On January 30, 1889, during the Viennese Carnival, Emperor Franz Josef’s son and heir, Crown Prince Rudolf fired a revolver at his teenaged mistress and then at himself at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods. In this National Book Award finalist, Frederic Morton tells the story of the Prince and his city, where, in the span of ten months, “the Western dream started to go wrong.” In 1888-89 Vienna, other young men like Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and Arthur Schnitzl...

In the past two centuries, the Rothschild family has been at the center of great events in Europe and the world, such as the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the development of the Suez Canal. In this National Book Award finalist, Frederic Morton brings the family to life, starting with Mayer of Frankfurt, longtime adviser to Germany’s princes, who broke through the barriers of the Jewish ghetto and placed his family on the road to wealth and power, followed by Lord Alfred in London, Bar...

Berek, a young penniless Jew of eighteen is struggling to make a home of Turk Place, a desolate street that, in 1873 Vienna, was little more than a Gypsy encampment. But Berek believes fiercely in his own power to forge miracles. Taking the caretaker's daughter as his bride, Berek is confident he can thrive on faith. When a mysterious piece of stone comes into his possession, he and his wife believe their prayers have been answered; the stone may be a holy fragment of Jeru...

One of the most revered essayists and novelists of his generation, Frederic Morton has captured with matchless immediacy the glamour of Vienna before World War I and the storied opulence of the Rothschild family in his bestselling and award-winning works. Now, in his first book in more than fifteen years, he delivers a luminous look at his own unique pursuit of the American dream.Like many Austrian boys in 1936, the author idolizes Fritz Austerlitz, the Austrian American who went to...

A landmark history illuminating two crucial years in the life of the extraordinary city of Vienna—and in the life of the twentieth century.With a New Afterword by the Author"Affecting. . . . Thunder at Twilight touches us with the sense of a world quite suddenly changed." — New York TimesIt was during the carnival of 1913 that a young Joseph Stal...

Born in Haifa in 1943 to a family of Jewish refugees from Austria, after World War II Oscar Bronner grew up among the ruins of war-torn Vienna. While his father embarked on a career that would see him become one of the greatest entertainment icons of Central Europe, his son became one of its most influential media entrepreneurs. After having founded Austria's first independent news and business magazines (profil and trend) in the late Sixties, only to be forc...

Thunder at Twilight is a landmark historical vision, drawing on hitherto untapped sources to illuminate two crucial years in the life of the extraordinary city of Vienna—and in the life of the twentieth century.It was during the carnival of 1913 that a young Stalin arrived in Vienna on a mission that would launch him into the upper echelon of Russian revolutionaries, and it was here that he first collided with Trotsky. It was in Vienna that the failed artist Adolf Hitler k...

A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor.Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War.

The six children of King George V and Queen Mary all lived to maturity except the youngest, Prince John. The eldest, who was Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, reigned as King Edward VIII for less than a year. His infamous romance with Mrs Simpson plunged the country into the abdication crisis and led both of them into a long period of exile. King George VI, who reluctantly and unexpectedly ascended to the throne, was a shy man, handicapped by a speech impediment and ...

He evaded death so many times it seemed it would never take him. The only man in history to go to Auschwitz as a volunteer, to form a resistance movement and document German atrocities. One of the few who succeeded in escaping. He sent drawings from there to his children and wrote letters to his wife, delivering them via the underground conspiracy along with reports. The British historian Michael Foot included him among the six most courageous people of the Second World War. After the war ...

The New York Times –bestselling biography that "explores the mind of one of the most vilified women of the twentieth century" ( USA Today ).This is the story of Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee notorious for allegedly seducing a British king off his throne. "That woman," so called by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was born Bessie Wallis Warfield in 1896 in Baltimore. Nei...

In this "amazing WWII survival-and-rescue story," U.S. Army medical personnel fight to survive after their plane crashes in Nazi-occupied Albania ( Booklist ).A Wall Street Journal BestsellerWhen twenty-six Army nurses and medics—part of the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron—boarded a cargo plane for transport in November 1943, they never anticipated the crash landing in Nazi-occupied Albania that wou...