Publisher: Random House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/29/2013
ISBN-13: 9781400067619
ISBN-10: 1400067618

Engineers of Victory brings "an absorbing new approach to a well-worked field" (Kirkus Reviews), showing how Allied victory in World War II was the result of collaborative problem-solving and organization rather than simply superior military power. Here readers get a detailed look at how solutions were painstakingly engineered in response to specific, formidable blocks to Allied success: breaking U-boat control of the North Atlantic, securing European airspace, achieving control of enemy coastlines, and countering the Nazi blitzkrieg, to name only a few. WWII buffs will thrill to the stories of individuals who imagined, built, and tested new technologies and strategic protocols that saved the day.

First Chapter  

Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/29/2013
ISBN-13: 9780312600228
ISBN-10: 0312600224

Hold on to your top-hats, Lincoln buffs! The Hour of Peril vividly recounts how Allan Pinkerton, founder of the famous Pinkerton National Detective Agency, foiled a devious 1861 conspiracy to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln en route to his inauguration. Led by barber Cypriano Ferrandini, a small gang of secessionist sympathizers conspired to slip past Lincoln's light security and kill him during a lengthy railcar interchange in Baltimore. This "convincing and well-researched chronicle" (Booklist) sheds new light on just how close they came to succeeding. Fans of historical true crime á la Simon Winchester and Eric Larson will love this "enthralling page-turner" (Publishers Weekly) too.

Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/15/2013
ISBN-13: 9780805086911
ISBN-10: 0805086919

When photos of an appalling massacre at My Lai -- a tiny Vietnamese village where American soldiers engaged in wholesale civilian slaughter that included women, children, and babies -- emerged during the Vietnam War, U.S. officials condemned the soldiers' actions as an aberration. Military historian and investigative reporter Nick Turse marshals chilling evidence (from declassified Pentagon records and many first-hand interviews with Vietnamese survivors and American vets) that such atrocities were both pervasive, and fully endorsed by U.S. military authorities. Vietnam War history fans will find this a must-read; graphic details of atrocities by U.S. personnel may disturb some readers. For a book instead focused on American forces' heroism in Vietnam, try John Prados' In Country.

Table of Contents  

Publisher: Nan A. Talese, Doubleday
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/01/1995
ISBN-13: 9780385418485
ISBN-10: 0385418485

Fifth-century Irish monastics like Patrick and Columba protected works of classical poetry, history, philosophy, and religious commentaries from intruding barbarian hordes at the fall of the Roman Empire. Irish-American author Thomas Cahill also describes how they and other "warrior monks" perpetuated a uniquely Celtic Christianity that revered the mysticism of the natural world, rejected slavery, granted women greater rights, and accepted an earthy sexuality. Cahill's "freewheeling, witty popular history of Irish Christianity in the Dark Ages" (Library Journal) blends literature, philosophy, history, and folklore into a perfect St. Patrick's Day read for history buffs. For a heftier history of Ireland's first 1,000 years, consider David McCullough's Wars of the Irish Kings.

First Chapter  

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/25/2010
ISBN-13: 9780393066159
ISBN-10: 0393066150

Cast out by his father at the tender age of eight, James Annesley -- heir presumptive to titles of Irish, Welsh, and English nobility -- returned to claim his birthright four years later, when his father died. But a cruel uncle coveted the family titles: James was forcibly kidnapped and sent to America as an indentured servant. After 13 years of toil, James miraculously escaped. He returned to Ireland, launching an epic legal battle to gain his inheritance at last. His case aired scandals of the peerage and set new legal precedents while his dramatic adventures abroad inspired Robert Louis Stephenson's novel Kidnapped. History readers will love Birthright's "perfect mix of true-crime and real-life adventure"(Booklist).

Table of Contents  

Publisher: Regan Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/01/2006
ISBN-13: 9780060590031
ISBN-10: 0060590033

Famines in mid-19th-century Ireland -- associated with centuries of English oppression -- drove close to two million Irish over the sea and into northeast America. Collectively inclined toward self-preservation and clannish distrust of outsiders, they banded into powerful local gangs that "looked out for their own." From the 1840s until 1929, the Irish ruled America's organized crime scene. Prohibition posed an overt attack on Irish sensibilities, and lent itself toward get-rich-quick bootlegging opportunities exploited by colorful Irish-American mobsters like Whitey Bulger, "Mad Dog" Coll, and "Two Gun" Crowley. If you liked Gangs of New York, this "intense, erudite" (Publishers Weekly) history of the Irish-American mob is for you.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Anchor Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/01/2000
ISBN-13: 9780385720267
ISBN-10: 0385720262

Survivors of Ireland's tumultuous 19th century -- during which fully half of the country's population starved, fled, or were forcibly exiled -- profoundly influenced everywhere they settled. In an epic narrative history of Irish resilience, triumph, and tragedy, the author of Schindler's List describes how the modern Irish diaspora came to be. The Great Shame shines with humanizing accounts of individuals like Irish farmer Hugh Larkin (an ancestor of Keneally's wife), who refused to cede his lands to British overseers in the 1830s. Larkin was found guilty of dissent for his "crime," but later won his freedom and -- like many other Irish -- a new start in America. "A triumph," raves Publishers Weekly.

First Chapter  Table of Contents