Historic book treasure (world history via fiction and non-fiction)

Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856

By Trevor Royle

The war was a watershed in world history and pointed the way to what mass warfare would be like in the twentieth century.

Johnny Got His Gun

By Dalton Trumbo

A powerful narrative which exposes the brutalities and useless suffering caused by war.

The Jungle

By Upton Sinclair

Upton's Sinclair's classic 1906 novel about the shocking working conditions endured by immigrants in the early twentieth-century Chicago stockyards and packing.

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is Franz Werfel's masterpiece that brought him international acclaim in 1933, drawing the world's attention to the Armenian genocide. This is the story of how the people of several Armenian villages in the mountains along the coast of present-day Turkey and Syria chose not to obey the deportation order of the Turkish government. Instead, they fortified a plateau on the slopes of Musa Dagh"€"Mount Moses"€"and repelled Turkish soldiers and military police during the summer of 1915 while holding out hope for the warships of the Allies to save them. The original English translation by Geoffrey Dunlop has been revised and expanded by translator James Reidel and scholar Violet Lutz. The Dunlop translation, had excised approximately 25% of the original two-volume text to accommodate the Book-of-the-Month club and to streamline the novel for film adaptation. The restoration of these passages and their new translation gives a fuller picture of the extensive inner lives of the characters, especially the hero Gabriel Bagradian, his wife Juliette, their son Stephan"€"and Iskuhi Tomasian, the damaged, nineteen-year-old Armenian woman whom the older Bagradian loves. What is more apparent now is the personal story that Werfel tells, informed by events and people in his own life, a device he often used in his other novels as well, in which the author, his wife Alma, his stepdaughter Manon Gropius, and others in his circle are reinvented. Reidel has also revised the existing translation to free Werfel's stronger usages from Dunlop's softening of meaning, his effective censoring of the novel in order to fit the mores and commercial contingencies of the mid-1930s. In bringing The Forty Days of Musa Dagh back into print and revising the English translation, we aim to make this new Verba Mundi edition more faithful to the book Thomas Mann read "with pleasure and profit" in German.

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Aztec

By Gary Jennings

The epic tale of an Aztec survivor of the Spanish conquest and his times as a warrior, scribe, travelling merchant, confidant of Motecuhzoma II, and envoy to the invading Spaniards.

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Green Dolphin Street

By Elizabeth Goudge

The lives of sisters Marianne and Marguerite take very unexpected courses when William, the man they both adore, writes after a ten year absence and asks for Marianne's hand in marriage, even though it is Marguerite he has always loved.

Salammbo (Salambo. French Classics)

By Gustave Flaubert

The novel Salammbo (published in 1862) interweaves historical and fictional characters. The action takes place before and during the Mercenary Revolt, an uprising of mercenaries in the employ of Carthage in the 3rd century BC. --- An unfinished opera by Modest Mussorgsky, a silent film by Pierre Marodon and a play by Charles Ludlam are among the many adaptations of Flaubert's novel. --- Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), famous French novelist, known for his endless search for "le mot juste" (the precise word); author of Madame Bovary (1857). In 1858, in order to gather material for Salammbo, Flaubert paid a visit to Carthage.

The City of God

By Saint Augustine (Bishop of Hippo.)

"The human mind can understand truth only by thinking, as is clear from Augustine." --Saint Thomas Aquinas Saint Augustine of Hippo is one of the central figures in the history of Christianity, and this book is one of his greatest theological works. Written as an eloquent defense of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, it examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends worldly politics and will last for eternity, this book is one of the most influential documents in the development of Christianity. One of the great cornerstones in the history of Christian thought, "The City of God "is vital to an understanding of modern Western society and how it came into being. Begun in A.D. 413, the book's initial purpose was to refute the charge that Christianity was to blame for the fall of Rome (which had occurred just three years earlier). Indeed, Augustine produced a wealth of evidence to prove that paganism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction. However, over the next thirteen years that it took to complete the work, the brilliant ecclesiastic proceeded to his larger theme: a cosmic interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good and evil. By means of his contrast of the earthly and heavenly cities--the one pagan, self-centered, and contemptuous of God and the other devout, God-centered, and in search of grace--Augustine explored and interpreted human history in relation to eternity.

The Return of the Native

By Thomas Hardy

One of Thomas Hardy's most powerful works, The Return of the Native centers famously on Egdon Heath, the wild, haunted Wessex moor that D. H. Lawrence called "the real stuff of tragedy." The heath's changing face mirrors the fortunes of the farmers, inn-keepers, sons, mothers, and lovers who populate the novel. The "native" is Clym Yeobright, who comes home from a cosmopolitan life in Paris. He; his cousin Thomasin; her fiancé, Damon Wildeve; and the willful Eustacia Vye are the protagonists in a tale of doomed love, passion, alienation, and melancholy as Hardy brilliantly explores that theme so familiar throughout his fiction: the diabolical role of chance in determining the course of a life. As Alexander Theroux asserts in his Introduction, Hardy was "committed to the deep expression of [nature's] ironic chaos and strange apathy, even hostility, toward man."

Murder of a Medici Princess

By Caroline Murphy

Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy. The author's fast-paced narrative captures the intrigue, scandal, romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court.

The Washing Of The Spears

By Donald R. Morris

Filled with colorful characters, dramatic battles like Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift, and an inexorable narrative momentum, this unsurpassed history details the sixty-year existence of the world's mightiest African empire—from its brutal formation and zenith under the military genius Shaka (1787–1828), through its inevitable collision with white expansionism, to its dissolution under Cetshwayo in the Zulu War of 1879.

Imperial Legend

By Alexis S. Troubetzkoy

"By 1825, his popularity waning, the health of his wife becoming more fragile by the day, he decided to remove himself and a bare-bones court to Taganrog, a remote town near the Crimea. A few weeks after his arrival there, he suddenly fell ill and died on November 19, 1825." "Rumors have swarmed that the young and still vigorous tsar - he was only forty-eight - had staged his death to expiate the sin that refused to leave him, the sin of patricide. The Legend has it that his "reincarnation" took the form of a starets, the humble and holy men who in the nineteenth century wandered throughout Russia doing good works. In this work, Alexis Troubetzkoy "solves" one of the most intriguing royal mysteries of the past two centuries."--Jacket.

Three Lives for Mississippi

By William Bradford Huie

In thc Civil Rights movement, 1964 was the year of Freedom Summer. On June 21, Mississippi, one of the last bastions of segregation in America and a bloody battleground in the fight for black equality, reached a low point in its history. On that steamy night three young activists were abducted and murdered in Neshoba County near the small town of Philadelphia. William Bradford Huie was sent to this seething community to cover the breaking story. This book is his documentary account written in the heat of the dangerous and dramatic moment. Huie reveals not only the harrowing events in this heinous case but also the reaction of ordinary citizens who allowed murder to serve as their defense of prejudice. This Banner Books edition includes Huie's report on the trial three years later. Nineteen local men were charged. Seven were found guilty - of conspiracy, not of murder.

Paris 1919

By Margaret MacMillan

National Bestseller New York Times Editors’ Choice Winner of the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize Silver Medalist for the Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations Finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award For six months in 1919, after the end of “the war to end all wars,” the Big Three—President Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, and French premier Georges Clemenceau—met in Paris to shape a lasting peace. In this landmark work of narrative history, Margaret MacMillan gives a dramatic and intimate view of those fateful days, which saw new political entities—Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Palestine, among them—born out of the ruins of bankrupt empires, and the borders of the modern world redrawn.

The Pool in the Desert

By Sara Jeannette Duncan

In The Pool in the Desert, first published in 1903, Sara Jeannette Duncan explores the impact of isolation on the small British communities of Victorian India. In the four stories collected here—“The Pool in the Desert,” “A Mother in India,” “An Impossible Ideal,” and “The Hesitation of Miss Anderson”—Duncan’s women have certain freedoms living amidst the reaches of Empire, but they also must negotiate their way through a landscape dominated by the constraints of small military societies. The stories that result combine a delicacy of manners and movement that recalls Henry James, with a wit and sharp eye for small town foibles that bring Stephen Leacock to mind.

The Royals

By Kitty Kelley

The #1 New York Times bestselling, controversial portrait of the British royal family -- as told from behind the palace walls -- for fans of Netflix's The Crown and all royal watchers They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace to raise the curtain on the men and women who make up the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Princess Diana...here are the scandals of the last decades: the doomed marriages and the husbands, wives, lovers and children caught in their wake and damaged beyond repair. No one is spared.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

By Ernest Hemingway

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Hitler and Nazi Germany

By Jackson J. Spielvogel

This text is a brief yet comprehensive survey of the Third Reich based on current research findings and it is written for students and general readers who want a deeper understanding of this period in German history. It provides a balanced approach in examining Hitler's role in the history of the Third Reich and includes coverage of the economic, social, and political forces that made the rise and growth of Nazism possible; the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; the Second World War; and the Holocaust. Hallmark Features An in-depth portrait of Adolf Hitler, the man and the leader--Coverage includes the influences on his early development, his character traits, his oratorical skills, his messianic pretensions, and an analysis of his ideology based on quotations from his writings and speeches. A thorough examination of the Holocaust--Includes coverage of anti-Semitism in Germany, Hitler's personal racial ideology and vision of Aryan purity, the mechanisms of terror and control, and the machinery of the Final Solution. The Jewish perspective is woven throughout this coverage. Engaging coverage of the following topics: Anti-Jewish policies and the involvement of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust The political scene in Weimar Germany The role of Gregor Strasser in rebuilding the Nazi Party Walter Darré and "Blood and Soil" The internal consolidation of power Party-state relations Early Nazi economic policy The SS and the military between 1933-1939 Provides the most up-to-date research. Pedagogical Features Student Pedagogy--Includes maps, photos, bibliographies, and suggestions for further reading. David Redles, Associate Professor of History at Cuyahoga Community College, contributed his expertise to the latest revision by revising and updating the text in accordance with the most recent scholarship in the field. Coverage of World War I has been reorganized to improve flow. Includes a substantial amount of NEW coverage of cultur.

The Foxfire Book

By Foxfire Fund, Inc.

First published in 1972, The Foxfire Book was a surprise bestseller that brought Appalachia's philosophy of simple living to hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, The Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions. This classic debut volume of the acclaimed series covers a diverse array of crafts and practical skills, including log cabin building, hog dressing, basketmaking, cooking, fencemaking, crop planting, hunting, and moonshining, as well as a look at the history of local traditions like snake lore and faith healing.

Nicholas and Alexandra

By Robert K. Massie

A “magnificent and intimate” (Harper’s) modern classic of Russian history, the spellbinding story of the love that ended an empire—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great “A moving, rich book . . . [This] revealing, densely documented account of the last Romanovs focuses not on the great events . . . but on the royal family and their evil nemesis. . . . The tale is so bizarre, no melodrama is equal to it.”—Newsweek In this commanding book, New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of the Russian empire to tell the story of the Romanovs’ lives: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis’s brave struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.

Pontius Pilate

By Ann Wroe

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “Sublime . . . The definitive study of Pilate.”—The Washington Post Book World “A masterwork . . . one of the most interesting and creative books I’ve read in a very long time.”—Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle Is the Way “Compelling, eloquent and vivid . . . In a superb blend of scholarship and creativity, Wroe brings this elusive yet pivotal figure to life.”—The Boston Globe One of Esquire’s Best Biographies of All Time • Finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize The foil to Jesus, the defiant antihero of the Easter story, mocking, skeptical Pilate is a historical figure who haunts our imagination. For some he is a saint, for others the embodiment of human weakness, an archetypal politician willing to sacrifice one man for the sake of stability. In this dazzlingly conceived biography, Ann Wroe brings man and myth to life. Working from classical sources, she reconstructs his origins and upbringing, his career in the military and life in Rome, his confrontation with Christ, and his long journey home. We catch glimpses of him pacing the marble floors in Caesarea, sharpening his stylus, getting dressed shortly before sunrise on the day that would seal his place in history. What were the pressures on Pilate that day? What did he really think of Jesus? Pontius Pilate lets us see Christ's trial for the first time, in all its confusion, from the point of view of his executioner.

How the Irish Saved Civilization

By Thomas Cahill

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A book in the best tradition of popular history—the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. • The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift! Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars"—and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost—they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization.

The Ancient City

By Fustel de Coulanges

Originally published in 1864 as La Cité Antique, this remarkable work describes society as it existed in Greece during the age of Pericles and in Rome at the time of Cicero. Working with only a fraction of the materials available to today's classical scholar, Fustel de Coulanges fashioned a complete picture of life in the ancient city, resulting in a book impressive today as much for the depth of its portrait as for the thesis it presents. In The Ancient City, Fustel argues that primitive religion constituted the foundation of all civic life. Developing his comparisons between belifes and laws, Fustel covers such topis as rites and festivals; marriage and the family; divorce, death, and burial; and political and legal structures. "Religion," the suthor states, "constituted the Greek and Roman family, established marriage and paternal authority, fixed the order of relationship, and consecrated the right of propery, and the right of inheritance. This same religion, after having enlarged and extended the family, formed a stull larger association, the city, and reigned in that as it had reigned in the family. From it came all the institutions, as well as the private law, of the ancients." As Arnaldo Momigliano and S. C. Humphreys note in their foreword, The Ancient City rightly takes its place alongside a number of pioneering works of the late nineteenth century that offered radically new inerpretations of ancient society and culture. Indeed, modern anthropology, as well as classics, owes a debt to Fustel de Coulanges, whose early insights in The Ancient City remain valid and provocative today.