Captivity, Slavery and Survival as a Far East POW is the incredibly moving story of Gus Anckorn, a British soldier who was captured by the Japanese and held for over three and a half years. Before the war, Gus was a magician and throughout the war, entertained both fellow soldiers and Japanese guards with his tricks.Gus has a brilliant sense of humor and a 'tell it as it is' attitude which got him into a number of scrapes with both the Japanese and his own side. He has a remarkable humilit...

Between 1933 and 1945, more than 500,000 German citizens resisted the Nazi government. Many were imprisoned for political crimes which included both active attempts to remove Hitler from office and passive attempts to oppose the Nazi regime. Resistance was found among university students, churches and even in the German military.This fascinating and compelling history of the German resistance covers groups and methods from underground newspapers such as "Rote Kapella" and "Internal...

This thrilling account of WWII espionage by the former French secret service chief chronicles an Allied spy's actions in the German Cipher Office.A spy for the French Secret Service during World War II, Hans-Thilo Schmidt was embedded in the nerve center of the Third Reich. From deep within Hitler's most sensitive operations, Schmidt created an intelligence network between France, Poland, and England. In The Spy in Hitler's Inner Circle, France's former se...

New York Times bestseller: A “detailed and informed” look at the history and tactics of the global terror group—and how to defeat it (Richard Engel, from the foreword).ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—has taken on the mantle of being the single most dangerous terrorist threat to global security since al-Qaeda. In Defeating ISIS, internationally renowned intelligence veteran and counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance gives an insider’s view ...

A New York Times BestsellerFrank Sinatra desperately wanted to be part of John F. 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...

A presence lurks in New York City’s New Amsterdam Theatre when the lights go down and the audience goes home. They say she’s the ghost of Olive Thomas, one of the loveliest girls who ever lit up the Ziegfeld Follies and the silent screen. From her longtime home at the theater, Ollie’s ghost tells her story from her early life in Pittsburgh to her tragic death at twenty-five. After winning a contest for “The Most Beautiful Girl in New York,” shopgirl Ollie modeled for the most famous artist...

Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers unveils the history you were never taught at school. With a breath-taking sweep spanning Rome to the modern day, popular historian and author Dominic Selwood challenges the traditional version of some of the best-known events of the past. From ancient Christianity to the voyages of Columbus, and from the medieval Crusades to ISIS and the modern Middle East, this book debunks dozens of historical myths.You will learn that:– Magna Carta was an inf...

Now celebrated as one of the great painters of the Renaissance, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio fled Rome in 1606 to escape retribution for killing a man in a brawl. Three years later he was in Naples, where he painted The Seven Acts of Mercy. A year later he died at the age of thirty-eight under mysterious circumstances. Exploring Caravaggio's singular masterwork, in The Guardian of Shadows and Light Terence Ward offers an incredible narrative journey into the heart of...

A New York Times bestseller that brings to life one of the bloodiest battles of World War II—and the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffe...

“An entertaining yet highly accurate guide to this larger-than-life royal dynasty” (Claire Ridgway, author of The Fall of Anne Boleyn).From the bloody Wars of the Roses to Queen Elizabeth I’s iconic rule, the Tudor Dynasty was a fascinating period of English history—and monarchs such as Henry VIII have become a part of modern pop culture, appearing in endless TV shows, novels, and movies, as well as parodies and satires. After all these centuries, how do y...

Acclaimed Israeli intelligence analyst Avi Melamed has spent more than thirty years interpreting Middle East affairs. His long-awaited Inside the Middle East challenges widely-accepted perceptions and provides a gripping and uniquely enlightening guide to make sense of the events unfolding in the region-to answer how the Arab world got to this point, what is currently happening, what the ramifications will be, how they will affect Israel, and what actions must immediately be under...

In the shouted words of a woman bound for Auschwitz to a man about to escape from a cattle car, If you get out, maybe you can tell the story! Who else will tell it?”Our Crime Was Being Jewish contains 576 vivid memories of 358 Holocaust survivors. These are the true, insider stories of victims, told in their own words. They include the experiences of teenagers who saw their parents and siblings sent to the gas chambers; of starving children beaten for trying to steal a mo...