Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem f...

A gripping survival epic, Brutal Journey tells the story of an army of would-be conquerors, bound for glory, who landed in Florida in 1528. But only four of the four hundred would survive: eight years and some five thousand miles late...

A social history of the Middle Ages, first broadcast on IDEAS in 1977, by John Buckmann, professor of history at York University in Toronto. The millennium from 500 to 1500 A.D. saw the birth of the first truly Western civilization. W...

Spanning 500 years of British history, a revealing look at the secret lives of some great (and not-so-great) Britons, courtesy of one of the world's most engaging royal historians  Beleaguered by scandal, betrayed by faithless spouse...

In this New York Times bestseller, award-winning combat reporter Sean Naylor reveals how close American forces came to disaster in Afghanistan against Al Qaida-after easily defeating the ragtag Taliban that had sheltered the terrorist...

By the author of the internationally bestselling biography The Orientalist, The Black Count brings to life one of history's great forgotten heroes: a man almost unknown today yet with a personal story that is strikingly familiar.  Hi...

NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER - The epic true crime story of the most successful bootlegger in American history and the murder that shocked the nation, from the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and Liar, Temptres...

The prizewinning, best-selling author of Founding Brothers and His Excellency brings America's preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the Republic's tenuo...

[Read by Robin Miles]The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture.Before John Glenn orbited Ear...

We think we know the story of the Titanic—the once majestic and supposedly unsinkable ship that struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Britain to America—but very little has been written about the vessel's 705 survivors. How ...

Mr. Cahill is a man of learning himself, and his writing is in the great Irish tradition he describes; lyrical, playful, penetrating and serious, but never too serious....Mr. Cahill's book will remain an entirely engaging, delectable ...

A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbu...

An updated edition of the classic guide to basic American history offers new sections covering the end of the Cold War, Clinton's impeachment, the election of 2000, and the events of September 11, 2001. Read by Jeff Wooman with Jonath...

A revised edition of the American Book Award-nominated chronicle of U.S. history is told from a grassroots perspective and provides an analysis of important events of the 20th Century. Read by Matt Damon, preface and afterword read by...

Army Wives goes beyond the sound bites and photo ops of military life to bring readers into the hearts and homes of today's military wives. Biank tells the story of four typical Army wives who, in a flash, find themselves in extrao...

From the bestselling author of A History of the World in Six Glasses, this is a riveting history of humanity told through the foods we eat.Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance; it has acted as a tool o...

WASPs finally get their due in this stimulating history by one of the world's leading geneticists. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts is the most illuminating book yet to be written about the genetic history of Britain and Ireland.

Collected in one volume, here are backfires and blunders that collapsed empires, crashed economies, and altered the course of the world. From the Maginot Line to the Cuban Missile Crisis, history is filled with bad moves and not-so-...

A secular regime is toppled by Western intervention, but an Islamic backlash turns the liberators into occupiers. Caught between interventionists at home and fundamentalists abroad, a prime minister flounders as his ministers betray h...

From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette—the one Frenchman we could all agree on—and an insightful portrait of a nation's id...

An eye-opening, deeply personal account of hurricane Katrina and the devastation it left in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast documents the events and repercussions of the tragedy and its aftermath, the historical roots of the ter...

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year A London Times Literary Supplement Best Book of the Year In this exhilarating and kaleidoscopic investigation of American identity, Greil Mar...

James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for pre...

"A constant pleasure to read…Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book." —TheWashington Post"CAPTIVATING…DELIGHTFUL." —Christian Science Monitor * "EXQUISITELY WRITTEN, CONSISTENTLY E...

In this vivid and timely history, Juan Cole tells the story of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. Revealing the young general's reasons for leading the expedition against Egypt in 1798 and showcasing his fascinating views of the Orient...

A magisterial account of the wars that engulfed Europe during the rise and fall of Napoleon.

"Some particular books I found useful for A Game of Thrones and its sequels deserve mention... Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Medieval City, both by Joseph and Frances Gies."—George R.R. Martin, author of the seri...

After Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin wields her magic on another larger-than-life president, and another momentous and raucous American time period as she brings Theodore Roosevelt, the muck...

The fascinating and disaster-strewn history of the search to perfect the essential navigational device.This book chronicles the misadventures of those who attempted to perfect the compass, an instrument so precious to sixteenth-centur...

When Glenn Kurtz stumbles upon an old family film in his parents' closet in Florida, he has no inkling of its historical significance or of the impact it will have on his life. The film, shot long ago by his grandfather on a sightseei...