"A first-rate look at the little-known story behind the creation of America's first continental railroad…Entertaining and well written." —Publishers WeeklyOne hundred forty years ago, four shopkeepers in Sacramento, California, rose to become the force behind the American transcontinental railroad, achieving along the way wealth beyond measure. To build influence and maintain power, they lied, bribed, and, when necessary, arranged for obstacles, both human...

His scam was as simple as it was brazen. Before and during the Great Depression, Oscar Hartzell persuaded tens of thousands of Midwesterners to part with millions of dollars to start a legal fund that would see the mythical fortune of Sir Francis Drake restored to his rightful heir. In return for their contributions, donors would get shares in the riches, estimated to be worth $100 billion. The money of course went in the pocket of Hartzell, who transformed himself into a hedonistic Englis...

Best Book of the YearThe Los Angeles Times • The Washington PostLos Angeles was the fastest growing city in the world, mad with oil fever, get-rich-quick schemes, and celebrity scandals. It was also rife with organized crime, with a mayor in the pocket of the syndicates and a DA taking bribes to throw trials. In A Bright and Guilty Place, Richard Rayner narrates the entwined lives of two men, Dave Clark an...

A "wonderfully written account of America in the '30s," the follow-up to Only Yesterday examines Black Tuesday through the end of the Depression ( The New York Times).Wall Street Journal BestsellerOpening on September 3, 1929, in the days before the stock market crash, this information-packed volume takes us through one of America's darkest times all the way to the light at the end of the tunnel.Following Black Tue...

A "brilliant" look at America's sixteenth president by the New York Times–bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln ( American Historical Review).First published in 1956 and revised and updated for the twenty-first century, Lincoln Reconsidered is a masterpiece of Civil War scholarship. In a dozen eloquent, witty, and incisive essays, the author of the definitive biography of Abraham Lincoln offers a fresh perspective ...

“Bears comparison with William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as a work of scope and power . . . superbly dramatic.” —The New York Times Book ReviewAt 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.As a be...

A vivid account of the early battles, first in the Pulitzer Prize–winning trilogy: "One of America's foremost Civil War authorities" ( Kirkus Reviews ).The first book in New York Times–bestselling author Bruce Catton's Pulitzer Prize–winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln's Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps ...

A chilling and thoroughly researched account of the racially motivated killing of two black couples by a white mob in 1946 rural Georgia.In 1946, the bodies of two black couples—Roger and Dorothy Malcom, and George W. and Mae Murray Dorsey—were found near a bridge in rural Monroe, Georgia. Their killers were never identified, though some information would come to light: Roger was on his way home from jail; George had just returned from WWII. The crime came to be kn...

"Readers will emerge with a great deal of respect for a fiercely independent woman who battled sexism to reach the pinnacle of her profession" (Publishers Weekly).Before taking her place as the second woman on the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg quietly led a revolution and forever changed life in America for both men and women. Reserved and quiet, she didn't set out to be a trailblazer, but there was something in her way: the law....

The New York Times bestseller that inspired the documentary Shanghai 1937: Where World War II Began on Public Television.At its height, the Battle of Shanghai involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators—and often victims. It turned what had been a Japanese imperialist adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. U...

“Lulushi finds harrowing and inspiring incidences of both bravery and recklessness among the special forces arm of the wartime precursor to the CIA.” —Kirkus ReviewsThe OSS—Office of Strategic Services—created under the command of William Donovan, has been celebrated for its cloak-and-dagger operations during World War II and as the precursor of the CIA. As the “Oh So Social,” it has also been portrayed as a club for the well-connected before, during, and ...

This true account of two young Americans turning traitor during the Cold War is an "absolutely smashing real-life spy story" ( New York Times Book Review ).National BestsellerAt the height of the Cold War, some of the nation's most precious secrets passed through a CIA contractor in Southern California. Only a handful of employees were cleared to handle the intelligence that came through the Black ...