With reference to the Indian scene.

    That history - spread over three continents - features diamond mining in India, the French Revolution, the machinations of British King George IV, the Gilded Age in America and a number of very clever jewelers including Pierre Cartier and Harry Winston. In the 20th century, the myth of the Hope diamond curse made the diamond more notorious and famous than ever before, but it is only one small piece of a long and lustrous history.Dr. Kurin, who is a cultural anthropologist, has spent over a decade on the trail of the Hope, from India, to France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and England. His narrative is filled with fascinating places and people - from the fabled diamond city of Golconda to the fabulously rich heiress Evalyn McLean to Jackie Kennedy and her pivotal role in one of the Hope's few 20th century trips abroad.

    Kennedy, Jr.’s gang. He had his own famed “Rat Pack,” made up of hard drinking, womanizing individuals like himself—guys like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford—but the guy “Ol’ Blue Eyes” really wanted to hang with was Lawford’s brother-in-law, the real chairman of the board, John F. Kennedy.In Sinatra and the Jack Pack, Michael Sheridan delves deep into the acclaimed singer’s relationship with the former president. He shares how Sinatra emerged from a working class Italian family and carved out a unique place for himself in American culture, and how Kennedy, also of immigrant stock, came from a privileged background of which the young Frank could only have dreamed.By the time the men met in the 1950s, both were thriving—and both liked the good life. They bonded over their mutual ability to attract beautiful women, male admirers, and adoring acolytes. They also shared a scandalous secret: each had dubious relationships with the mafia. It had promoted Frank’s career and helped Kennedy buy votes. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had, over two decades, compiled detailed and damning dossiers on their activities.From all accounts the friendship thrived. Then, suddenly, in March 1962, Frank was abruptly ejected from JFK’s gang. This unique volume tells why. It will release shortly after a television documentary inspired by the book airs, is filled with a beloved cast of characters, and is the compelling, untold story of a tumultuous relationship between two American icons.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.

    Since then, they have become embroiled in allegations of state capture, of dishing out cabinet posts to officials who would do their bidding, and of benefiting from lucrative state contracts and dubious loans. The Republic of Gupta investigates what the Gupta brothers were up to during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency and how they got into the inner circle of President Jacob Zuma. It shines new light on their controversial ventures in computers, cricket, newspapers and TV news, and coal and uranium mining. And it explores their exposure by public protector Thuli Madonsela, their conflict with finance minister Pravin Gordhan, and the real reasons behind the cabinet reshuffle of March 2017.Pieter-Louis Myburgh delves deeper than ever before into the Guptas’ business dealings and their links to prominent South African politicians, and explains how one family managed to transform an entire country into the Republic of Gupta.

    Buchanan, bestselling author and senior advisor to Richard Nixon, tells the definitive story of Nixon's resurrection from the political graveyard and his rise to the presidency. After suffering stinging defeats in the 1960 presidential election against John F. Kennedy, and in the 1962 California gubernatorial election, Nixon's career was declared dead by Washington press and politicians alike. Yet on January 20, 1969, just six years after he had said his political life was over, Nixon would stand taking the oath of office as 37th President of the United States. How did Richard Nixon resurrect a ruined career and reunite a shattered and fractured Republican Party to capture the White House? In The Greatest Comeback, Patrick J. Buchanan--who, beginning in January 1966, served as one of two staff members to Nixon, and would become a senior advisor in the White House after 1968--gives a firsthand account of those crucial years in which Nixon reversed his political fortunes during a decade marked by civil rights protests, social revolution, The Vietnam War, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, urban riots, campus anarchy, and the rise of the New Left. Using over 1,000 of his own personal memos to Nixon, with Nixon’s scribbled replies back, Buchanan gives readers an insider’s view as Nixon gathers the warring factions of the Republican party--from the conservative base of Barry Goldwater to the liberal wing of Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney, to the New Right legions of an ascendant Ronald Reagan--into the victorious coalition that won him the White House. How Richard Nixon united the party behind him may offer insights into how the Republican Party today can bring together its warring factions.The Greatest Comeback is an intimate portrayal of the 37th President and a fascinating fly on-the-wall account of one of the most remarkable American political stories of the 20th century.

    But Vidal was also a terrific conversationalist; indeed Dick Cavett once described him as “the best talker since Oscar Wilde.” Vidal was never more eloquent, or caustic, than when let loose on his favorite topic: the history and politics of the United States.This book is made up from four interviews conducted with his long-time interlocutor, the writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate.The interviews cover a twenty-year span, from 1988 to 2008, when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America’s place in the world, are all on full display. And, of course, it being Gore Vidal, an ample sprinkling of gloriously acerbic one-liners is also provided.

    He decried the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War Two, agitated against nuclear weapons, promoted vitamin C as a cure for the common cold and researched the idea of DNA.

    The Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society agrees, and shows it with this endlessly diverting tribute to tabby. From famous cats to the famous with their cats to cats' famous history, from cats who like to paint to cats who travel the world to find their way home, Uncle John's Hysterical Society scours the globe to find the winning-est, wackiest, most wondrous cat tales for this collection.

    

    Now, for all his readers who want to put their taste for adventure into practice, Capstick has written the first modern authoritative, comprehensive guide to African safari. Drawing on his years of experience as a professional hunter, Capstick explains everything a bwana needs to know: how to select and book a safari; where and when to go; fees and licenses; the guns, ammo, and personal equipment needed. Chapters on each of the Big Five (lion, Cape buffalo, elephant, leopard, and rhino-- the trophies most hunters want to take) describe the techniques, thrills, and dangers of hunting these clever and cunning animals. The other memorable delights of safari, like camp life, bird shooting, fishing, photography, and game viewing in wildlife parks, are also celebrated. A list of safari agencies, hunting companies and professional hunters, suggested equipment for a 21-day safari, and a trophy price list round out the most exhaustive guide to safari ever written.Packed with solid advice and nuggets of campfire lore and hunting yarns, illustrated with thirty-four black and white photographs and six line drawings, Safari: The Last Adventure is sure to become a classic work in its field, essential equipment for anyone going on safari or just dreaming of one...

    It’s a shame no one bothered to write a more perfect Constitution—one that didn’t trigger more than two centuries of arguments about what the darn thing actually says.Until now. Perfection is at hand. A new, improved Constitution is here. And you are holding it.But first, some historical context: In the eighteenth century, a lawyer named James Madison gathered his friends in Philadelphia and, over four long months, wrote four short pages: the Constitution of the United States of America. Not bad.In the nineteenth century, a president named Abraham Lincoln freed an entire people from the flaws in that Constitution by signing the Emancipation Proclamation.  Pretty impressive.And in the twentieth century, a doctor at the Bethesda Naval Hospital delivered a baby—but not just any baby. Because in the twenty-first century, that baby would become a man, that man would become a patriot, and that patriot would rescue a country . . . by single-handedly rewriting that Constitution.Why? We think of our Constitution as the painstakingly designed blueprint drawn up by, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, an “assembly of demigods” who laid the foundation for the sturdiest republic ever created. The truth is, it was no blueprint at all but an Etch A Sketch, a haphazard series of blunders, shaken clean and redrawn countless times during a summer of petty debates, drunken ramblings, and desperate compromise—as much the product of an “assembly of demigods” as a confederacy of dunces.No wonder George Washington wished it “had been made more perfect.” No wonder Benjamin Franklin stomached it only “with all its faults.” The Constitution they wrote is a hot mess. For starters, it doesn’t mention slavery, or democracy, or even Facebook; it plays favorites among the states; it has typos, smudges, and misspellings; and its Preamble, its most famous passage, was written by a man with a peg leg. Which, if you think about it, gives our Constitution hardly a leg to stand on.[Pause for laughter.]Now stop laughing. Because you hold in your hands no mere book, but the most important document of our time. Its creator, Daily Show writer Kevin Bleyer, paid every price, bore every burden, and saved every receipt in his quest to assure the salvation of our nation’s founding charter. He flew to Greece, the birthplace of democracy. He bused to Philly, the home of independence. He went toe-to-toe (face-to-face) with Scalia. He added nightly confabs with James Madison to his daily consultations with Jon Stewart. He tracked down not one but two John Hancocks—to make his version twice as official. He even read the Constitution of the United States.So prepare yourselves, fellow patriots, for the most significant literary event of the twenty-first, twentieth, nineteenth, and latter part of the eighteenth centuries. Me the People won’t just form a More Perfect Union. It will save America.

    On March 7, 2004, former SAS soldier and mercenary Simon Mann prepared to take off from Harare International Airport. His destination was Equatorial Guinea; his was intention to remove one of the most brutal dictators in Africa in a privately organized coup d'etat. The plot had the tacit approval of Western intelligence agencies and Mann had planned, overseen, and won two wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. So why did it go so wrong? Here he reveals the full involvement of Mark Thatcher in the coup d'etat, the endorsement of a former prime minister, and the financial involvement of two internationally famous members of the House of Lords. He also discusses how the British government approached him in the months preceding the Iraq War, to suggest ways in which a justified invasion of Iraq could be engineered. He also discusses the pain of telling his wife Amanda, who gave birth to their fourth child while he was incarcerated, that he believed he would never be freed.

    But American governments legally suspended the free will of blacks for 150 years, and then denied blacks equal protection of the law for another 150 years. How did this happen in America, how were the Constitution and laws of the land twisted so as to institutionalize racism, and how did it or will it end? In a refreshingly candid book, Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom In America, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano takes a no-holds-barred look at the role of the government in the denial of freedoms based on race.

    The news was crazy, incredible. The biggest merger ever, it was, according to the media, an "awesome megadeal" and "a fusion of guts and glory." It was "the deal of the century" and "a mega-marriage of earth and cyberspace." An Internet upstart, AOL was buying the world's most powerful media and entertainment company. "A company that isn't old enough to buy beer," marveled the Wall Street Journal, "has essentially swallowed an ancien régime media conglomerate that took most of a century to construct."Two years later, after the smoke had cleared, $200 billion of shareholder value had vanished into cyberspace. On the trail of possible fraud, the SEC and the Justice Department started investigating AOL Time Warner's accounting practices. Meanwhile, a civil war had broken out inside the company, complete with backstabbing and personal betrayals. Before long, almost every major player was out of the company, discredited, and humiliated. Jerry Levin, Time Warner's "resident genius," lost his job, lost his reputation, and, in the view of some people, simply "lost it." Steve Case, the visionary leader of AOL, was forced out of the company he had created. Gone too was the telegenic wonder-boy Bob Pittman, and his gang of fast-talking salesmen. As for Ted Turner, he resigned from his post as vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner in early 2003, bitter, wiser, and $8.5 billion poorer.Fools Rush In is the definitive account of one of the greatest fiascos in the history of corporate America. In a narrative fraught with drama, Nina Munk reveals the overweening ambition and moral posturing that brought down the Deal of the Century. With painstaking reporting and the remarkable eye for detail she's known for, Munk lays out, step by step, the anatomy of a debacle. Irreverent, witty, and iconoclastic, she sees through it all brilliantly."As in all great Greek tragedies, you knew the plot before it played out," one perceptive insider told Munk on the subject of the AOL Time Warner deal; "you knew who'd be sacrificed at the altar." Here's what we discover in Fools Rush In: In their single-minded quest for power, Steve Case and Jerry Levin were at each other's throats even before the deal was announced. Bob Pittman was regarded as a "windup CEO" by Case, and viewed as a hustler by just about everyone at Time Warner. Ted Turner underestimated Jerry Levin's ruthlessness badly. And Levin himself, convinced he was creating a great legacy comparable to that of Time Inc.'s founder, Henry Luce, refused to acknowledge the obvious: that, with a remarkable sense of timing, Steve Case had used grossly inflated Internet paper to buy Time Warner.

    Packer's father was a Kennedy-era liberal, a law professor and dean at Stanford whose convictions were sorely--and ultimately fatally--tested in the campus upheavals of the 1960s. The inheritor of two sometimes conflicting strains of the great American liberal tradition, Packer discusses the testing of ideals in the lives of his father and grandfather and his own struggle to understand the place of the progressive tradition in our currently polarized political climate. Searching, engrossing, and persuasive, this is an original, intimate examination of the meaning of politics in American lives.