Best 18th Century World History

a great story in the hands of a master storyteller.”— The Wall Street Journal The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history. “[A] compelling portrait not just of a Russian titan, but also of a flesh-and-blood woman.”— Newsweek “An absorbing, satisfying biography.”— Los Angeles Times “Juicy and suspenseful.”— The New York Times Book Review “A great life, indeed, and irresistibly told.”—Salon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • USA Today • The Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Newsweek/ The Daily Beast. • Salon • Vogue • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Providence Journal • Washington Examiner • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • BookPage • Bookreporter • Publishers Weekly BONUS: This edition contains a Catherine the Great reader's guide. In 1744, at the age of 14, she was taken by her ambitious mother--removed from her family, her religion, and her country--to a foreign land with a single goal: marry a prince and bear him an heir. Massie, a former president of the Authors Guild, is a seasoned biographer of the 400-year Romanov dynasty, most notably with Peter the Great: His Life and World , which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 and remains one of the most arresting biographies I've even encountered. Married to an incompetent man-child who was unwilling or unable to help her fulfill her primary role--giving birth to a son--she ultimately grew to become a trailblazer among monarchs: friend of philosophical giants, incomparable patron of the arts, prosecutor of multiple wars, pioneer of public health, maker of kings, and prodigious serial lover. Indeed, her accomplishments and shortcomings as an autocrat and a woman make for a remarkable saga, but that's not to say that just any author could do justice to Catherine's lasting legacy. Massie situates Catherine's early life and three-decade reign as empress amidst the tumult of the European Enlightenment, enriching his own narrative with telling excerpts of her letters and rich discussions of her political environment and personal motivations. ” —The Wall Street Journal “Dense and detailed, enriched by pages of full-color illustrations, Massie’s latest will transport history lovers .” —People. He understands plot—fate—as a function of character, and the narrative perspective he establishes and maintains, a vision tightly aligned with that of his subject, convinces a reader he’s not so much looking at Catherine the Great as he is out of her eyes.

In the early eighteenth century, the Pirate Republic was home to some of the great pirate captains, including Blackbeard, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane. Woodard ( The Lobster Coast ) tells a romantic story about Caribbean pirates of the "Golden Age" (1715–1725)—whom he sees not as criminals but as social revolutionaries—and the colonial governors who successfully clamped down on them, in the early 18th-century Bahamas. Known as New Providence, the community attracted not only disaffected sailors but also runaway slaves and yeomen farmers who had trouble getting a toehold in the plantation economy of the American colonies. Woodard describes how Rogers, aided by Virginia's acting governor, Alexander Spotswood, finally defeated the notorious Blackbeard. Woodard's portrait of Rogers is a little flat—the man is virtually flawless ("courageous, selfless, and surprisingly patriotic"), and the prose is sometimes breathless ("they would know him by just one word... pirate").

General Alex Dumas is a man almost unknown today, yet his story is strikingly familiar — because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used his larger-than-life feats as inspiration for such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers . Yet few realize that these memorable characters were inspired by Dumas' father, General Alex Dumas, the son of a French count and a black Haitian slave. “Tom Reiss wrings plenty of drama and swashbuckling action out of Dumas’ strange and nearly forgotten life, and more: The Black Count is one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that also sheds light on the flukey historical moment that made it possible.”--Time. "It would take an incredibly fertile mind to invent a character as compelling, exciting and unlikely as Gen. Alexandre (Alex) Dumas [hence] you might forget, while reading, that The Black Count is a work of nonfiction; author Tom Reiss writes with such narrative urgency and vivid description, you'd think you were reading a novel… The Black Count reminds us of how essential stories, whether true or invented, can be.” --National Public Radio “Vibrant…Sometimes the best stories are true. This is one of them.”--Ebony“Reiss details the criminal forgetting of Alex Dumas…This remarkable book stands as his monument.”--Washington Post“Superb... as improbable and exciting as [Dumas’s] best books… but there is much more to this book than that.” –Newsweek/The Daily Beast“Lush prose and insightful details make The Black Count one of the best biographies of 2012… a tale that is as easily engrossing as one of Dumas’ page-turning and timeless works.” --Essence“Impressively thorough…Reiss moves the story on at an entertaining pace…fascinating.”--Wall Street Journal“To tell this tale, Reiss must cover the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the rise of Napoleon toward Empire; he does all that with remarkable verve.”--Boston Globe“Fascinating [and] swashbuckling ...meticulously evokes the spirit of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France...Dumas comes across as something of a superhero... a monument tothe lives of both Dumas and his adoring [novelist] son.”--The Seattle Times“A piece of detective work by a prize-winning author...brilliantly researched.”--The Daily Mail (U.K.) “Sometimes real life does, indeed, trump even the wildest of fiction…With a narrative that is engaging and entertaining, Reiss sets the literary table for one of the most satisfying adventure stories of the autumn. Richly detailed, meticulously researched and beautifully written, this is the unlikely true story of the man behind one of the greatest books in literature.”--Tucson Citizen“Triumphant…Reiss directs a full-scale production that jangles with drawn sabers, trembles with dashing deeds and resonates with the love of a son for a remarkable father.”--The Herald (U.K.)“Fascinating….Reiss argues that Dumas is an important, criminally neglected figure [and] it’s difficult to argue with him…A truly amazing story.”--NPR.org“A story that has everything… The Black Count has its own moving narrative thread, made compelling by Reiss’s impassioned absorption with the general’s fate.” --The Literary Review“A thoroughly researched, lively piece of nonfiction that will be savored by fans of Alexandre Dumas. But The Black Count needs no partner: It is fascinating enough to stand on its own.” --Bookpage“A compelling new workby literary detective Reiss , author of The Orientalist, tracks the wildly improbable career of [ Count of Monte Cristo author] Alexandre Dumas’ mixed-race father… Reiss eloquently argues the General’s case.”--Kirkus Reviews “Alex Dumas, an extraordinary man whose sensational life had been largely lost to history solely because of his race, takes the spotlight in this dynamic tale… Reiss capitalizes on his subject’s charged personality as well as the revolutionary times in which he lived to create an exciting narrative .” --Publishers Weekly“Thrilling…Reiss makes clear that Alex lived a life as full of adventure, triumph, and tragic loss as any of his son’s literary creations… This absorbing biography should redeem its subject from obscurity.” --Booklist “ From pike-wielding mobs to prisoners locked in a fortress tower, The Black Count is as action-packed as The Count of Monte Cristo . Unlike Dumas’s famous adventure novel, however, Reiss’s incredible tale is true.” – Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic “ Tom Reiss has literally drilled into locked safes to create this masterpiece …. It could never have happened in the United States, and with great skill, Reiss shows how the moment that produced Alex Dumas was lost with the rise of nineteenth-century racism.” – Annette Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for The Hemingses of Monticello “In the early 1800s, General Alex Dumas was purposefully disappeared by his enemies, and for too long his story has remained silenced. Carrying us from the plantations of the Caribbean to Paris, the Alps, and Egypt, Reiss tells an engrossing tale of a life of social struggle, adventure, and courage —and of the frustrations and joys of a researcher on the trail of a forgotten truth.” – Laurent Dubois, author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History “A tale worthy of Dumas himself—of impossible odds, shrinking before the irresistible forces of daring, ingenuity and in-your-face talent .” – Ted Widmer, author of Ark of the Liberties “The real-life history of General Alex Dumas is as poignant and swashbuckling a tale as any his novelist son could have dreamed. In The Black Count the master journalist-storyteller opens the door to the truth behind one of literature’s most exciting stories, and opens it wide enough to show the delicate beauty of the lives within.” – Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Half a Life “Tom Reiss tells this amazing story, largely unknown today, with verve, style, and a nonpareil command of detail.” – Luc Sante, author of Low Life, Evidence, and The Factory of Facts “ The Black Count is a complex work of political and social history gallantly masquerading as a fantastic adventure story . As he did in The Orientalist , Tom Reiss has traveled far to stalk a forgotten legend, and has recovered for us a vivid, dramatic tale that delights, moves, and inspires .” – Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction “ The Black Count is totally thrilling—a fascinating, beautifully written, and deeply researched biography that brings to life one of history’s great forgotten characters: the swashbuckling, flamboyant, and romantic mulatto count whose true life belongs in a Hollywood movie or Alexandre Dumas story.” – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography and Young Stalin “Tom Reiss tells the incredible story of Alex Dumas with the same excitement about uncovering history that he brought to The Orientalist. As Reiss shows us, answers can be found in the extraordinary life of a forgotten French hero of the great revolutionary campaigns — a hero who was black.” – Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands and The Red Prince “Reiss combines the talent of a thorough English detective with the literary flair of a French novelist to produce a story that is as fresh as today’s headlines but as old as the Greek classics.” – Jack Weatherford, New York Times bestselling author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World “Colorful and utterly captivating .

Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. Mining a trove of recently translated 17th-century records of New Netherland, Shorto reconstructs, in fascinating detail, the little-told story behind the Dutch settlement and its capital, Manhattan. Shorto, author of two previous books and articles published in the New Yorker and the New York TimesMag azine, presents an outstanding and revealing chronicle of the Dutch presence on Manhattan Island. Shorto also highlights the contributions of Andriaen van der Donck, an energetic, charismatic man who played an integral part in creating a dynamic, diverse, and tolerant society that appears refreshing when compared to the neighboring Puritan-dominated colony in Massachusetts.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Eric Metaxas comes a brilliant and inspiring biography of the most influential man in modern history, Martin Luther, in time for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. On All Hallow’s Eve in 1517, a young monk named Martin Luther posted a document he hoped would spark an academic debate, but that instead ignited a conflagration that would forever destroy the world he knew. A beautifully balanced separation of fact from fiction.” —Hugh Hewitt “If you had to make a list of five people who shaped the modern West, Martin Luther would be on it. With a light and rapid touch that nonetheless is capable of conveying deep truths and insights, Metaxas deftly blends these many elements into a narrative that reads as compellingly as a novel. I imagine that Luther himself—not an easy man to please—would be deeply impressed by this master portraiture.” —Mark Helprin, bestselling author of Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War. With his customary verve and elegance, profound reverence, and biting wit, Metaxas’s Martin Luther is an education in the meaning of man’s relation to God. Gerald L. Schroeder, lecturer and teacher at College of Jewish Studies Aish HaTorah’s Discovery Seminar “This massive but eminently readable biography of Luther deserves no less an adjective than ‘formidable.’ Eric Metaxas is to religious biographers what Pixar is to cartoons.” —Peter Kreeft, author of Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other? “If you wish to know why Martin Luther is remembered as one of the most consequential figures in history, and why Eric Metaxas has emerged as one of the most prominent storytellers of our generation, you’ll find the answers in this book. Eric’s skill as a writer and biographer are on full display here, even as he corrects the myths and secures the history of a monk who changed the world.” —John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. “A biography designed to peel back the myths and reveal Luther as the fascinating and influential man he was . the author’s fast-paced style and attention to interesting details sets this 450-page book apart.” —Institute for Faith, Work & Economics “Turns some centuries-long legends upside down.” —The Blaze “A masterful portrait of a seminal figure.” — Booklist (starred review) “A meaty autobiography of the Reformation leader. Bold, fast-paced, and magisterial like its hero, yet always stylish and witty like its author, this account blows the cobwebs off long-settled expectations, and helps us to understand the man who shook the medieval world and helped to shape the modern world.” —Os Guinness, author of Impossible People “When Martin Luther made it possible to read the Bible for yourself, he did more than anyone else to create the future. Read this book for yourself to understand the story we’re all still living through.” —Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal, entrepreneur, and author of Zero to One “Eric Metaxas has blessed us with yet another indispensable biography. With his customary verve and elegance, profound reverence, and biting wit, Metaxas’s Martin Luther is an education in the meaning of man’s relation to God. Gerald L. Schroeder, lecturer and teacher at College of Jewish Studies Aish HaTorah’s Discovery Seminar “This massive but eminently readable biography of Luther deserves no less an adjective than ‘formidable.’ Eric Metaxas is to religious biographers what Pixar is to cartoons.” —Peter Kreeft, author of Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other? A tour de force.” —Johnnie Moore, Jr., founder of The Kairos Company “If you wish to know why Martin Luther is remembered as one of the most consequential figures in history, and why Eric Metaxas has emerged as one of the most prominent storytellers of our generation, you’ll find the answers in this book. Eric’s skill as a writer and biographer are on full display here, even as he corrects the myths and secures the history of a monk who changed the world.” —John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

From the New York Times bestselling author and master of martial fiction comes the definitive, illustrated history of one of the greatest battles ever fought—a riveting nonfiction chronicle published to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s last stand. In his first work of nonfiction, Bernard Cornwell combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting chronicle of every dramatic moment, from Napoleon’s daring escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath. With historical accounts like this, who needs novels for excitement?” ( Wall Street Journal ). “Waterloo may be a well-mined topic, but this new presentation is bound to satisfy lovers of military history…. “Bernard Cornwell proceeds at a brisk canter and his descriptions of the fighting are as gripping as any in his splendid Sharpe novels.” ( The Times (London)). “Brings a shrewd military historian’s mind to his subject…thrilling to read…Cornwell’s is from start to finish a gripping account, red in tooth and claw. “As you would expect from a writer who is the acknowledged expert on the Napoleonic Wars he is superb on the tiny details as well as on the bigger picture.” ( Daily Express (London)). “Cornwell has found deserved popularity with his Sharpe series of historically accurate novels set in the Napoleonic Wars. In his first work of nonfiction, Bernard Cornwell combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting chronicle of every dramatic moment—from Napoleon’s daring escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath. Cornwell brings to life how it actually felt to fight those famous battles—as well as the moments of amazing bravery on both sides that left the outcome hanging in the balance until the bitter end.

A definitive account of World War II by America's preeminent military historian World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. A Kirkus Best Book of 2017 " The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson is breathtakingly magisterial: How can Mr. Hanson make so much we thought we knew so fresh and original?" "[Hanson's] organizational approach allows him to isolate and highlight observations that may surprise even some well-read WWII enthusiasts. "Dr. Hanson has written another well-researched and fascinating book.... [He] does an excellent job of placing World War II in the historical context of global conflict. "[Hanson's] unusual approach yields new insights about long-familiar events, making his experiments ingenious and successful.

His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him “The Legend”; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. American Sniper is a compelling read.” (CLINT EASTWOOD). “An amazingly detailed account of fighting in Iraq--a humanizing, brave story that’s extremely readable.” (PATRICIA CORNWELL, New York Times Book Review ). A brave warrior and patriot, Chris Kyle writes frankly about the missions, personal challenges, and hard choices that are part of daily life of an elite SEAL Sniper. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him “The Legend”; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle, who was tragically killed in 2013, writes honestly about the pain of war—including the deaths of two close SEAL teammates—and in moving first-person passages throughout, his wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family, as well as on Chris.