly, co-founder, Wired “There’s no better guide than Khanna to show us all the possibilities of this new hyperconnected world.”—Mathew Burrows, director, Strategic Foresight Initiative at the Atlantic Council, and former counselor, U.S. National Intelligence Council “This book is an invaluable resource for anyone involved in business, science, arts, or any other field.”—Mark Mobius, executive chairman, Templeton Emerging Markets Group “A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the future of humanity.”—Sandy Pentland, professor, MIT Media Lab

    In "Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938", critically acclaimed historian Philipp Blom argues that, amid this uncertainty, Europeans and Americans directed their energies inwards toward aesthetic and intellectual self-discovery. Europe produced strange new brands of art, science, and spirituality—such as Surrealism and Art Deco—while flocking to exciting but dangerous new ideologies including communism and fascism. In America, the Harlem Renaissance marked the flourishing of black culture, and flappers sparked new thinking about the place of women in society. Yet undercurrents of racial and class conflict were pronounced, fueled by immigration quotas and the poverty of the Dust Bowl."Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938" is a sweeping evocation of the tumultuous interwar period, and the sublime cultural movements and terrifying ideologies it spawned.