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And the Rest Is History
Par Marlene Wagman-Geller. 2011
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till tonight. -Romeo and Juliet…
Antony and Cleopatra, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu, John Lennon and Yoko Ono-while we're familiar with all of these people as individuals, we also associate them with the grand, sometimes fiery passion they shared with their partners. And the Rest Is History is an intriguing look at how these iconoclastic lovers first crossed paths, whether it was through fate, setups, or blind luck. From angry sparks flying to love at first sight, the meetings shared in this book give us a look at what makes that one great love.Alexander Hamilton's Guide to Life
Par Jeff Wilser. 2016
The life--and lessons--of the Founding Father who mastered the arts of wit war and wealth long before…
becoming the subject of Broadway s Hamilton An American Musical Two centuries after his death Alexander Hamilton is shining once more under the world s spotlight--and we need him now more than ever Hamilton was a self-starter Scrappy Orphaned as a child he came to America with nothing but a code of honor and a hunger to work He then went on to help win the Revolutionary War and ratify the Constitution create the country s financial system charm New York s most eligible ladies and land his face on our 10 bill The ultimate underdog he combined a fearless independent spirit with a much-needed dose of American optimism Hamilton died before he could teach us the lessons he learned but Alexander Hamilton s Guide to Life unlocks his core principles--intended for anyone interested in success romance money or dueling They include Speak with Authority Even If You Have None Career Seduce with Your Strengths Romance Find Time for the Quills and the Bills Money Put the Father in Founding Father Friends Family Being Right Trumps Being Popular Leadership For history buffs and pop-culture addicts alike this mix of biography humor and advice offers a fresh take on a nearly forgotten Founding Father and will spark a revolution in your own life From the Hardcover editionThe Pox and the Covenant
Par Tony Williams. 2010
For one hundred years, God had held to his promise, and the colonists had as well. When the first Puritans…
sailed into Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, weak from the ocean journey, they formed a covenant with each other and with God to establish a city on a hill-a commitment to live uncorrupted lives together or all suffer divine wrath for their collective sin. But now, a century later, the arrival of one doomed ship would put this covenant to its greatest test. On April 22, 1721, the HMS Seahorse arrived in Boston from the West Indies, carrying goods, cargo, and, unbeknownst to its crew, a deadly virus. Soon, a smallpox epidemic had broken out in Boston, causing hundreds of deaths and panic across the city. The clergy, including the famed Cotton Mather, turned to their standard form of defense against disease: fasting and prayer. But a new theory was also being offered to the public by the scientific world: inoculation. The fierce debate over the right way to combat the tragedy would become a battle between faith and reason, one that would set the city aflame with rage and riot. The Pox and the Covenant is a story of well known figures such as Cotton Mather, James Franklin, and a young Benjamin Franklin struggling to fight for their cause among death and debate-although not always for the side one would expect. In the end, the incredible results of the epidemic and battle would reshape the colonists' view of their destiny, setting for America a new course, a new covenant, and the first drumbeats of revolution.Young Titan
Par Michael Shelden. 2013
In modern memory, Winston Churchill remains the man with the cigar and the equanimity among the ruins. Few can remember…
that at the age of 40, he was considered washed up, his best days behind him. In Young Titan, historian Michael Shelden has produced the first biography focused on Churchill's early career, the years between 1901 and 1915 that both nearly undid him but also forged the character that would later triumph in the Second World War. Between his rise and his fall, Churchill built a modern navy, experimented with radical social reforms, survived various threats on his life, made powerful enemies and a few good friends, annoyed and delighted two British monarchs, became a husband and father, took the measure of the German military machine, authorized executions of notorious murderers, and faced deadly artillery barrages on the Western front. Along the way, he learned how to outwit more experienced rivals, how to overcome bureaucratic obstacles, how to question the assumptions of his upbringing, how to be patient and avoid overconfidence, and how to value loyalty. He also learned how to fall in love. Shelden gives us a portrait of Churchill as the dashing young suitor who pursued three great beauties of British society with his witty repartee, political f lair, and poetic letters. In one of many never-before-told episodes, Churchill is seen racing to a Scottish castle to prepare the heartbroken daughter of the prime minister for his impending marriage. This was a time of high drama, intrigue, personal courage, and grave miscalculations. But as Shelden shows in this fresh and revealing biography, Churchill's later success was predicated on his struggles to redeem the promise of his youth.The Alexiad of Anna Komnene
Par Penelope Buckley. 2014
This is the first full-scale study of the literary art of Anna Komnene's Alexiad. Her history of her father's reign…
is well-known and much used by Byzantinists and historians of the First Crusade, but the art with which it shapes its central character has not been fully examined or understood. This book argues that the work is both history and tragedy; the characterization of Alexios I Komnenos is cumulative; it develops; the models for his idealization change; much of the action takes place in his mind and the narrative relays and amplifies his thought while building a dense picture of the world in which he acts. Engaging critically and responsively with other texts, Komnene uses the full range of current literary genres to portray the ideal culture of his rule. She matches her art of literary control to his of government over the adverse forces of his time.Harold and Jack
Par Christopher Sandford. 2014
Acclaimed biographer Christopher Sandford tells the engrossing story of the unlikely friendship between British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and President…
John F. Kennedy, a crucial political and personal relationship during the most dangerous days of the Cold War. This is the story of the many-layered relationship between two iconic leaders of the mid-twentieth century--British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and American President John F. Kennedy. Based on previously unquoted papers and private letters between both the leaders themselves and their families, more than half of which are available for the first time, critically acclaimed biographer Christopher Sandford reveals a host of new insights into the ways these two very different men managed to bring order out of chaos in an age of precarious nuclear balance.Sandford traces the emotional undercurrents that linked Macmillan and JFK--and sometimes estranged them. The author's personalized narrative delves into the maneuverings behind the scenes of major political events: dealing with the disastrous Bay of Pigs episode in Cuba, responding to the provocative Soviet act of building the Berlin Wall, the tense back-and-forth consultations during the Cuban missile crisis, and the serious disagreement between the two allies over the Skybolt nuclear deterrent, which almost caused a major rift in US-British relations. Also presented are vivid portraits of the two first ladies and many extracts from personal papers that reveal the human factor rarely glimpsed by the public.With a wealth of new information in an engaging narrative, this book offers a vividly told historical account of two key figures of twentieth-century history, whose legacy helped shape our world today.The Dominion of War
Par Andrew Cayton, Fred Anderson. 2005
Americans often think of their nation's history as a movement toward ever-greater democracy, equality, and freedom. Wars in this story…
are understood both as necessary to defend those values and as exceptions to the rule of peaceful progress. In The Dominion of War, historians Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton boldly reinterpret the development of the United States, arguing instead that war has played a leading role in shaping North America from the sixteenth century to the present. Anderson and Cayton bring their sweeping narrative to life by structuring it around the lives of eight men--Samuel de Champlain, William Penn, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and Colin Powell. This approach enables them to describe great events in concrete terms and to illuminate critical connections between often-forgotten imperial conflicts, such as the Seven Years' War and the Mexican-American War, and better-known events such as the War of Independence and the Civil War. The result is a provocative, highly readable account of the ways in which republic and empire have coexisted in American history as two faces of the same coin. The Dominion of War recasts familiar triumphs as tragedies, proposes an unconventional set of turning points, and depicts imperialism and republicanism as inseparable influences in a pattern of development in which war and freedom have long been intertwined. It offers a new perspective on America's attempts to define its role in the world at the dawn of the twenty-first century.Blood Aces
Par Doug Swanson. 2014
The astonishing story of Benny Binion--a rip-roaring saga of murder, money, and the making of Las Vegas Benny Binion was…
many things: a cowboy, a pioneering casino owner, a gangster, a killer, and founder of the hugely successful World Series of Poker. Blood Aces tells the story of Binion's crucial role in shaping modern Las Vegas. From a Texas backwater, Binion rose to prominence on a combination of vision, determination, and brutal expediency. His formula was simple: run a good business, cultivate the big boys, kill your enemies, and own the cops. Through a mix of cold-bloodedness, native intelligence, folksiness, and philanthropy, Binion became one of the most revered figures in the history of gambling, and his showmanship, shrewdness, and violence would come to dominate the Vegas scene. Veteran journalist Doug J. Swanson uses once-secret government documents and dogged reporting to show how Binion destroyed his rivals and outsmarted his adversaries--including J. Edgar Hoover. As fast paced as any thriller, Blood Aces tells a story that is unmatched in the annals of American criminal justice, a vital yet untold piece of this country's history.Sophia Tolstoy
Par Alexandra Popoff. 2010
As Leo Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia Tolstoy experienced both glory and condemnation during their forty-eight-year marriage. She was admired as the…
muse and literary assistant to one of the world’s most celebrated novelists. But when in later years Tolstoy became a towering public figure and founded a new brand of religion, she was scorned for her disagreements with him. And it is this version of Sophia—malicious, shrill, perennially at war with Tolstoy—that has gone down in the historical record. Drawing on newly available archival material, including Sophia’s unpublished memoir, Alexandra Popoff presents a dramatically different and accurate portrait of the woman and the marriage. This lively, well-researched biography demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Sophia was remarkably supportive of Tolstoy and was, in fact, key to his fame. Gifted and versatile, Sophia assisted Tolstoy during the writing ofWar and PeaceandAnna Karenina. Having modeled his most memorable female characters on her, Tolstoy admired his wife’s boundless energy, which he called “the force of life. ” Sophia’s letters, never before translated, illuminate the couple’s true relationship and provide insights into Tolstoy’s creative laboratory. Although long portrayed as an elitist and hysterical countess, Sophia was in reality a practical, independent-minded, generous, and talented woman who shared Tolstoy’s important values and his capacity for work. Mother of thirteen, she participated in Tolstoy’s causes and managed all business a airs. Popoff describes in haunting detail the intrusion into their marriage by Tolstoy’s religious disciple Vladimir Chertkov, who controlled Tolstoy at the end of his life and led a smear campaign against Sophia, branding her evil and mad. She is still judged by Chertkov’s false accounts, which dismissed her valuable achievements and contributions. During his later religious phase, Tolstoy renounced his property and copyright, and Sophia had to become the breadwinner. She published Tolstoy’s collected works and supported their large family. Despite the pressures of her demanding life, she realized her own talents as a writer, photographer, translator, and aspiring artist This vigorous, engrossing biography presents in fascinating depth and detail the many ways in which Sophia Tolstoy enriched the life and work of one of the world’s most revered authors.King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor
Par Paul Willetts. 2018
The spellbinding tale of hustler Edgar Laplante the king of Jazz Age con artists who becomes…
the victim of his own dangerous game Edgar Laplante was a smalltime grifter an erstwhile vaudeville performer and an unabashed charmer But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life In the fall of 1917 Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk war hero sports star civil rights campaigner Cherokee nation leader and total fraud Under the pretenses of raising money for struggling Native American reservations Laplante dressed in buckskins and a feathered headdress and traveled throughout the American West narrowly escaping exposure and arrest each time he left town When the heat became too much he embarked upon a lucrative continent-hopping tour that attracted even more enormous crowds his cons growing in proportion to the adulation of his audience As he moved through Europe he spied his biggest mark on the Riviera a prodigiously rich Hungarian countess who was instantly smitten with the con man The countess bankrolled a lavish trip through Italy that made Laplante a darling of the Mussolini regime and a worldwide celebrity soaring to unimaginable heights on the wings of his lies But then at the pinnacle of his improbable success Laplante s overreaching threatened to destroy him In King Con Paul Willetts brings this previously untold story to life in all its surprising absurdity showing us how our tremendous capacity for belief and our longstanding obsession with celebrity can make fools of us all and proving that sometimes truth is stranger than fictionThe Secret Life of Houdini
Par William Kalush, Larry Sloman. 1894
Handcuff King. Escape Artist. International Superstar.Since his death eighty-eight years ago, Harry Houdini's life has been chronicled in books, in…
film, and on television. Now, in this groundbreaking biography, renowned magic expert William Kalush and bestselling writer Larry Sloman team up to find the man behind the myth. Drawing from millions of pages of research, they describe in vivid detail the passions that drove Houdini to perform ever-more-dangerous feats, his secret life as a spy, and a pernicious plot to subvert his legacy.The Secret Life of Houdini traces the arc of the master magician's life from desperate poverty to worldwide fame--his legacy later threatened by a group of fanatical Spiritualists led by esteemed British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Initiating the reader along the way into the arcane world of professional magic, Kalush and Sloman decode a life based on deception, providing an intimate and riveting portrayal of Houdini, the man and the legend.cian traveled to Germany and Russia and routinely reported his findings. After World War I was successfully concluded, Houdini embarked on a battle of his own. He created a group of disguised field operatives to infiltrate the seamy world of fake spirit mediums. In doing so, Houdini triggered the wrath of fanatical Spiritualists, led by the esteemed British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Death threats became an everyday occurrence, but the group would pose an even greater danger to Houdini's legacy. Rigorously researched, and as exciting as a good thriller, The Secret Life of Houdini traces the arc of the master magician's life from desperate poverty to worldwide legend, initiating the reader along the way into the arcane world of professional magic. In this remarkable book, Kalush and Sloman decode a life based on deception, providing an intimate and riveting portrayal of Houdini, the man and the legend.Salinger
Par David Shields, Shane Salerno. 1945
Based on eight years of exhaustive research and exclusive interviews with more than 200 people--and published in coordination with the…
international theatrical release of a major documentary film from the Weinstein Company--Salinger is a global cultural event: the definitive biography of one of the most beloved and mysterious figures of the twentieth century.For more than fifty years, the ever elusive author of The Catcher in the Rye has been the subject of a relentless stream of newspaper and magazine articles as well as several biographies. Yet all of these attempts have been hampered by a fundamental lack of access and by the persistent recycling of inaccurate information. Salinger remains, astonishingly, an enigma. The complex and contradictory human being behind the myth has never been revealed. No longer. In the eight years since Salinger was begun, and especially in the three years since Salinger's death, the authors interviewed on five continents more than 200 people, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger's World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last fifty-six years of Salinger's life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to never-before-published photographs (more than 100 throughout the book), diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, readers will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger's meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.Lincoln Steffans
Par Justin Kaplan. 1974
The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman brings alive the life and world of Lincoln…
Steffens, the original Muckraker and father of American investigative journalism. Early 20th century America was a nation in the throes of becoming a great industrial power, a land dominated by big business and beset by social struggle and political corruption. It was the era of Sinclair Lewis, Emma Goldman, William Randolph Hearst, and John Reed. It was a time of union busting, anarchism, and Tammany Hall. Lincoln Steffens—eternally curious, a worldwide celebrity, and a man of magnetic charm—was a towering figure at the center of this world. He was friends with everyone from Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. As an editor at McClure’s magazine—along with Ida Tarbell he was one of the original muckrakers—he published articles that exposed the political and social corruption of the time. His book, Shame of the Cities, took on the corruption of local politics and his coverage of bad business practices on Wall Street helped lead to the creation of the Federal Reserve. Lincoln Steffens was truly a man of his season, and his life reflects his times: impetuous, vital, creative, striving. In telling the story of this outsized American figure, Justin Kaplan also tells the riveting tale of turn-of-the-century America.Ambition and Desire
Par Kate Williams. 2014
From CNN's official royal historian, a highly praised young author with a doctorate from Oxford University, comes the extraordinary rags-to-riches…
story of the woman who conquered Napoleon's heart--and with it, an empire.Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier's incredible rise has been well documented. Now, in this spellbinding, luminous account, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing.Born Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie on the Caribbean island of Martinique, the woman Napoleon would later call Josephine was the ultimate survivor. She endured a loveless marriage to a French aristocrat--executed during the Reign of Terror--then barely escaped the guillotine blade herself. Her near-death experience only fueled Josephine's ambition and heightened her determination to find a man who could finance and sustain her. Though no classic beauty, she quickly developed a reputation as one of the most desirable women on the continent.In 1795, she met Napoleon. The attraction was mutual, immediate, and intense. Theirs was an often-tumultuous union, roiled by their pursuit of other lovers but intensely focused on power and success. Josephine was Napoleon's perfect consort and the object of national fascination. Together they conquered Europe. Their extravagance was unprecedented, even by the standards of Versailles. But she could not produce an heir. Sexual obsession brought them together, but cold biological truth tore them apart.Gripping in its immediacy, captivating in its detail, Ambition and Desire is a true tale of desire, heartbreak, and revolutionary turmoil, engagingly written by one of England's most praised young historians. Kate Williams's searing portrait of this alluring and complex woman will finally elevate Josephine Bonaparte to the historical prominence she deserves.The Tosa Diary
Par William N. Porter, Ki No Tsurayuki. 1981
Ralph Tailor's Summer
Par Keith Wrightson. 2011
The plague outbreak of 1636 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne was one of the most devastating in English history. This hugely moving study…
looks in detail at its impact on the city through the eyes of a man who stayed as others fled: the scrivener Ralph Tailor.As a scrivener Tailor was responsible for many of the wills and inventories of his fellow citizens. By listening to and writing down the final wishes of the dying, the young scrivener often became the principal provider of comfort in people's last hours. Drawing on the rich records left by Tailor during the course of his work along with many other sources, Keith Wrightson vividly reconstructs life in the early modern city during a time of crisis and envisions what such a calamitous decimation of the population must have meant for personal, familial, and social relations.Silk Roads
Par Axel Madsen. 1989
One of the greatest art theft stories of the 20th century: André Malraux, French novelist, art theorist, and eventually France's…
Minister of Cultural Affairs, and his wife, Clara, traveled to Cambodia in 1923, planning to steal and smuggle artifacts out of the country and sell them in America. The Cambodian treasure hunt promised to be a mix of cultural sleuthing for important antiquities and risk-taking on the fuzzy edge of the laws that governed historical sites. The jungle expedition ended in arrest and, for André, trial and conviction. But it also led to a second Asian venture: the launching of a Saigon newspaper, L'Indochine, dedicated to the aspirations of the indigenous population. Madsen follows the couple from this fateful adventure that so shaped their future to the end of their marriage, and after.Above the Arctic Circle: The Alaska Journals of James A. Carroll, 1911-1922
Par Jame A. Carroll. 2005
Above the Arctic Circle transports the reader back in time to the Alaska of 1911 into the Athabaskan Indian village…
of Fort Yukon and beyond. It was a time when travel was by trail or river on routes shared by man and wild beast, when communication reached only as far as the echo of one's voice, and when the first order of each new day was survival in the face of unyielding natural elements. This is the time and place chronicled in the personal journals of James A. Carroll: explorer, pioneer, dogsled musher, trapper, trader, husband, and father. It is an authentic first-hand account of a young man's first decade in the territory of Alaska, a straightforward telling of the adversity and adventures of life on the far north frontier. This story, told with honesty and more than a little humor, offers a kind of kinship connecting author and reader thereby extending a personal invitation to take the journey north through time with James A. Carroll -- Above the Arctic Circle.The Last Torpedo Flyers
Par Mark Ryan, Arthur Aldridge. 2013
Imagine you are an RAF torpedo pilot in World War Two, sent on missions so dangerous that you're later likened…
to the Kamikaze. Suicide wasn't a recognised part of the objective for British airmen, yet some pilots felt they had accepted certain death just by climbing into their cockpits. There were times in 1942 when Arthur Aldridge felt like this. At the age of 19, this courageous young man had quit his studies at Oxford to volunteer for the RAF. He flew his Bristol Beaufort like there was no tomorrow - a realistic assumption, after seeing his best friend die in flames at the end of 1941. Aldridge was awarded a DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) for his bravery on the same strike on a German cargo ship during which he lost a wing tip by flying too close to the deck. He was equally lucky to survive his squadron's chaotic torpedo attack on the giants of Hitler's maritime fleet during the notorious Channel Dash, which saw 40 RAF planes shot down. As 1942 wore on, and the stress became intolerable, Aldridge and his Cockney gunner Bill Carroll held their nerve, and 'Arty' was awarded a Bar to his DFC for sinking two enemy ships off Malta and rescuing a fellow pilot while wounded, as his own Beaufort took four shells. Malta was saved by the skin of its teeth, Rommel denied vital supplies in North Africa, and the course of the war was turned. Aldridge was still only 21 years old. Now both 91, but firm friends as ever, Aldridge and Carroll are two of the last torpedo airmen who deserve their place in history alongside our heroic Spitfire pilots. Their story vividly captures the comradeship that existed between men pushed by war to their very limit.