Lost to Time:  Unforgettable Stories that History Forgot

Martin Sandler

"Such a splendid book, full of fascinating, well-told tales. Here's the Sultana, a 260-foot steamboat that sank in 1865 with a death toll higher than that of the Titanic. Here's America's first subway, constructed in New York under utmost security in 1870, more than 30 years before the current subway system opened. Here's Exercise Tiger, a rehearsal for the 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy that, believe it or not, led to more deaths than the actual Utah Beach attack. Here's Gustave Whitehead (born Gustav Weisskopf), a German immigrant who piloted a powered aircraft a full two years before the Wright brothers. And that's just a taste of this eye-opening book. Historian Sandler has assembled a diverse and bafflingly overlooked collection of historical curiosities, forcing us to wonder how it's possible that we never learned this stuff in school? In some cases, there are explanations: the Sultana sinking, for example, was overshadowed in the press by the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination 13 days earlier, and the Exercise Tiger debacle was covered up for decades. But in other cases we're just left scratching our heads, wondering how these remarkable moments in history were allowed to slip through the cracks of time."  David Pitt, Booklist

"The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know."  Harry S. Truman

Outside Looking In:  Adventures of an Observer

Gary Wills

"For partisans of the Left and the Right, Wills, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and journalist (and currently professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University), has always been an elusive, even frustrating, figure, and this thoroughly enjoyable and informative memoir shows why. In his public career and personal relationships, he has consistently refused to be held hostage by political ideologies or even "sacred" causes. Predictably, he has often been accused of betrayal by those who assumed he was one of them. But his insistence on remaining an outsider has allowed him to maintain contacts and friendships across the ideological spectrum. Wills writes frankly and often emotionally about deeply personal issues, including his devotion to his wife, his troubled relationship with his father, and his strong Catholic faith. The most absorbing portions of this book are his descriptions and impressions of presidents and other important political figures he has dealt with over five decades. Throughout, his independent streak stays strong. He expresses admiration for Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, and Barry Goldwater; sympathy for Richard Nixon; and sincere affection for his longtime friend, Bill Buckley.  Jay Freeman, Booklist

White House Diary

Jimmy Carter

"Each day during his presidency, Jimmy Carter made several entries in a private diary, recording his thoughts, impressions, delights, and frustrations. He offered unvarnished assessments of cabinet members, congressmen, and foreign leaders; he narrated the progress of secret negotiations such as those that led to the Camp David Accords. When his four-year term came to an end in early 1981, the diary amounted to more than five thousand pages. But this extraordinary document has never been made public-until now.

"By carefully selecting the most illuminating and relevant entries, Carter has provided us with an astonishingly intimate view of his presidency. Day by day, we see his forceful advocacy for nuclear containment, sustainable energy, human rights, and peace in the Middle East. We witness his interactions with such complex personalities as Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Joe Biden, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin. We get the inside story of his so-called "malaise speech," his bruising battle for the 1980 Democratic nomination, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Remarkably, we also get Carter's retrospective comments on these topics and more: thirty years after the fact, he has annotated the diary with his candid reflections on the people and events that shaped his presidency, and on the many lessons learned.

"Carter is now widely seen as one of the truly wise men of our time. Offering an unprecedented look at both the man and his tenure, this fascinating book will stand as a unique contribution to the history of the American presidency."  Amazon.com

Parisians:  An Adventure History of Paris

Graham Robb

"The secrets of the City of Light, revealed in the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten-by the author of the acclaimed The Discovery of France. This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten.

"A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map-there were no reliable ones at the time-Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine.

"Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohme, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame)-these and many more are Robb's cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel." Amazon.com

"Robb has proved himself to be one of the more unusual and appealing historians currently striding the planet. In a better world his books would be best sellers everywhere....His book-argumentative, gallant, parked athwart oncoming historical traffic, as if on a dare-is as Parisian and as bracing as a freshly mixed Pernod and water. Dwight Garner - The New York Times

The Tudors:  the Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty

G. J. Meyer

"Starred Review. Arguably the most famous rulers in world history, Tudor monarchs Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I were, according to journalist and author Meyer (A World Undone), cold and ruthless egotis[ts] whose self-created myths have prevailed over reality in our historical memory of them. Henry VII, the first Tudor, was a competent ruler who filled the royal treasury with gold, avoided war, and shrewdly consolidated his power by stripping away the nobility's autonomy. By contrast, Henry VIII's determination to enforce his religious change on his people led to a reign of terror, and his squandering of his riches contributed to the monarchy's later collapse under Charles I. His children fared little better, from the fervently evangelical boy-king Edward VI to the fanatically Catholic Mary, England's first woman ruler, who burned 300 of her subjects for heresy. Elizabeth is portrayed as selfish to the point of childishness, aspiring only to preserve her life and her rule. History buffs will savor Meyer's cheeky, nuanced, and authoritative perspective on an entire dynasty, and his study brims with enriching background discussions, ranging from class structure and the medieval Catholic Church to the Tudor connection to Spanish royalty. 4-color inserts, 1 map."  Publishers Weekly

Libby Prison Breakout:  the Daring Escape from the Notorious Civil War Prison

Joseph Wheelan

"The harrowing, little-known story of the 109 Union officers who escaped from a Richmond prison in 1864-an episode that deserves a higher place in Civil War lore….A true-adventure story that also documents how prisoner abuse and recriminations spurred the federal commitment to the "total war" that ravaged the South"  Kirkus Reviews

"Civil War buffs especially will want to read about this mass prison break that riveted North and South in the late winter of 1864" Library Journal

"Buffs will be intrigued by Wheelan's thorough research"  Booklist

"It's not very often that a solid and scholarly history book is a page-turner to rival a John Grisham potboiler… Joseph Wheelan's book is crammed with the kind of detail that has slipped away the last 150 years." Newark Star Ledger

The Red Flag:  a History of Communism

David Priestland

"Starred Review. Priestland, a lecturer in modern history at Oxford, delivers almost 700 pages of stormy history, but the pace never flags. Underlying the narrative is a nuanced understanding of communism as an ideology that took on different forms (romantic, radical, modernist) depending on local and historical context. But all were inherently unstable. According to Priestland, the Jacobins of the French Revolution planted the seeds of modern communism. They claimed to be building a modern state on principles of true, universal equality while treating those who disagreed as enemies of equality. In the following century, Marx proclaimed communism's scientific basis and the inevitability of global revolution. The 1917 Russian revolution caught everyone's attention, but despite universalist rhetoric, Soviet Communism became nationalistic and technocratic. This violated Marxist principles, but appealed to poor, rural nations after WWII. From Russia, Priestland moves to Latin America, Cuba and Africa, covering Communist guerrilla uprisings and urban terror, and the eventual lagging of economic development in the Soviet empire and China. The former collapsed and the latter has discarded Marxist ideology. Detailed and scholarly but written in lively prose, this is a rich, satisfying account of the most successful utopian political movement in history."  Publishers Weekly