A fresh account of some of history's greatest warriors.The Vikings had an extraordinary and far-reaching historical impact. From the eighth to the eleventh centuries, they ranged across Europe-raiding, exploring, colonizing-and their presence was felt as far away as Russia and Byzantium. They are most famous as warriors, yet perhaps their talent for warfare is too little understood. Philip Line, in this scholarly and highly readable study of the Viking age, uses or...

“Lascelles has achieved the seemingly impossible: a concise and highly readable history of Catholic Popes that manages to be extremely entertaining and informative at the same time.”Gerald Posner, author of God’s Bankers"A brilliant book on a number of different levels. Lascelles has an engaging prose style and an amazing eye for detail and apposite anecdote. Surely only purblind Catholic zelanti will object to this outstanding analysis.”Frank...

A true story of the Sino-Japanese conflict: A "valuable account of a little-known event [and] a grim reminder of the darker side of war" ( Military History Monthly).The infamous Rape of Nanjing looms like a dark shadow over the history of Asia in the twentieth century, and is among the most widely recognized chapters of World War II in China. By contrast, the story of the month-long campaign before this notorious massacre has never been told in its entirety...

This political biography reveals how the legendary Prime Minister was the driving force in the fight against evil during WWII.How Churchill Saved Civilization examines how Winston Churchill’s wisdom and fortitude were central to the Allied victory against the forces of Fascism in the Second World War. John Harte shows how Churchill was the first to see the early warning signs of unrest in Germany, how he opposed the British policy of appeasement that encou...

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, comprehensive exploration of the Gestapo from a renowned historian of the Third Reich.Drawing on a detailed examination of previously unpublished Gestapo case files this book relates the fascinating, vivid and disturbing accounts of a cross-section of ordinary and extraordinary people who opposed the Nazi regime. It also tells the equally disturbing stories of the involvement of the German citizenry in the Gestapo’s surveillance and reveals the cold-blooded,...

“A mesmerizing, blood-chilling book . . . The contrast between innocent childhood experience, and the awful understanding of that experience that came with time, is enough to make you weep"– Los Angeles TimesGöring. Hess. Mengele. Dönitz. Names that conjure up dark memories of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. They were the architects of the Third Reich. And they were fathers. Gerald Posner convinced eleven sons and daughters of Hitler’s inner circle to break...

An account of the ancient battle between Persia and the alliance of Greek city-states, including the legendary "300 Spartans."In 480 BCE, Persian king Xerxes led a massive invasion of Greece. A critical point in this invasion was the battle for the pass at Thermopylae—"Hot Gates" in Greek. Xerxes had amassed one of the largest armies yet known to man, while Leonidas's troops, a group of united Spartans, Thespians, Thebans, and others, including slaves, were a small ...

A military history chronicling the shifting balance of power in the Mediterranean during three decades in the seventh century.The War of the Three Gods is a military history of the Near and Middle East in the seventh century, with its chief focus on the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius (AD 610–641), a pivotal and dramatic time in world history. The Eastern Roman Empire was brought to the very brink of extinction by the Sassanid Persians before ...

In 1941, Russian-born British journalist Alexander Werth observed the unfolding of the Soviet-German conflict with his own eyes. What followed was the widely acclaimed book, Russia at War, first printed in 1964. At once a history of facts, a collection of interviews, and a document of the human condition, Russia at War is a stunning, modern classic that chronicles the savagery and struggles on Russian soil during the most incredible military conflict in modern history.

General Robert E. Lee is well known as a major figure in the Civil War. However, by removing Lee from the delimiting frame of the Civil War and placing him in the context of the Republic's total history, Dowdey shows the "eternal relevance" of this tragic figure to the American heritage. With access to hundreds of personal letters, Dowdey brings fresh insights into Lee's background and personal relationships and examines the factors which made Lee that rare specimen, a complete person.” I...

Like Guns, Germs, and Steel, a work of breathtaking sweep and originality that reinterprets the human story.Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.The fabrication of weapons, the mastery of fire, a...