Galileo, the argumentative "wrangler" who demanded that the universe be examined through a telescope rather than by means of a philosophy book, provided the first liftoff, and Newton, the secretive mathematician who searched among his notes to find a mislaid proof for universal gravitation, put the world into orbit. Here, from award-winning journalist William Bixby, are their stories.

    The nefarious witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts represent a low point of American history, made famous in works by Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne (himself a descendant of one of the judges), and Arthur Miller. The trials might have doomed Sewall to infamy except for a courageous act of contrition now commemorated in a mural that hangs beneath the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House picturing Sewall's public repentance. He was the only Salem witch judge to make amends.But, remarkably, the judge's story didn't end there. Once he realized his error, Sewall turned his attention to other pressing social issues. Struck by the injustice of the New England slave trade, a commerce in which his own relatives and neighbors were engaged, he authored "The Selling of Joseph," America's first antislavery tract. While his peers viewed Native Americans as savages, Sewall advocated for their essential rights and encouraged their education, even paying for several Indian youths to attend Harvard College. Finally, at a time when women were universally considered inferior to men, Sewall published an essay affirming the fundamental equality of the sexes. The text of that essay, composed at the deathbed of his daughter Hannah, is republished here for the first time.In Salem Witch Judge, acclaimed biographer Eve LaPlante, Sewall's great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, draws on family lore, her ancestor's personal diaries, and archival documents to open a window onto life in colonial America, painting a portrait of a man traditionally vilified, but who was in fact an innovator and forefather who came to represent the best of the American spirit.

    But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name – a flippant tag for “the most remote place on earth.” With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a forty-five hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, “Third World, three-lane” roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu. Rick narrates the history of this elusive destination through the teachings of his Malian guide Zak, and encounters with stranded tourists, a camel owner, a riverboat captain, and the people who call Timbuktu home.Antonson’s eloquence and quiet wit highlight the city’s myths—the centuries old capital and traveler’s dream—as well as its realities: A city gripped by poverty, where historic treasures lie close to the sands of destruction. Indeed, some 700,000 ancient manuscripts remain there, endangered. Both a travelogue and a history of a place long forgotten, To Timbuktu for a Haircut emerges as a plea to preserve the past and open cultural dialogues on a global scale.The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists. Literally, it is a race against time to save the city’s irreplaceable artifacts, mosques, and monuments, and to understand why Timbuktu’s past is essential to the future of Africa.

    In 1942, the killings began in Poland. With his family and friends decimated by the roundups, Blaichman decided that he would rather die fighting; he set off for the forest to find the underground bunkers of Jews who had already escaped. Together they formed a partisan force dedicated to fighting the Germans. This is a harrowing, utterly moving memoir of a young Polish Jew who chose not to go quietly and defied the mighty German war machine during World War II.

    Bury's history is indispensable to anyone who seeks to understand the connection between the barbarian migrations of the third to the ninth century and the framework of modern Europe.

    England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy – dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join the king's invasion. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone learns the brutal lessons of war – from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare. Blackstone will brave the terrors of the High Alps in winter, face the Black Prince in tournament, confront the bloody anarchy of a popular revolt and emerge from the Battle of Crécy as a knight. He may yet defy death but he can't defy his destiny: Master of War. Collected in a single volume for the first time, the first three novels in the epic Master of War series, comprising of: Master of War Defiant unto Death Gate of the Dead.

    In World’s End, the gathering storm clouds of World War I burst over Europe, forcing Lanning “Lanny” Budd, the young son of an American arms dealer, to put the innocence of youth behind him; his language skills and talent for decoding messages are in high demand. At his father’s side, Lanny meets many important political and military figures, learns about the myriad causes of the conflict, and closely follows the war’s progress. When the bloody hostilities conclude, Lanny joins the Paris Peace Conference as the assistant to a geographer asked by President Woodrow Wilson to redraw the map of Europe.   From the rise of Fascism in Europe to the stock market crash on Wall Street, Between Two Worlds captures the drama, intrigue, and excitement of the Roaring Twenties. At the start of his career as an international art dealer, Lanny travels to Italy and witnesses the brutal charisma of Benito Mussolini. Meanwhile, in Germany, the failed Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party strikes an ominous note, foreshadowing the devastation to come. After two star-crossed love affairs, Lanny marries a wealthy heiress and chooses the United States with its booming economy as their home. But neither he nor those he loves can predict the financial disaster that will bring a decade of prosperity to an abrupt close.   Winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Dragon’s Teeth brilliantly captures the nightmarish march toward the Second World War. In Germany to visit relatives, Lanny encounters a disturbing atmosphere of hatred and jingoism stoked by the Nazi Party and meets the group’s fanatical leader, Adolf Hitler. But Lanny’s gravest fear is the threat to his Jewish friends and family—a threat that impels him to risk his wealth, his future, and even his life in a courageous attempt to rescue his loved ones from a terrible fate.   An astonishing mix of history, adventure, and romance, the Lanny Budd Novels are a testament to the breathtaking scope of Upton Sinclair’s vision and his singular talents as a storyteller.

    But it's only recently that scientists have pieced together the elusive, compelling saga of that epic migration. And the more we learn about them, the more we must marvel at the courage, adaptability, enterprise, and enduring resilience of the First Americans. Most of us know little about the early Americans and the wonders they achieved. Some of them learned to hunt forty-ton whales from dugout canoes; others built a vast system of canals that irrigated crops on tens of thousands of acres. Fully a thousand years before the pyramids at Giza went up, people on the Mississippi River were constructing even larger pyramidal earthworks, and later, a thousand miles to the north, others built a city that would remain the largest in North America until after the Revolutionary War. In the cradle of civilization that evolved in Central America, the Olmecs, Mayans, and Aztecs built complex cultures and dazzling cities whose monumental structures and works of art still have the power to awe and inspire. This book describes the peopling of North and Central America and examine their amazing societies - the farmers and cliff-dwellers of the Southwest United States, the mound-builders of the Midwest, the Northwest Coast whale-hunters with their potlatches and totem poles, and the mighty, gods-driven cultures of Mesoamerica. It is a saga as breathtaking as it is surprising.

    Joseph Warren, an architect of the colonial rebellion, and a man who might have led the country as Washington or Jefferson did had he not been martyred at Bunker Hill in 1775. Warren was involved in almost every major insurrectionary act in the Boston area for a decade, from the Stamp Act protests to the Boston Massacre to the Boston Tea Party, and his incendiary writings included the famous Suffolk Resolves, which helped unite the colonies against Britain and inspired the Declaration of Independence. Yet after his death, his life and legend faded, leaving his contemporaries to rise to fame in his place and obscuring his essential role in bringing America to independence.Christian Di Spigna's definitive new biography of Warren is a loving work of historical excavation, the product of two decades of research and scores of newly unearthed primary-source documents that have given us this forgotten Founding Father anew. Following Warren from his farming childhood and years at Harvard through his professional success and political radicalization to his role in sparking the rebellion, Di Spigna's thoughtful, judicious retelling not only restores Warren to his rightful place in the pantheon of Revolutionary greats, it deepens our understanding of the nation's dramatic beginnings.

    At the time, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist C.L. Sulzberger received widespread praise for his authoritative account of the six-year war that involved more than fifty-six nations, resulted in the death of some 22 million people, and shaped the course of history. His work became a standard reference on the war. Stephen E. Ambrose, one of the most highly regarded historians of our time, oversaw a major revision of this classic work. Seamlessly incorporating new material and insights, Ambrose produced a comprehensive and riveting account of the war’s key characters and events. In planes and foxholes, in deserts and jungles, on ships and beaches, Ambrose shines a light on the people involved - the leaders, the fighters, the victims. He also added new chapters on the atrocities of the Holocaust and revelations about the secret war of espionage. Ambrose’s analysis also offers insight into the events that precipitated the Cold War. This book captures the courage, commitment, military genius, and horror of the war that gave birth to a new era in world politics. For students, history buffs, and fascinated readers, The American Heritage History of World War II is the definitive single-volume work on the subject and will endure as a major narrative of world history.

    Now she turns to the topic of home. As our country reels from the subprime mortgage meltdown and the resulting devastation of so many families and communities, Hill takes us inside this “crisis of home” and exposes its deep roots in race and gender inequities, which continue to imperil every American’s ability to achieve the American Dream.  In this period of recovery and its aftermath, what is at stake is the inclusive democracy the Constitution promises. The achievement of that ideal, Hill argues, depends on each American’s ability to secure a place that provides access to every opportunity our country offers. Building on the great strides of the women’s and civil rights movements, Hill presents concrete proposals that encourage us to broaden our thinking about home and to reimagine equality for America’s future.

    . . gracefully written" - The New York Times Award-winning historian Lionel Casson paints a vivid portrait of life in ancient Rome - for slaves and emperors, soldiers and commanders alike - during the empire's greatest period, the first and second centuries A.D.

    SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND tells the true and heart-wrenching stories of Lilly and Günter struggling with the terror-filled reality of life in the Third Reich, each embarking on their own dangerous path toward survival, freedom, and ultimately each other. Based on the author’s own family and anchored in historical facts, this story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the strength of war children.

    Buck set in war-time China. Dr. Gray Thompson, an American missionary doctor, works alongside Dr. Sara Durand in a hospital he has built in a small Chinese village, as Japanese forces approach. When Gray returns from a visit to America a trip, he shocks Sara (who is in love with him) by introducing his new socialite wife, Louise. In the midst of bombing attacks on the village, Dr. Thompson continues to help the local residents, and especially the insurgent leader Chen-Ta. To protect the hospital, a high-ranking Japanese prisoner gets a message to the Japanese commander which stops the bombing but, eventually, Japanese paratroopers land in the village, and fierce fighting ensues. China Sky was also the subject of a 1945 movie of the same name. Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 and was the author of numerous novels, short-stories and works of non-fiction.

    From island bases near the deltas of major rivers, they used the waterways to scour the countryside, looting and burning towns, plundering merchant shipments, and stripping churches and monasteries of their gold, silver, and jeweled treasures.The Norsemen eventually penetrated all of England and Scotland, founded cities in Ireland, gained a powerful province in France, controlled Frisia and the modern Netherlands, and raided lands around Spain, passing into the Mediterranean to attack Italy and North Africa. They established the first Russian kingdom, challenged Constantinople, and provided a personal guard for the Byzantine emperor. They settled Iceland, where they developed Europe's first republic, founded two colonies on Greenland, and explored parts of North America five centuries before Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas. Then, like the abrupt end of a summer thunderstorm, their adventures ceased.Here is their dramatic story.