Historical

Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton....

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings....

The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era....

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400....

From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of George Washington....

Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power....

Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist....

From the moment that he first shook up the world in the mid 1950s, Elvis Presley has been one of the most vivid and enduring myths of American culture....

Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering....

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention....

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times best-selling author of The Storm of War....

Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York....

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times....

In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman, and leader can finally be fully understood - by the best-selling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Storm of War....

Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society....

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly....

Father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas, Alex Dumas has become, through his son's books, the model for a captivating modern protagonist: The wronged man in search of justice....

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time. Described by the Chicago Tribune as "a classic", The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt stands as one of the greatest biographies of our time....

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time....

Left unfinished at the time of his death, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin has endured as one of the most well-known and influential autobiographies ever written....

This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country....

In April of 1862 he was merely another Confederate general with only a single battle credential in an army fighting in what seemed to be a losing cause....

From age 15 to 40, David Hackworth devoted himself to the US Army and fast became a living legend. In 1971, however, he appeared on television to decry the doomed war effort in Vietnam....

Hailed by critics as an American masterpiece, David McCullough's sweeping biography of Harry S. Truman captured the heart of the nation....

Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator....

In late-1940s America, few writers commanded attention like Bernard DeVoto. Alongside his brilliant wife and editor, Avis, DeVoto was a firebrand of American liberty, free speech, and perhaps our greatest national treasure: public lands. But when a corrupt band of lawmakers, led by Senator Pat McCarran, sought to quietly cede millions of acres of national parks and other Western lands to logging, mining, and private industry, the DeVotos entered the fight of their lives. 

On Thursday, August 28, 1947, a 30-year-old millionaire named Manuel Laureano Rodriguez—Manolete—and a Miura bull named Islero killed each other. The Death of Manolete recounts the extraordinary life and demise of this young bullfighter, from the childhood that made the Spanish boy and the sacrifice that made the man to the girl who brought him love and the acclaim that brought him incredible success. 

Imagine being born into a world where everything about you—the shape of your nose, the look of your hair, the place of your birth—designates you as an undesirable, an inferior, a menace, no better than a cockroach, something to be driven away and ultimately exterminated. Imagine being thousands of miles away while your family and friends are brutally and methodically slaughtered. Imagine being entrusted by your parents with the mission of leaving everything you know and finding some way to survive, in the name of your family and your people. 

In the last years of her life, Teresa Lim's mother, Violet Chang, had copies of a cherished family photograph made for those in the portrait who were still alive. The photo is mounted on cream card with the name of the studio stamped at the bottom in Chinese characters. The place and date on the back: Hong Kong, 1935. Teresa would often look at this photograph, enticed by the fierceness and beauty of her great-aunt Fanny looking back at her. But Fanny never seemed to feature in the told and retold family stories. Why? she wondered. 

In 1944, Benito Mussolini's daughter, Edda, gave Hitler and her father an ultimatum: release her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's journals to the press. To avoid the peril of exposing Nazi lies, Hitler and Mussolini hunted for the diaries for months, determined to destroy them. Hilde Beetz, a German spy, was deployed to seduce Ciano to learn the diaries' location and take them from Edda. Drawing from in‑depth research and first-person interviews, Mazzeo gives listeners a riveting look into this little‑known moment in history.

Maud Gonne, the legendary woman known as the Irish Joan of Arc, left her mark on everyone she met. What motivated this extraordinary person? Kim Bendheim has long been fascinated by Maud Gonne’s perplexing character, and here gives us an intensely personal assessment of her thrilling life. The product of much original research, including interviews with Gonne’s equally vivid, unconventional descendants, The Fascination of What’s Difficult is a portrait of a powerful woman who, despite her considerable flaws, continues to inspire. 

Beginning with Rodrigo Borgia, Chamberlin charts this intelligent but ruthless man's passage to the top. He uncovers how, as Pope Alexander VI, he directed his family to carve out a Borgia kingdom in the heart of Italy. The chaotic intrigues, alliances, and wars that Cesare and Lucrezia became embroiled with are exposed in fascinating detail as competing dynasties and cities struggled for survival before the family's fortunes crumbled. 

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and self-declared holy man who befriended the family of Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor, and achieved massive power in late Imperial Russia. Rasputin was born into a peasant family in the Siberian town of Pokrovskoye. In the year 1897, while on a journey to an abbey, he had a spiritual conversion experience. In the year 1903 or the winter of 1904-1905, he checked out Saint Petersburg, where he drew in certain church and social leaders. In November 1905, he met Emperor Nicholas and Empress Alexandra, and ended up a social figure.

Contained in this book are short summaries of the stories of the great visionaries and great minds of humanity that changed the game and changed the world. Rather than information overload like regular history textbooks (focused on dates, facts, and place names), this book series tells the unique stories of the characters. The adversities and setbacks they faced. The moments of inspiration. Rare characteristics and not-so-well-known facts. See these stories from a different angle in a new, exciting way, with their most inspirational quotes.

Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized.

My Boy Jack is the extraordinary story of Kipling's search for his son. John Kipling was reported missing in the Battle of Loos on the Western Front in 1915. His father, Rudyard, had pulled strings to get his myopic son into the firing line. Devastated at the loss of his only son, Rudyard undertook the sad mission to find John's grave but tragically never succeeded in his quest.

Richard Carr’s Charlie Chaplin places politics at the centre of the filmmaker’s life as it looks beyond Chaplin’s role as a comedic figure to his constant political engagement both on and off the screen. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources from across the globe, Carr provides an in-depth examination of Chaplin’s life as he made his way from Lambeth to Los Angeles. From his experiences in the workhouse to his controversial romantic relationships and his connections with some of the leading political figures of his day, this book sheds new light on Chaplin’s private life.

In 1939, seventeen-year-old Mary found herself in an extraordinary position at an extraordinary time: it was the outbreak of World War II and her father, Winston Churchill, had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; within months he would become prime minister. The young Mary Churchill was uniquely placed to observe this remarkable historical moment, and her diaries—most never published until now—provide an immediate view of the great events of the war, as well as intimate moments with her father. These diaries also capture what it was like to be a young woman during wartime.

Sourcebooks is bringing the internationally acclaimed New York Times bestseller back for a new generation of listeners. Jennie Churchill was not merely Winston’s mother. She was the most captivating and desired woman of her age. Originally from Brooklyn, Jennie became the reigning queen of British society. Beautiful and defiant, she lived with an honesty that made her the talk of two continents.

Always smack dab in the thick of things, he was an ordinary citizen living in extraordinarily turbulent times. Revere played key roles in colonial tax fights and riots, the infamous Boston Massacre, the Tea Party, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and even the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In this fast-paced, dramatic account, Paul Revere’s life pulses with energy as author Joel J. Miller explores his family and church life along with his revolutionary contribution as a spy, entrepreneur, express rider, freemason, and commercial visionary.