Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/17/2011
ISBN-13: 9781439154243
ISBN-10: 1439154244

The Last Gunfight is a compelling and exhaustively researched account of what really went down--and why--when Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holliday faced the Clanton and McLaury brothers in 1881. Though Hollywood films cast the survivors as icons of frontier justice and consigned the dead outlaws to bit parts, author Jeff Guinn draws upon new sources to blow these stereotypes away and reveal the personal feuds and social pressures that brought these men into deadly conflict. Guinn's fans will love this "double-barrel blast of history and true crime" (Library Journal), and readers who liked Mark Gardner's To Hell on a Fast Horse: The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett should saddle up for this one, too!

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/03/2011
ISBN-13: 9780618758289
ISBN-10: 0618758283

Histories often portray WWI-era Britain as fully unified in its eagerness to fight Germany. To End All Wars is a fascinating "minority report" that instead highlights the very real persistence of British anti-war sentiments from 1914-1918. Award-winning historian and author Adam Hochschild examines prominent British supporters and detractors of Britain's role in the war. Growing labor unrest, Irish demand for home rule, and the ever-climbing death count of trench warfare are only some of the factors that made dissenters feel the war was futile. WWI and British history fans will find this very insightful, and readers interested in the history of dissent and/or peace studies will also be enthralled.

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Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/10/2011
ISBN-13: 9780399157295
ISBN-10: 0399157298

Foreign policy pro Frederick Kempe brings together interviews and dazzling archival research for a "spellbinding" (The New York Times) reconstruction of diplomatic confrontations that led to the construction of the Berlin Wall in August of 1961. Constant miscues between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev nearly caused nuclear confrontation along the way and set unfortunate precedents for ongoing Cold War tensions. Readers interested in modern Russian and/or American history will enjoy this, but Kempe's challenging perspectives on Kennedy's role should interest presidential history buffs as well.

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Publisher: Harper
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/17/2011
ISBN-13: 9780061228599
ISBN-10: 0061228591

Bestselling author Andrew Roberts brings readers a remarkably comprehensive one-volume account of WWII. He analyzes many factors contributing to the war's outcome, but concludes that the lynchpin of Allied victory was in fact the Axis forces' consistently flawed strategy. The Storm of War's gripping, concise narrative includes many stories of individual self-sacrifice and perseverance that fans of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation will enjoy. Critics praise it as both a "well-sourced and well-told introduction"(Library Journal) for general readers and an exemplar of "history writing as it should be" (Publishers Weekly) that WWII completists will relish.

Publisher: Penguin Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/12/2011
ISBN-13: 9781594202902
ISBN-10: 1594202907

The Idea of America offers a reflective, agenda-free discussion of the American Revolution's effects on ideas about national identity. In a series of brilliantly argued essays, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon S. Wood rejects claims that American colonists broke free of British rule for practical, economic reasons--unfair taxation, etc. He argues it was instead a consequence of their concern with ideas: liberty, equality, and republicanism; and that those ideas became the cornerstone of America's developing identity. Wood explores how, with the additional influence of Millennial Protestantism, Americans eventually came to regard themselves as a chosen people whose mission is to establish liberty and republican government globally.

Publisher: Penguin Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/28/2006
ISBN-13: 9780143038047
ISBN-10: 0143038044

British and French competition for North American colonial supremacy escalated in 1753, when the French increased military control in British-claimed territory near Virginia. Britain and France declared war in 1756 after early efforts in defense of British interests did not go well (a young George Washington was accused of killing a French diplomat, for example). The War that Made America is an "outstanding account" (Booklist) of the French and Indian War that followed. The role of Native Americans (often overlooked in other accounts) is given full treatment here. The author's trademark impeccable research and accessible prose make this a delightful introduction for those new to the topic.

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Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/09/2009
ISBN-13: 9780805082364
ISBN-10: 0805082360

In 1927, Henry Ford wanted to secure a rubber supply for tire production, and decided to establish his own rubber plantation with a model factory town for his workers--in the heart of an unsettled Amazonian rainforest. Author Greg Grandin tells the bizarre true story of Ford's high-minded, utterly wrong-headed efforts to establish small-town America in a hostile jungle environment. From his failure to consult botanists (the land wasn't even viable for rubber cultivation) to his expectations that indigenous peoples would welcome American living (they didn't), this compelling narrative proves Ford's visionary ambition and arrogant folly were two sides of the same coin.

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Publisher: Harvard University Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/11/2006
ISBN-13: 9780674024397
ISBN-10: 0674024397

Dunkirk stands in WWII history as a terrible Allied defeat--but also an unforgettable testament to the valiant British Expeditionary Forces who defended an escape corridor with their lives, allowing 288,000 Allied troops to escape the Germans' onslaught. Many BEF soldiers knew they would die holding positions for the few precious hours their comrades needed to escape; the journalistic style of this narrative brings their plights vividly to life. Author Hugh Sebag-Montefiore marshals new primary sources (personal interviews, official reports, and previously unpublished soldiers' accounts) to add meaningful depth to the story of Dunkirk.

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Publisher: Ballantine Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/05/2010
ISBN-13: 9780345453211
ISBN-10: 0345453212

Mining "thickets of evidence, hearsay and apocrypha” (Kirkus Review) from primary sources and later histories, author Alison Weir vindicates Henry VIII's second wife from popular negative perceptions. She offers a full account of Anne Boleyn's life but focuses on her final four months locked in the Tower of London. Weir contends that it was not Henry VIII who first tired of the young woman, but instead royal advisor Thomas Cromwell who saw her as a dangerous rival to his influence with the king. This "judicious, thorough and absorbing popular history" (Publishers Weekly) will appeal to fans of Tudor histories--and, of course, will be a hit among Weir's fiction fans who also like nonfiction.

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