Imperialism

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds....

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the 20th century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership....

From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power....

This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion....

David Michaelis presents a breakthrough portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving First Lady, an avatar of democracy whose ever-expanding agency as diplomat, activist, and humanitarian made her one of the world’s most widely admired and influential women....

In his 11th novel, Tim Powers takes his unique brand of speculative fiction into uncharted territory, instilling the old-fashioned espionage novel with a healthy dose of the supernatural....

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II....

In a top-secret location deep in the Ural Mountains, Russian President Gennadiy Gryzlov has built his nation's most dangerous weapon since the atomic bomb....

The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war....

In planes and foxholes, in deserts and jungles, on ships and beaches, Ambrose shines a light on the people involved - the leaders, the fighters, the victims....

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is historian Christopher Clark's riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I. Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I....

It was an age of hope, accomplishment, and expansion. Europe's High Middle Ages spanned the Crusades, the building of Chartres Cathedral, Dante's Inferno, and Thomas Aquinas. The era seemed to be flowering into a renaissance - until the disastrous 14th century rained catastrophe....

Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year crucial to our nation's identity - the year the United States annexed Hawaii....

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics....

Calder Walton presents the “riveting” (The Economist), secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China.

A vivid, uniquely powerful history of the conflict that tore America apart....

Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early 20th century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war....

Bruce Shelley's classic history of the church brings the story of global Christianity into the 21st century. Like a skilled screenwriter, Shelley begins each chapter with three elements: characters, setting, plot....

The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man....

German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative....