Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography.Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America’s first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America’s independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world’s most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin’s greatness and humanity, The First American is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy.

    Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, "The Reagan Diaries" provides a striking insight into one of this nation's most important presidencies and sheds new light on the character of a true American leader.

    Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers. A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow-by-blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich , moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare-and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

    Goldman opens his long-awaited sequel by writing about his years of exile before he found himself--again--as a valuable writer in Hollywood. Fans of the two-time Oscar-winning writer (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men) have anxiously waited for this follow-up since his career serpentined into a variety of big hits and critical bombs in the '80s and '90s. Here Goldman scoops on The Princess Bride (his own favorite), Misery, Maverick, Absolute Power, and others. Goldman's conversational style makes him easy to read for the film novice but meaty enough for the detail-oriented pro. His tendency to ramble into other subjects may be maddening (he suddenly switches from being on set with Eastwood to anecdotes about Newman and Garbo), but we can excuse him because of one fact alone: he is so darn entertaining. Like most sequels, Which Lie follows the structure of the original. Both Goldman books have three parts: stories about his movies, a deconstruction of Hollywood (here the focus is on great movie scenes), and a workshop for screenwriters. (The paperback version of the first book also comes with his full-length screenplay of Butch; his collected works are also worth checking out). This final segment is another gift--a toolbox--for the aspiring screenwriter. Goldman takes newspaper clippings and other ideas and asks the reader to diagnose their cinematic possibilities. Goldman also gives us a new screenplay he's written (The Big A), which is analyzed--with brutal honesty--by other top writers. With its juicy facts and valuable sidebars on what makes good screenwriting, this is another entertaining must-read from the man who coined what has to be the most-quoted adage about movie-business success: "Nobody knows anything." --Doug Thomas

    Olga Chekhova, a stunning Russian beauty, was the niece of playwright Anton Chekhov and a famous Nazi-era film actress who was closely associated with Hitler. After fleeing Bolshevik Moscow for Berlin in 1920, she was recruited by her composer brother Lev to become a Soviet spy—a career she spent her entire postwar life denying. The riveting story of how Olga and her family survived the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the Stalinist Terror, and the Second World War becomes, in Beevor’s hands, a breathtaking tale of survival in a merciless age.

    Recounts how the author, an Austrian, escaped from an English internment camp in India in 1943 and spent the next seven years in Tibet, observing its social practices, religion, politics, and people.

    

    Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.

    History is about so much more than dates and dead guys; it’s the greatest story ever told. Now, in this powerful follow-up to his national bestseller Miracles and Massacres, Glenn Beck brings ten more true and untold stories to life.The people who made America were not always what they seemed. There were entrepreneurs and visionaries whose selflessness propelled us forward, but there were also charlatans and fraudsters whose selfishness nearly derailed us. Dreamers and Deceivers brings both of these groups to life with stories written to put you right in the middle of the action. You know that Woodrow Wilson was a progressive who dramatically changed America, but did you know that he was also involved in one of the most shocking national deceptions of all time? You know I Love Lucy, but the true story of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball is much better than anything they produced for television. You’ve heard of Upton Sinclair, the socialist author who gained famed with The Jungle, but it was a book he wrote two decades later that proved the depths he was willing to go to maintain his reputation.From the spy Alger Hiss, to the visionary Steve Jobs, to the code-breaker Alan Turing—once you know the full stories behind the half-truths you’ve been force fed…once you meet the unsung heroes and obscured villains edited from our schoolbooks…once you begin to see these amazing people from our past as people rather than just names—your perspective on today’s important issues may forever change. Find out why this series has become America’s new go-to history book.

    From his father, Winston Churchill surely inherited the gift of oratory. But from his mother he drew greater gifts of inestimable value to the nation he led in the dark days of 1940-1. She gave him her ache for action, her formidable stamina, her courage and, above all, the will to stand fast in adversity and to endure whatever fate threw at her. Jennie was an extraordinary beauty whose zest, courage, intelligence and conversational ease made her, in her own right, one of the international figures of her day. When she married Lord Randolph Churchill, a fascinating young man who was violently in love with her, she had no idea he would become the most brilliant and controversial politician in England at the time. But she was eminently suited to be the wife of a politician and, although her role would be `to applaud not to advise,' she brought to it her whole heart and her lively intelligence. Yet her marriage to Randolph was a struggle which she had to learn to endure, and after his death she went on marry twice more, to men much younger than herself. She adored Winston and went to great lengths to satisfy his whims as a young man, and she was hugely influential in shaping the great figure he would become. Anita Leslie has used personal memories and family papers to create a fascinating look at one of the most powerful of Churchill women, mother of Winston.

    The Travels recounts Polo's journey to the eastern court of Kublai Khan, the chieftain of the Mongol empire which covered the Asian continent, but which was almost unknown to Polo's contemporaries. Encompassing a twenty-four year period from 1271, Polo's account details his travels in the service of the empire, from Beijing to northern India and ends with the remarkable story of Polo's return voyage from the Chinese port of Amoy to the Persian Gulf. Alternately factual and fantastic, Polo's prose at once reveals the medieval imagination's limits, and captures the wonder of subsequent travel writers when faced with the unfamiliar, the exotic or the unknown.

    Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.

    Now this enigma of a man is unveiled in a monumental biography by a writer who came to know Speer intimately in his final years.Out of hundreds of hours of interviews, Sereny unravels the threads of Speer's personality: the genius that made him indispensable to the German war machine, the conscience that drove him to repent, and the emotional wounds that made him susceptible to Hitler's lethal magnetism. Read as an inside account of the Third Reich, or as a revelatory unsparing yet compassionate study of the human capacity for evil, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth is a triumph."Fascinating...Not only a major addition to our knowledge of The Third Reich, but a stunning attempt to understand the nature of good and evil."--Newsday"More than a biography...It also constitutes a perceptive re-examination of the mysterious appeal of Adolf Hitler."--San Francisco ChronicleB&W photos.IntroductionPrologueAn Infusion of Stable Stock'I Felt He Was a Human Being'Dizzy with ExcitementA Kind of LoveA Shared Devotion'You've All Gone Completely Insane'A Slight DiscomfortUnleashing MurderA Grey Path IndeedA Moral SoreA Fatal AppointmentAn Irresistable ChallengeA Maelstom of IntriguesA Blinkered CommitmentThe Unbearable Truth'It Was Not Yet My Time'The 20th of JulyScorched Earth'I Stand Unconditionally Behind You'He Is the DreamThe One Interesting PersonA Common ResponsibilitySpandau 1Spandau 2A Twilight of KnowingThe Great LiePostscriptReferencesNotesIndex

    He was also an extremely able politician who won the esteem of many statesmen-including Winston Churchill and influential persons in the United States. This biography describes Mussolini's childhood; his education (including his suspension from school for attacking other boys with knives); his World War I experiences and severe wounding; his involvement in, and eventual expulsion from the revolutionary Italian Socialist Party; his numerous love affairs, his early career as a journalist and his rise to power and brutal rule.

    Evans), Ian Kershaw's Hitler is a new, distilled, one-volume masterpiece that will become the standard work. From Hitler's origins as a failed artist in fin-de-siecle Vienna to the terrifying last days in his Berlin bunker, Kershaw's richly illustrated biography is a mesmerizing portrait of how Hitler attained, exercised, and retained power. Drawing on previously untapped sources, such as Goebbels's diaries, Kershaw addresses crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism, about the Holocaust, and about the poisoned European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively.