Old Is Gold

"From Sputnik to the International Space Station, Jay Barbree has seen it all, and reported it well. 'Live from Cape Canaveral' encapsulates the most technically exciting half century in history." -Neil ArmstrongSome fifty years ago, while a cub reporter, Jay Barbree caught space fever...

On July 17, 1918, the Tsar, his wife, and their four daughters and ailing heir were led down to a basement in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and murdered in cold blood by a Bolshevik firing squad. The DNA analysis and identification of the bones were the...

An NPR Best Book of the Year 2018 "One of the best books, certainly the best nonfiction book, that I've read recently." --Nancy Pearl on NPR's Morning Edition "An extraordinary achievement." --New York Times Book Review An award-winning writer captures a year that defined...

Born in 1831, Isabella, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes in 1872 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode on her spirited horse Birdie...

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction. The extraordinary and forgotten story of the building of the World War One cemeteries, due to the efforts of one remarkable man, Fabian Ware. In the wake of the First World War, Britain and her Empire...

The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley's gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein.Montillo recounts how--at the intersection of the Romantic Age and the Industrial Revolution--Shelley's Victor Frankenstein was inspired by actual scientists...

"A captivating tale of depravity in the Athens of America." --Mitchell Zuckoff, author of the New York Times bestsellers Lost in Shangri-La and Frozen in TimeIn late nineteenth-century Boston, home to Herman Melville and Oliver Wendell Holmes, a serial killer preying on children is...

A History of International Human Rights and Forgotten HeroesIn this national bestseller, the critically acclaimed author Peter Balakian brings us a riveting narrative of the massacres of the Armenians in the 1890s and of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 at the hands of the...

In 1960, the FDA approved the contraceptive commonly known as "the pill." Advocates, developers, and manufacturers believed that the convenient new drug would put an end to unwanted pregnancy, ensure happy marriages, and even eradicate poverty. But as renowned historian Elaine Tyler May reveals...

Not unlike the elusive figure played by Greta Garbo, the real Queen Christina stood among the most flamboyant and controversial figures of the seventeenth century. All of Sweden could not contain her ambition or quench her thirst for adventure. Freed from her crown, she...

"A penetrating reconstruction of the most disturbing and crucial slave uprising in America's history." --New York TimesThe definitive account of the most infamous slave rebellion in history and the aftermath that brought America one step closer to civil war--newly reissued to include the text...

In The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers from Smithsonian Books, historian Thomas Fleming, author of The Perils of Peace, offers a fresh look at the critical role of women in the lives of Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison. Fleming nimbly takes...

Strange as it sounds, during the 1870s and 1880s, America's most popular spectator sport wasn't baseball, boxing, or horseracing--it was competitive walking. Inside sold-out arenas, competitors walked around dirt tracks almost nonstop for six straight days (never on Sunday), risking their health and sanity...

Breaking nearly eight decades of silence, Essie Mae Washington-Williams comes forward with a story of unique historical magnitude and incredible human drama. Her father, the late Strom Thurmond, was once the nation's leading voice for racial segregation (one of his signature political achievements was...

"John XXIII was, in the best possible sense, a revolutionary--a Pope of modernization who kept in continuity with the church's past, yet made even the most enlightened of his 20th century predecessors seem like voices of another age."--Time magazine"The story of Good Pope John...

A beautiful and inspiring book...fascinatingly told. -- Donna Shirley, former head of the U.S. Mars program, NASAThe exhilarating story of the first women who boldly conquered the skies in the first female cross-country air raceThe year is 1929, and on the eve of America's...

In a single definitive narrative, City of Sedition tells the spellbinding story of the huge-and hugely conflicted-role New York City played in the Civil War. No city was more of a help to Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a...

A world that had changed little from the Middle Ages was altered beyond recognition by the pioneering genius of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Dreams of Iron and Steel, acclaimed historian Deborah Cadbury tells the heroic tale of the visionaries and ordinary workers...

"On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena" from Nikola Tesla. Inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer who is recognized as among the most accomplished scientists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (1856-1943).Author: The Perfect Library, Nikola TeslaPublisher: Createspace Independent Publishing PlatformPublished:...

The dramatic original account of events that shook the nation.At noon on May 4, 1970, a thirteen-second burst of gunfire transformed the campus of Kent State University into a national nightmare. National Guard bullets killed four students and wounded nine. By nightfall the campus...