Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/17/2012
ISBN-13: 9781439124604
ISBN-10: 1439124604

Tasked in 1850 with carving a million square miles of territory (won just a few years earlier, during the Mexican-American War) into free or slave states, Congress erupts into a white-hot debate marked by dazzling rhetoric and vitriolic partisanship. Well-chosen quotes from participants like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Jefferson Davis bring to life a historical narrative that's suspenseful enough to keep even in-the-know American history buffs on the edge of their seats about what's coming next. For another well-done history of events leading to the landmark Compromise of 1850, try Robert Remini's At the Edge of the Precipice.

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Publisher: Penguin Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/24/2012
ISBN-13: 9780143121008
ISBN-10: 0143121006

Peking's expatriate community was horrified when 19-year-old Pamela Werner's mutilated body was discovered at the foot of Fox Tower in January, 1937. A joint British-Chinese investigation soon stalled: the British government rejected evidence that the killer was an expat, actively thwarting their own police inspector's inquiry and angering Chinese officials. As Japanese forces prepared to take the city, only the girl's father -- an eccentric ex-diplomat turned scholar -- doggedly pursued the truth. A fascinating look at pre-Communist China with a unique cold-case twist, Midnight in Peking will fascinate history buffs who liked David King's Death in the City of Light or Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City.

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Publisher: William Morrow
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/24/2012
ISBN-13: 9780061986444
ISBN-10: 0061986445

In the months preceding the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, U.S. security agencies ignored, buried, and downplayed intelligence that warned a major terror strike was coming. To deflect attention from this inter-agency bungling, red-faced security officials later exploited the quick arrest of confessed bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols -- which allowed other dangerous known participants in the bombing to remain at large. Meticulous research (including multi-agency accounts from the FBI, FEMA, etc.) distinguishes Oklahoma City as a "valuable contribution to the larger study of terrorism in the United States" (Kirkus Review); fans of David C. Unger's State of Emergency will love this, too.

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/24/2009
ISBN-13: 9780316008952
ISBN-10: 0316008958

U.S. Secretary of War Howard Taft's 1905 Pacific cruise was publicly proclaimed a "pleasure cruise," but Taft's true mission was to foster foreign alliances that President Theodore Roosevelt felt would aid his ambitions. To further the ruse, glamorous presidential daughter Alice Roosevelt accompanied Taft; her charming antics handily kept the focus off of Taft's real work. As Roosevelt's emissary, he dutifully schmoozed all the right people for all the wrong reasons, and these entanglements in the Pacific would then complicate America's involvement in multinational conflicts for the rest of the century. The Imperial Cruise delivers fascinating historical details and impeccable research that die-hard "Teddy" fans will devour.

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Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/02/2006
ISBN-13: 9780743250085
ISBN-10: 0743250087

From 1943 until 1945, Los Alamos, New Mexico housed a secret citadel where pioneering physicists raced to perfect a nuclear deterrent that would end World War II. Robert Oppenheimer's competent aide Dorothy McKibben smoothly handled all their needs: reminding newcomers of basics (use your alias in town, don't say you're a physicist); solving an ever-present diaper shortage for the scientists' wives; and troubleshooting what happens when physicists are in a remote desert lock-down too long (it seems they drink a lot and play pranks). Author Jennet Conant (the granddaughter of an original Manhattan Project administrator) provides a warmly personalized history of Los Alamos as their home-quirky-home.

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Publisher: Penguin Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/01/2003
ISBN-13: 9780142003428
ISBN-10: 0142003425

Secrets is the remarkable personal and political memoir of Defense Department insider-turned-whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, he handed the now-famous, top-secret "Pentagon Papers" over to the New York Times: 7,000 pages of proof that America's elite federal policymakers had systematically lied, cheated, and abused the nation's trust for over 30 years. Ellsberg's revelations led directly to Richard Nixon's impeachment proceedings, helped end the Vietnam War -- and forever altered Americans' trust in their government's judgment. For another dramatic, eagle-eyed personal account of the same era, consider James McNamara's In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.

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Publisher: Smithsonian Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/01/2006
ISBN-13: 9780060872939
ISBN-10: 0060872934

By every account, George Washington endured a little slice of hell encamped at Valley Forge over the miserable winter of 1777-1778: the Continental Congress repeatedly ignored his petitions for aid while he watched hundreds of his men die of starvation, exposure, and worse. Thus began Washington's "secret war": his determined, quiet mastery of political maneuvering that later allowed him to seize the lead in negotiations with the French, to out-strategize his British foes, and to definitively silence his critics in the Continental Congress. Snappy writing and provocative insights make this a fast-paced must-read for American Revolutionary War or presidential history buffs.

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Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/30/2008
ISBN-13: 9780312428112
ISBN-10: 0312428111

Cash-poor and battle-weary after World War II, Britain prepared to relinquish its control of India in 1948. Sectarian violence among Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu populations hastened Britain's withdrawal, and the summer of 1947 welcomed a free India as well as the new nation of Pakistan. Britain's last viceroy, the supercilious "Dickie" Mountbatten, his dazzling wife Edwina, and Jawaharlal Nehru (Edwina's secret lover, and later India's first prime minister) are an unforgettable trio of characters whose passions and foibles mirror this turbulent moment in Indian independence. Indian Summer combines "dramatic sweep with dishy detail," raves Publishers Weekly.

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