History

Magnificent Disaster

by David Bennett

After Normandy, the most spectacular Allied offensive of World War II was Operation Market Garden, which saw three divisions of paratroopers dropped behind German lines, to be joined by massive armored columns...

The Outlaws of the Marsh

by Luo Guanzhong & Sidney Shapiro

The legendary account of 108 "Stars from Heaven" who, faced with a corrupt bureaucracy, flee to Liangshan Marsh, from a fortress there thwarting minions of the evil regime while continuing to serve the emperor....

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

by Charles C. Mann

From the author of 1491—the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas—a deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs.

More than 200 million years...

Afghan Guerrilla Warfare

by Ali Ahmad Jalali

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, few experts believed the fledgling Mujahideen resistance movement had a chance of withstanding the modern, mechanized onslaught of the Soviet Army. But somehow,...

Band Of Brothers

by Stephen E. Ambrose

They came together, citizen soldiers, in the summer of 1942, drawn to Airborne by the $50 monthly bonus and a desire to be better than the other guy. And at its peak -- in Holland and the Ardennes -- Easy Company,...

Truman

by David McCullough

An intemperate general. An unpopular war. A military and diplomatic team in disarray.

Those are the challenges President Obama has faced as he attempts to make a success of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan....

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

by Walter Isaacson

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, he seems made of flesh rather than...

Generation Kill

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest 2004

by Evan Wright

Read Evan Wright's posts on the Penguin Blog.

Read about the Penguin Group (USA) partnership with HBO in support of the Generation Kill Troop Drive here. They were called a generation without heroes.

Then they...

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

by Greg Mortenson

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard

Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to...

1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

by Charles C. Mann

In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.

Contrary to what so many Americans...

The Guns of August: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Classic About the Outbreak of World War I

Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction 1963

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject...

The Untold History of the United States

by Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick

A companion to Oliver Stone’s ten-part Showtime documentary series in the tradition of Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, this cutting-edge and provocative book challenges the status...

The Mammoth Book of How it Happened in Britain

by John E E Lewis

From Julius Caesar's arrival in 55bc to the dawn of the third millennium, here are 300 accounts of exciting and important moments from first hand sources. Featuring snapshots of wartime, political and social...

Mercenaries: Soldiers of Fortune, from Ancient Greece to Today#s Private Military Companies

by Michael Lee Col Lanning

SOLDIERS OF $$

Privateers, contract killers, corporate warriors. Contract soldiers go by many names, but they all have one thing in common: They fight for money and plunder rather than liberty, God, or country....

Sturmgeschütze - Amoured Assault Guns

by Bob Carruthers

The Sturmgeschütz rumbling forward into action is one of the iconic images of World War II. As mobile assault guns, the StuGs were essentially designed as infantry support weapons, but they also proved themselves...

Panzer Combat Reports

by Bob Carruthers

"Tank units should move at night, and in the daytime they should move only when they can be hidden from enemy airplanes." 'Tactical Handbook for the Troop Commander' This fascinating compilation of wartime battlefield...

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - Illustrated and Annotated

by James Ingram & Bob Carruthers

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is one of the most important sets of historical documents concerning the history of the British Isles. Without these vital accounts we would have virtually no knowledge of some of the...

Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath

by Mimi Alford

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In the summer of 1962, nineteen-year-old Mimi Beardsley arrived in Washington, D.C., to begin an internship in the White House press office. After just three days on the job,...

The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation

by Elizabeth Letts

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Harry de Leyer first saw the horse he would name Snowman on a truck bound for the slaughterhouse. The recent Dutch immigrant recognized the spark in the eye of the beaten-up nag...

Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex

by Anne Frank

Hiding from the Nazis in the "Secret Annexe"  of an old office building in Amsterdam, a  thirteen-year-old girl named Anne Frank became a writer.  The now famous diary of her private life and  thoughts...