The Hundred Years War: A People's History

David Green (Get this book)
In this new, refreshing look at the Hundred Years' War, Green examines the resulting reconstruction of European culture."The crucible of war forged and reforged the English and French nations into something new," writes the author in this illuminating history. This war, or series thereof, lasted from 1337 to 1453, with interruptions for short terms of peace, famine, civil strife in France and the Black Death. During that time, there would be changes everywhere, but the war began as a feudal and dynastic struggle, as Edward III of England laid claim to the French crown. It ended with a new sense of national identity in both countries as they sought to maintain or reclaim territory, particularly the former Angevin possessions that covered most of modern-day France. Green holistically explores aspects of the war's effects with exceptionally thorough research on subjects as diverse as the Catholic Church, women, peasants and even language.--Kirkus

Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution

Peter Ackroyd (Get this book)
Biographer, historian and novelist Ackroyd continues his History of England series with the third of six proposed volumes. What makes the author so special is that he relates history as it once was told by the bards. Ackroyd tells us not just the history, but the story behind it and the story as it might have been viewed at the time. This was a violent period of religious struggle, with countless groups vying to eliminate each other and all of them hating the Catholics. Appropriately detailed, beautifully written story of the Stuarts' rise and fall-will leave readers clamoring for the further adventures awaiting England in the 18th century.--Kirkus

The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941

Roger Moorhouse (Get this book)
Placing the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact squarely at the center of Soviet-German belligerence before the outbreak of World War II. English historian Moorhouse finds that the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact of August 1939-with its "secret protocol" to carve up Poland and the Baltic states-is not well-understood in the West and is still rationalized by "communist apologists" today. Moorhouse offers a thorough delineation of the characters involved, as well as the extraordinary contortions each side exercised in order to justify the malevolent agreement. A well-researched work offering new understanding of the pact's pertinence to this day.--Kirkus

Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries

Lorri Glover (Get this book)
A superb new perspective on America's Founding Fathers. Glover explores the family lives of five remarkable Virginia planter-patriarchs who helped shaped the rebellion against England, commanded the Continental Army and led the early continental governments. At a time when fatherhood entailed responsibility for the well-being of their communities, their relatives and the social order, these dutiful gentry fathers ran their plantations, mastered their slaves and served in political office. Writing with authority, she traces the often overlooked private lives of elite men who preferred the joys of plantation life ("our own Vine and our own fig tree") but deemed their revolutionary cause "a parental obligation." Well-written and immensely rewarding, this important book will appeal to both scholars and general readers.--Kirkus

An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America

Nick Bunker (Get this book)
Bunker delivers an eye-opening study of the British view of the American Revolution and why they were crazy to fight it. England never had a solid plan for administering the American colonies, situated on a continent they couldn't understand and could never hope to rule. Their existence was purely economic, a market for English goods and an exclusive supplier of tobacco, rice, timber, fur, rum, sugar and other important exports. Those who governed for England sent few, if any, reports, and those were incomplete and/or about the coming trouble. A scholarly yet page-turning, superbly written history.--Kirkus

Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months That Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War

Todd Brewster (Get this book)
Brewster provides a highly readable, vigorously researched account of the fraught six-month period in which the Emancipation Proclamation came into being, which inarguably changed the course of the Civil War. Brewster opens with W.E.B. Du Bois' apercu, somewhat inaccurate but also somewhat on the mark, that Lincoln was an illegitimate, poorly educated Southerner whose championing of abolition was politically calculated. Whether accurate or not, Lincoln's decision brought added resolve to the battle to restore the Union, adding equality to "the American ideal of liberty." A sturdy, instructive, well-written book.--Kirkus

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War

Karen Abbott (Get this book)
In this gripping book, Abbott tells the moving and fascinating story of four women who played unconventional roles during the Civil War: Belle Boyd, a boisterous flirt and Confederate spy; Rose Greenhow, a seductive widow also spying for the South; Emma Edmondson, who disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Union army; and Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy spinster in the Confederate capital with Unionist loyalties. Meticulously researched and fluidly written, this book draws the reader in and doesn't let go until the four heroines draw their final breaths. In the end, Abbott tells a remarkable story of passion, strength, and resilience.--Publisher's Weekly

Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors: Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad

Brian A. Catlos (Get this book)
A dramatic review of Mediterranean history in the Middle Ages. Catlos intentionally veers away from earlier treatments of the age of the Crusades by focusing on the entire Mediterranean region as a diverse and interconnected region. The author moves from west to east as he examines this complex world through the stories of various individuals. A vivid history of "the collaboration and integration of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian peoples of the Mediterranean that laid the foundation for the modern world.--Kirkus

Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath

Paul Ham (Get this book)
A provocative look at the closing days of the Japanese Empire and the long shadow cast ever after by the atomic bomb.The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not have to happen: Thus, in a nutshell, is Sunday Times Australia correspondent Ham's position, as distinct from that of many authors and historians who have insisted that the United States would have suffered more than 1 million casualties in any invasion of the Japanese mainland. A valuable contribution to the literature of World War II that asks its readers to rethink much of what they've been taught about America's just cause.--Kirkus

The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

Rick Perlstein (Get this book)
After the swamping of the Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964, it seemed unlikely that 16 years later another stridently conservative candidate, Ronald Reagan, would be elected in a landslide. After all, Nixon had run and governed as a centrist who accepted most New Deal and Great Society programs. Perlstein is an award-winning author who has written extensively on politics in the 1960s and 1970s. Here, he recounts the events between the slow decay of the Nixon administration in 1973 as Watergate unfolded, up to Reagan's surprisingly close, if failed, effort to unseat the Republican incumbent, Gerald Ford, in 1976. That failure, of course, proved, in retrospect, that Reagan could succeed as a national candidate. This is a masterful interpretation of years critical to the formation of our current political culture.--Booklist

Brazil: The Fortunes of War: World War II and the Making of Modern Brazil

Neill Lochery (Get this book)
Well-focused look at the authoritarian rule of charismatic Brazilian president Getulio Vargas (1882-1954). Unlike fellow British scholar Michael Reid in his recent broad overview, Lochery keeps the spotlight on the buildup to World War II, when Brazil, then a resources-rich provincial backwater, was eyed as a valuable asset by both the Axis and the Allies. Assuming power in 1930 and then ruling as a dictator from 1937 to 1945, Vargas was determined to make Brazil a stronger, more modern power politically, economically and militarily. "Brazil may still have been waiting for its future to arrive," writes the author, "but by the time Vargas was entombed, his capital was at least living in the present."Colorful personalities and tricky maneuvers make for a lively drama.--Kirkus

Bringing Down Gaddafi: On the Ground with the Libyan Rebels

Andrei Netto, Marsden, Michael (Get this book)
The Paris correspondent for a leading Brazilian newspaper recounts his experience covering the Libyan revolution. During the eight-month conflict that deposed Muammar Gaddafi, 32 journalists were imprisoned, 15 kidnapped, 30 expelled and 11 killed. Measured against these sobering statistics, Netto counts his own eight-day imprisonment as trifling. Notwithstanding the current political chaos in Libya, Netto concludes with some hopeful words about the country's future.A courageous and well-informed piece of journalism.--Kirkus

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Evan Osnos (Get this book)
New Yorker staff writer and former China correspondent Osnos offers nimble, clever observations of a country squeezed between aspiration and authoritarianism. From 2005 to 2013, the author lived with his wife in China. In his debut book, he meanders among stories he pursued concerning Chinese of all strata striving to make a living in, and make sense of, a country in the throes of staggering transformation. Osnos groups his human-interest profiles under the themes of fortune, truth and faith, and he explores how new economic opportunities have challenged traditional ways and opened up Chinese society to unheard-of liberties and "pathways to self-creation"--emotionally, intellectually and otherwise. Pleasant, peripatetic musings revealing a great deal about the Chinese character. --Kirkus

The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union

Serhii Plokhy (Get this book)
Plokhy investigates the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing the often brutal political chess game within the Kremlin that ended in President George H. W. Bush's address of the end of the Cold War on Christmas, 1991. Drawing from unreleased presidential material, confidential foreign memos, and declassified documents, Plokhy largely discounts Reagan's get-tough policy as a cause. He credits Mikhail Gorbachev's embrace of Glasnost and electoral democracy in 1987 with loosening the grip of the party apparatus and rigidly controlled media, opening government matters to widespread public criticism despite fears of the Soviet military. This account is one of a rare breed: a well-balanced, unbiased book written on the fall of Soviet Union that emphasizes expert research and analysis.--Publisher's Weekly

Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings

Craig L. Symonds (Get this book)
A fine D-Day study both technical and humanitarian. Symonds portrays the American generals as childishly overeager for a European invasion, while the Britons remained prudent and restrained; indeed, American inexperience emerged in the first trying months of the Tunisian campaign. As the plans for a cross-Channel combined operation were assembled, Symonds reviews the staggering requirements in shipping alone--e.g., the building of key landing craft, cargo ships and Higgins boats to transport the materiel and men. He also examines the troop preparation of 1 million Americans spread across bucolic southern England in his suspenseful buildup to D-Day--a graspable, moving spectacle of men and machinery. A work that manages to be both succinct and comprehensive in scope.--Kirkus

The 40s: The Story of a Decade

Finder, Henry (Editor), Harvey, Giles (With), Remnick, David  (Introduction by) (Get this book)
Make room on the bookshelf. The New Yorker's look at 1940s history, culture, literature and civilization is a book to be read, reread and savored. Divided into seven sections--The War, American Scenes, Postwar, Character Studies, The Critics, Poetry and Fiction--this book shows how founder Harold Ross (1892-1951) could single out the most important aspects of history and culture--and not just of New York, but of the country. Readers are certain to enjoy the beautiful writing, clever thinking and insightful thoughts across a vast range of topics. An absolute treat. Hopefully, the New Yorker will continue to publish such anthologies on other decades.--Kirkus

American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution

Walter R. Borneman (Get this book)
An extremely detailed, opinionated account of events in 1775 Massachusetts ending two months after the famous skirmishes in the June Battle of Bunker Hill. By that spring, American colonists had spent the previous 10 years fending off Britain's attempts to recover the ruinous costs of the French and Indian War, writes popular historian Borneman. The author accepts their time-honored protest against taxation without representation but admits that Americans paid less in taxes than Britons and had benefited greatly from the recent victory. Ironically, 150 years of Britain's benign neglect had resulted in 13 largely self-governing colonies that were disinclined to change. Although Kevin Phillips (1775) and Nathaniel Philbrick (Bunker Hill) have recently trod the same ground, Borneman adds a first-rate contribution.--Kirkus

John Quincy Adams: American Visionary

Fred Kaplan (Get this book)
In this elegant study, Kaplan portrays our sixth president as a deeply literary man, devout husband, orator, diplomat and teacher who had grand plans for the country's future, including the building of national infrastructure and the abolition of slavery. Indeed, John Quincy Adams was concerned about America's loss of innocence in its rapid expansion and growing distance from its foundational ideals. A prodigious, gifted writer, he worried about "the internal health of the nation," with the squabbling between the Republicans and Federalists during the contested presidential elections, the addition of slave states to the union and the War of 1812, which had revealed the country's evolution into "a parcel of petty tribes at perpetual war with one another." Like his father, Quincy Adams was Harvard-educated, a lawyer and inculcated to answering the call of his country, despite his own wishes. Kaplan ably navigates his subject's life, showing us "a president about whom most Americans know very little." A lofty work that may propel readers back to Quincy Adams' own ardent writings.--Kirkus

Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War

Ken Adelman (Get this book)
Adelman pulls back the curtain on the dramatic weekend in October 1986 when Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss matters at a sort of presummit meeting. In this firsthand account, Adelman draws on the extensive public record of the event to deliver a comprehensive look at the larger-than-life figures, divisive issues, monumental breakthroughs, and frustrating stalemates, which in his opinion led this to be "the weekend that ended the Cold War." Adelman's style is quick, accessible, and occasionally humorous, giving this tale an almost whimsical feel despite its world-changing subject. Whether or not his thesis is true, this is certainly a uniquely close-range look at a Cold War turning point.--Publisher's Weekly

The Burning Shore: How Hitler's U-Boats Brought World War II to America

Ed Offley (Get this book)
An authoritative work on the awful, early effectiveness of German U-boats in disrupting shipping traffic off the east coast of the United States. Having written previously on the Battle of the Atlantic, military reporter Offley focuses on a short, early period of World War II--in particular, one lethally effective U-boat that caused massive devastation along the rich hunting ground of the North Carolina coast. Offley brings up the other factors that came into play for the U.S. Navy, such as the breaking of the Enigma code, interservice rivalry, taking advice from the more seasoned British, and garnering the necessary higher-level support for a convoy escort system and more effective patrol bombers. A knowledgeable overview and exciting re-creation of the final U-701 attack and defeat.--Kirkus

Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival

David Pilling (Get this book)
A sweeping view of contemporary Japan portrays its complexities and potential for change. In his first book, Financial Times Asia editor Pilling draws on scores of interviews to investigate Japan's culture, politics, economics and social life as it tries to recover from a severe economic downturn that began in 1990. The author celebrates Japan's "social cohesion, a sense of tradition and politeness, a dedication to excellence and relative equality," but he acknowledges a counter view--that Japan is "an unredeemably xenophobic, misogynist society, hierarchical, shut off from new ideas, and unable to square up to its own history." The author's articulate and diverse interviewees--scholars and teenagers, housewives and politicians--vividly and passionately testify to Japan's cultural contradictions, ambitions and strategies for survival.--Kirkus

The Gods of Olympus: A History

Barbara Graziosi (Get this book)
In The Gods of Olympus, Barbara Graziosi directs her expertise to a more general audience, following the 12 gods and goddesses of the classical Greek pantheon from their first appearances in antiquity through our continuing modern awareness of them. Her writing is accessible and entertaining, her passion for her subject obvious; The Gods of Olympus will equally thrill longtime lovers of the classics, and appeal to readers seeking a friendly, engaging introduction.--Shelf Awareness

How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City

Joan DeJean (Get this book)
Illuminating portrait of the first modern city, 17th-century Paris, which could "hold a visitor's attention with quite different splendors." DeJean focuses on two kings, Henry IV and his grandson, Louis XIV, who lived 250 years before Baron Haussmann, the great public works leader who massively renovated Paris during the mid-1800s. "Paris caused urban planners to invent what a city should be," writes the author, "and it caused visitors to dream of what a city might be." Dejean obviously knows and loves Paris, and she provides coherent history that effectively explains the evolution of a city built by a few prescient men.--Kirkus

Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris

Eric Jager (Get this book)
Few works of fiction will grab readers' attention as well as Jager's riveting story of a 1407 murder mystery that split the royal family of France. When Louis of Orleans, brother and frequent regent of King Charles VI, was brutally murdered in a Paris street, the provost of Paris, Guillaume de Tignonville was under pressure to solve the crime quickly. He had just overseen the execution of two murderers, whose claim to the right of "clergy" would eventually come back to haunt him. Jager shares his extensive knowledge of medieval Paris, employing entertainingly meticulous descriptions throughout the book. An impressive combination of mystery, crime story, and social and political history.--Kirkus

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America

Annie Jacobsen (Get this book)
The story of how perpetrators of World War II were treated as spoils of war, brought to light with new information in this diligent report. Generations after Germany was defeated, disturbing revelations about the recruitment of Nazi scientists expands previous material with the use of documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act, as well as personal interviews, memoirs, trial evidence and obscure dossiers. It's not a pleasant story. She provides snapshots of the scores of villains and the few heroes involved in collusion of the Nazis and U.S. military and intelligence agencies. Throughout, the author delivers harrowing passages of immorality, duplicity and deception, as well as some decency and lots of high drama.--Kirkus

The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court

Anna Whitelock (Get this book)
Whitelock follows up on her 2010 biography of Mary I, Mary Tudor, with a history of the reign of Mary's younger sister and successor to the English throne, Elizabeth I. Maintaining the health and safety of the queen's physical body was essential to maintaining peace within the realm, Whitelock argues, in a monograph that explores both the merging and diverging of Elizabeth's private life and public persona. This intimate portrait of Elizabeth's private life, as refracted through her relationships with the ladies of her bedchamber, will engage any readers wishing for a more balanced portrait of Elizabeth the flawed human being, as opposed to simply another rehashing of the mythical representations of her as Gloriana.--Publisher's Weekly

The Parthenon Enigma

Joan Breton Connelly (Get this book)
Universally recognized as a symbol of Western democracy, the Parthenon emerges in Connelly's bold new analysis as a shrine memorializing myths radically alien to modern politics. Newly recovered classical literary texts and surprising archaeological finds compel readers to acknowledge the implausibility of the usual interpretation of the Parthenon's frieze sculptures as a depiction of fifth-century Athenians celebrating their Panathenaic Festival. Newly aware of the potent message embedded in the Parthenon frieze as a whole, many readers will endorse Connelly's concluding appeal to British authorities, asking them to return to Greece the priceless pieces of the frieze that have long been held in London. An explosive reinterpretation of a classical icon.--Booklist

Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (Get this book)
Taking on the conventional Anglo-centrism of American history, this superb survey offers a different way of looking at the nation's past. A leading scholar of the Americas at the University of Notre Dame, Fernandez-Armesto brilliantly reveals the U.S.'s deep roots in Spanish and Hispanic culture and aspirations. With convincing arguments and deftly told stories, he shows how Spain and Hispanics have influenced American history from well before the British arrived. A first-person, opinionated, learned, wide-ranging, and delightfully written book, this is responsible revisionist history at its very best and deserves the widest possible attention.--Publisher's Weekly

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!: A World Without World War I

Richard Ned Lebow (Get this book)
An alternate history of how the world would have emerged if World War I had not occurred. World War I brought devastation on the 20th century, mowing down an entire generation of young men, dismantling empires, introducing ethnic cleansing, disease, revolution and civil war, and, ultimately, sowing the rotten global political and economic yield that gave rise to Adolf Hitler. Yet seasoned political scientist Lebow reminds us that WWI was entirely avoidable and indeed reluctantly embarked upon by the prevailing powers. Astute, challenging exercises in consequence and contingency.--Kirkus

Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed

Ahdaf Soueif (Get this book)
A deeply personal, engaged tribute by the far-flung Egyptian novelist and journalist as she returned to witness the revolution in her hometown. It has taken the next generation, her children's, to prevail, and Soueif declares gallantly: "We follow them and pledge what's left of our lives to their effort." Early on, the author offers an in-the-moment account of the crucial first days of street action, often messy, confused and involving violent clashes with the police, though undertaken by friends, family and strangers alike with heartwarming camaraderie. Soueif offers both an extraordinary eyewitness document and a sense of the historical import of the revolution.--Kirkus

Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865

James B. Conroy (Get this book)
A brilliant account of the doomed effort to end the Civil War through diplomacy. In February 1865 three "commissioners," all prominent members of the Confederate government, met with Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward on a riverboat near Hampton Roads, Va., to explore the possibility of a negotiated end to the Civil War, an event briefly portrayed in the recent film Lincoln. The project appeared hopeless from the start; schemes were launched to derail the conference before it could begin, deftly defeated by further chicanery on the parts of the commissioners and Ulysses Grant. A splendid addition to any Civil War library.--Kirkus

America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East

Hugh Wilford (Get this book)
By turns admiring and critical play-by-play of CIA Arabists as they directed the Cold War's Middle East chessboard. As the blowback from America's meddling in the Middle East continues to return in the form of the toppling of dictators long supported by Washington, Wilford spotlights the activities of several prominent CIA Arabists who helped manipulate the Cold War regimes in Egypt, Iran, Syria, Jordan and others, often to contradictory and devastating effect. A mostly insightful examination of these "Mad Men on the Nile."--Kirkus