Biography & Autobiography - Historical

An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some of its most prominent figures. Envied and lampooned, misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as much a culture, socioeconomic and ethnic designation, and state of mind. From politics to fashion, their style still...

This sweeping history traces eleven generations of the Clays of Kentucky, a founding American family and Southern dynasty whose members include Henry Clay, who ran for president against James K. Polk; his cousin Cassius Marcellus Clay, a prominent abolitionist and Lincoln's advisor against slavery;...

When Geronimo and his warriors surrendered to the US Army, General Miles made a number of promises for the surrender terms that were in fact false. Geronimo: Prisoner of Lies provides insights into how Chiricahua prisoners of war lived while held in captivity by...

Journalist Joe Motheral tells the stories of prominent locals met and interviewed over the course of his long career. People from all over the US and the world move to northern Virginia to be close to the nation's capital, and many people of national...

The effective end of the American Civil War on April 9, 1865, had hardly sunk in when, only five days later, another disaster stunned the battered and bloodied nation. On the night of April 9, Pres. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. There would be time...

Henry II became King of England in 1154 after twenty years of civil war. He was the first Plantagenet king, the founder of England's most successful and longest-ruling dynasty. But Henry did not come to the throne alone. He had married Eleanor of Aquitaine,...

New in paperback - An original new biography of Henry VIII's last wife, Katherine Parr, which shows the strength of the Queen's devotion to protestant beliefs over and beyond her political and personal fortunes. Don Matzat here provides a new perspective on the life...

The "spellbinding" (The New York Times) true story of a Jewish boy who became the darling of the Nazis When a Nazi death squad massacred his mother and fellow villagers, five-year-old Alex Kurzem escaped, hiding in the freezing Russian forest until he was picked...

Joseph P. Kennedy's reputation as a savvy businessman, diplomat, and sly political patriarch is well-documented. But his years as a Hollywood mogul have never been fully explored until now. In Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, Cari Beauchamp brilliantly explores this unknown chapter in Kennedy's biography....

There is a story about Winston Churchill and a deadly incident from World War II that most people have never heard. This is my account of how I learned to research and write about this unlikely clash between the British and French Navies while...

This is the sequel to "My Father Killed President John F Kennedy," wherein the author detailed the planning of JFK's assassination, first published in February 2021, with a revised edition in October 2022. He has felt a deep responsibility to provide factual information about...

Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter chronicles the action-packed life of the Commander of the Third West Cork Flying Column, including the decisive Kilmichael ambush and the controversy regarding sectarianism during the 1920-22 period.Author: Meda RyanISBN-10: 1856354806ISBN-13: 9781856354806Publisher: Mercier PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 09/03/2005Pages: 496Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.05lbsSize:...

Welsh doctor Henry Hicks had one huge passion: Geology. Author of over 60 important articles and academic papers, he made a major contribution to 19th century geological study and, despite being an amateur with no formal training in the subject, was eventually elected president...

William "Bill" Pinebrook's journey to manhood starts as a result of WWII in the colonial Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The story begins with a brief history of the generations before him and the hardships and challenges they endured. Bill recounts the joy he felt...

Bouttios and Late Antique Antioch undertakes the exciting, if laborious, task of assembling clues and piecing back together a book that has disappeared from our library of Greek and Roman works. But it does not merely add another author to the bibliography of antiquity...

Harriet Tubman is one of America's most beloved historical figures, revered alongside luminaries including Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History tells the fascinating story of Tubman's life as an American icon. The distinguished historian Milton C. Sernett compares the...

The story of "the Andrew Carnegie before there was an Andrew Carnegie"--Michigan's wealthiest and most influential Gilded Aged industrialist. Eber Brock Ward (1811-1875) began his career as a cabin boy on his uncle's sailing vessels, but when he died in 1875, he was the...

Soul Mates of the Lost Generation recovers for contemporary readers one of the last great collections of letters of the Jazz Age. It is the correspondence between the pioneering novelist John Dos Passos and a young woman named Crystal Ross, to whom he was...

Social media has facilitated the sharing of once isolated testimonies to an extent and with an ease never before possible. The #MeToo movement provides a prime example of how such pooling of individual stories, in large enough numbers, can fuel political movements, fortify a...

Social media has facilitated the sharing of once isolated testimonies to an extent and with an ease never before possible. The #MeToo movement provides a prime example of how such pooling of individual stories, in large enough numbers, can fuel political movements, fortify a...

This inspiring memoir begins in 1983, on the day John Charles Thomas was sworn in as the first Black--and, at thirty-two years of age, the youngest--justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia in the commonwealth's history. This high point was preceded, however, by a...

For Lewis Carroll, a deacon in the Church of England, faith in Christ and belief in a loving God stood at the core of his being, but little has been written about what the church or faith meant to the celebrated author of the...

In The Last Fire-Eater, renowned historian of the American South William A. Link examines the life of Roger A. Pryor, a Virginia secessionist, Confederate general, and earnest proponent of postwar sectional reconciliation whose life involved a series of remarkable transformations. Pryor's journey, Link reveals,...

No person excited greater emotion in Kansas than James Henry Lane, the U.S. senator who led a volunteer brigade in 1861-1862. In fighting numerous skirmishes, liberating hundreds of slaves, burning portions of four towns, and murdering half a dozen men, Lane and his brigade...

Harry Morse - gunfighter, manhunter, and sleuth - was among the West's most famous lawmen. Elected sheriff of Alameda County, California, in 1864, he went on to become San Francisco's foremost private detective. His career spanned five decades. In this gripping biography, John Boessenecker...

The people who pushed west were mostly ordinary folks, the guts of the young United States, tough, ambitious, hardworking, and anxious to leave the world better for their kids than it had been for them. Those who did not come of that hardy stock...

After the Second World War, two contrasting political movements became increasingly active in Italy - the communist and feminist movements. In this book, Walter Baroni uses autobiographical life-writing from both movements key protagonists to shed new light on the history of these movements and...

'Hold on to this letter, so that it will be evidence of how accurately I have kept you informed. I'm serious; don't throw this letter away.'Born the illegitimate daughter of Jewish parents, Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe would rise to dizzying heights in international politics,...

This is a lighthearted, witty but factual biographical account of the eccentric lifestyles of the builders and residents of one hundred of England's best-known country houses. Extraordinary buildings require extraordinary people, and over the centuries England's historic houses have produced more than their fair...

The return of the high successful biography of a modern legend by Alan Turing's nephew 'A cracking read. ' --Nick Smith, Engineering and TechnologyAlan Turing was an extraordinary man who crammed into his 42 years the careers of mathematician, codebreaker, computer scientist and biologist....

They were the most unlikely of siblings - one, Adolf Hitler's most trusted henchman, the other a fervent anti-Nazi. Hermann Goering was a founder member of the Nazi Party, who became commander of the Luftwaffe, ordering the terror bombing of civilians and promoting the...

'With painstaking skill, Dismore lays bare the double standards of the Souls' Artemis Cooper'Harry Cust has long needed to emerge from the shadows. A rich tapestry unfolds' Hugo VickersOutrageously handsome, witty and clever, Harry Cust was reputed to be one of the great womanizers...

A Lincoln scholar and performer brings the warmth, wisdom, and humor of our sixteenth president alive in a collection of inspiring quotations on achievement, responsibility, simplicity, and other timeless values that form the foundation of a meaningful life. The Words Lincoln Lived By is...

A nuanced portrait of the first acting woman president, written with fresh and cinematic verve by a leading historian on women's suffrage and power While this nation has yet to elect its first woman president--and though history has downplayed her role--just over a century...

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice - The remarkable story of the intrepid French archaeologist who led the international effort to save ancient Egyptian temples from the floodwaters of the Aswan Dam, by the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade's Secret...

The first volume in a pioneering account of Oliver Cromwell--providing a major new interpretation of one of the greatest figures in history "Hutton's book is intelligent, well documented, and stylish."--Keith Thomas, New York Review of Books Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)--the only English commoner to become...

A revealing biography of Sidney Reilly, the early twentieth-century virtuoso of espionage "Mr. Morris's dogged research . . . lends impressive rigor to this portrait of an often-cryptic figure."--Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal Sidney Reilly (c. 1873-1925) is one of the most colorful and...

A true story of a family holiday plunged into war, all seen through the eyes of an eight year old child. The short family break was extended to more than three months as they ran from village to village avoiding the fighting during the...

*Includes pictures*Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts*Includes a bibliography for further reading"If unwarned by my example, any man shall undertake and shall succeed in really constructing an engine...upon difference principles or by simpler means, I have no fear of leaving my reputation in his charge,...

GENTLEMEN FARMERS: FARMS & RANCHES OF THE RICH & FAMOUS: Full color; 290 pages; profusely illustrated with over 700 photographs. Today very few people can be described as "Gentlemen Farmers" and many would question the meaning of the term, but there was a time...

*Includes pictures*Includes a bibliography for further readingAmerica has always preferred heroes who weren't clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. The early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like...

No one, absolutely no one has more courage and is not bigger as a warrior of the sea than Blas de Lezo and Olavarrieta, born in Pasajes, on February 3, 1689 - in Guip zcoa - in Euskera -, which is a Spanish province...

Pink Jade is a touching and inspiring chronicle of a young Vietnamese girl and her family's life during the turmoil preceding and following the Vietnam War. It speaks to her journey to find peace and love after escaping the horrors of war-torn Vietnam. Sharing...

*Includes pictures*Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts*Includes a bibliography for further readingUntil April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous actors of his time, and President Abraham Lincoln had even watched him perform. But his most significant performance at a theater...

Following the Civil War, Hannibal, Missouri served as a key entry point to the "New West." Its location on the western banks of the Mississippi River attracted adventure and opportunity-seeking individuals, including top medical professionals. These doctors and nurses forged a path for others...

*Includes pictures*Includes excerpts of ancient accounts*Includes a bibliography for further readingCarthage was one of the great ancient civilizations, and at its peak, the wealthy Carthaginian Empire dominated the Mediterranean against the likes of Greece and Rome, with commercial enterprises and influence stretching from Spain...

*Includes pictures*Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts*Includes a bibliography for further reading"Issue the orders Sir, and I will storm Hell." - Mad Anthony Wayne The American Revolution is replete with seminal moments that every American learns in school, from the "shot heard 'round the world"...

Letters Home is a collection of letters written by a young Mennonite man from North Dakota who faithfully wrote home to his parents while spending two years in the early 1960s completing his alternative service through the Mennonite Central Committee Pax program. These letters...

Researching your slave or indentured servant ancestors in historical newspapersAuthor: Breya WarnstaffISBN-10: 8606335452ISBN-13: 9798606335459Publisher: Independently PublishedLanguage: EnglishPublished: 01/29/2020Pages: 354Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.81lbsSize: 11.00h x 8.50w x 0.74d

*Includes pictures*Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading"The Japanese are remarkable for their inordinate curiosity." - Commodore Matthew PerryDuring the 19th century, Japan severely limited contact with the rest of the world, although it was not the total isolation sometimes...