The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction

The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71

Alistair Horne · 480 pages

Napoleon: A Biography

Frank McLynn · 744 pages

Napoleon Bonaparte's character and achievements have always divided critics and historians. In this compelling biography, Frank McLynn draws on the most recent scholarship and throws a brilliant light on this most paradoxical of men -- as military leader, emperor, and lover. Tracing Napoleon's extraordinary career, the author examines the Promethean legend from his Corsican roots, through the year

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution

Nathaniel Philbrick · 636 pages

From the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award, comes a surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold.

The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation

James Donovan · 520 pages

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Alamo All-Stars

Nathan Hale

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

William L. Shirer · 1,264 pages

Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War

Stephen R. Platt · 385 pages

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789

Robert Middlekauff · 736 pages

Recounts the events leading up to the Revolution and discusses the major leaders, campaigns, and battles of the war.

Napoleon: A Life

Andrew Roberts · 926 pages

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times. Andrew Roberts's Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon's thir

A History of Britain: The Wars of the British 1603-1776

Simon Schama · 480 pages

'The British Wars' is a compelling chronicle of the changes that transformed every strand and strata of British life, faith and thought from 1603 to 1776. It explores the forces that tore Britain apart during two centuries of dynamic change.

The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia

James Palmer · 288 pages

Roman Ungern von Sternberg was a Baltic aristocrat, a violent, headstrong youth posted to the wilds of Siberia and Mongolia before the First World War. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Baron - now in command of a lethally effective rabble of cavalrymen - conquered Mongolia, the last time in history a country was seized by an army mounted on horses. He was a Kurtz-like figure, slaughtering every

Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine

Eugene Finkel · 336 pages

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

Tom Reiss · 430 pages

“In the early 1800s, General Alex Dumas was purposefully disappeared by hie enemies. And though his son sought to make him live through his classic novels, for too long his story has remained silenced. The Black Count vividly vindicates the great general, restoring him to his rightful place at the center of the Age of Revolution.

Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence

Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard

Told through the eyes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Great Britain's King George III, O'Reilly and Dugard chronicle the path to independence in gripping detail, taking the listener from the battlefields of America to the royal courts of Europe. They recreate the war's landmark battles, including Bunker Hill, Long Island, Saratoga, and Yorktown, revealing the savager

Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence

John Ferling · 679 pages

1776

David McCullough · 393 pages

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based

Washington's Crossing

David Hackett Fischer · 693 pages

Enlightening. To say the least. A very good light into the politics of our country. Not exactly what you learned in school. The author did his homework and when you finish this book, you will have a new perspective. For example,Jefferson was so active in undermining Adams that when he became President he got a law passed making it an act of sedition to speak against the President. That Hamil

Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring

Alexander Rose · 369 pages

In 1778, George Washington unleashed an unlikely ring of spies in New York to discover British battle plans.

Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution

Patrick K. O'Donnell · 463 pages

In August 1776, General George Washington's army faced off against over 20,000 British and Hessian soldiers at the Battle of Brooklyn. It was almost the end of the war. But thanks to a series of desperate bayonet charges by a single heroic regiment from Maryland, known as the "Immortal 400," Washington was able to retreat and regroup.

Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present

Max Boot · 767 pages

A complete global history of guerrilla uprisings through the ages.

To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949

Ian Kershaw · 592 pages

"The Penguin History of Europe series reaches the twentieth century with ... Ian Kershaw's long-anticipated analysis of the pivotal years of World War I and World War II. The European catastrophe, the long continuous period from 1914 to 1949, was unprecedented in human history-- an extraordinarily dramatic, often traumatic, and endlessly fascinating period of upheaval and transformation. This new

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn · 702 pages

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, *A People's History of the United States* is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.

Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

Christopher Clark · 800 pages

"Iron Kingdom traces Prussia's involvement in the continent's foundational religious and political conflagrations: from the devastations of the Thirty Years War through centuries of political machinations to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, from the enlightenment of Frederick the Great to the destructive conquests of Napoleon, and from the "iron and blood" policies of Bismarck to the crea

The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-heroes of Ancient Greece

Paul Anthony Cartledge · 288 pages

Traces the history of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, describes its distinctive military society and the unusual freedom of Spartan women, and discusses the influence which its culture has had on later civilizations.