Old Is Gold

One scarcely knows whether to laugh or cry. The spectacle presented, in Cynthia Russett's splendid book, of nineteenth-century white male scientists and thinkers earnestly trying to prove women inferior to men--thereby providing, along with savages and idiots, an evolutionary buffer between men and animals--is...

From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, African American funeral directors have orchestrated funerals or "homegoing" ceremonies with dignity and pageantry. As entrepreneurs in a largely segregated trade, they were among the few black individuals in any community who were economically independent and not...

America fought the Cold War in part through supermarkets--and the food economy pioneered then has helped shape the way we eat today Supermarkets were invented in the United States, and from the 1940s on they made their way around the world, often explicitly to...

Stretching south from 47th Street to the Midway Plaisance and east from Washington Park to the lake's shore, the historic neighborhood of Hyde Park--Kenwood covers nearly two square miles of Chicago's south side. At one time a wealthy township outside of the city, this...

This pictorial journey will take the reader from the very beginning of the Skunk Works' very first project (XP-80 Shooting Star) and follow the program through prototype build-up, first flight and, if they reached the frontline, operational service. This pictorial journey will take the...

In the hundreds of books written about battleships, the authors tend to draw down the curtain on the careers of these great vessels in September 1945, with the surrender of Japan. Yet, on that day some ninety-eight battleships or ex-battleships might be spotted around the world, and eleven of...

From the award-winning historian and filmmakers of The Civil War, Baseball, The War, The Roosevelts, and others: a vivid, uniquely powerful history of the conflict that tore America apart--the companion volume to the major, multipart PBS film to be aired in September 2017. More...

The story of screwball comics, with new research and rare art from some of the most hilarious cartoonists of all time. Before screwball became a movie genre, it was a staple of other forms of American culture, including newspaper comic strips. Emerging from the...

An in-depth look at how The New York Times failed in its coverage of the fate of European Jews from 1939-45. It examines how the decisions that were made at The Times ultimately resulted in the minimizing and misunderstanding of modern history's worst genocide....

H.P. Lovecraft, one of the twentieth century's most important writers in the genre of horror fiction, famously referred to Edgar Allan Poe as both his "model" and his "God of Fiction." While scholars and readers of Poe's and Lovecraft's work have long recognized the...

There is little written modern history about the Regio Esercito (Royal Italian Army) in the Second World War in the English language. Most readers' knowledge of the actions of the R.E. are in works that focus on the Allied side of the conflict and...

Key West was a very different place before it became the famous resort town it is today. This book provides a peek-hole into what island life was like a century ago through the portraits and personal stories of ordinary and mostly forgotten "Conchs"-what native...

The Hungarian War of Independence was one of the largest European conflicts of the 19th century, lasting a year, encompassing a dozen major battles and many smaller actions and sieges, with half a million men under arms by its end. Yet it remains strangely...

Louis XIV, France's Sun King, had global Overseas Grand Visions for his nation. In America. His transformation of struggling small Caribbean settlements into an extensive and very prosperous French domain amidst many challenges and battles are mostly unknown. Thanks to research mostly in France's...

This book describes and analyses the 'Swedish Deluge' (potop szwedski), the devastating 1655-1660 wars fought between Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Brandenburg- Prussia, Muscovite Russia, Transylvania, Cossack Ukraine, the Tatar Khanate of Crimea, and the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Swedish King Charles...

In 1655 Oliver Cromwell, England's Lord Protector, sent a fleet to attack and seize Spanish possessions in South America. After initial failure on Hispaniola, the English occupied Jamaica and in so doing started a five year war with Spain in the West Indies, but...

The Colonial Ironsides is a comprehensive survey of the role played by Oliver Cromwell's expeditionary forces in subduing Royalist outposts abroad after the conclusion of the Civil Wars in the Three Kingdoms, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, the Scillies, the West Indies...

In 1792 France unleashed a new form of warfare in Europe. Faced with the well-drilled Austrian and Prussian armies, the French introduced the tactic of mass skirmishing by tirailleurs. Soldiers were thrown forwards and told to fight in open order. Moving quickly and making...

Royal Navy Officers of the Seven Years War provides detailed reference information on over 2,000 commissioned officers of the Royal Navy: all of those whose career as a commissioned officer included the Seven Years War (1756-1763). In addition, those officers commissioned during and after...

In 1685, James, Duke of York, ascended to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland. As the first catholic monarch in 150 years many believed that his reign would be short and that he would be succeeded by his eldest daughter Mary, a Protestant,...