Documents the rise and growth of Islam throughout the world, from the birth of Prophet Muhammad in the 6th century through the peak of the Ottoman Empire 1000 years later. Discusses the impact of Islamic civilization on world history and culture.

"An international best seller: a vivid, masterly novel about a Flemish man who reconstructs his grandfather's story--his hopes, loves, and art, all disrupted by the First World War--from the unflinching notebooks he filled with pieces of his life. The life of Urbain Martien--artist, soldier, survivor of World War I--lies contained in two notebooks he left behind when he died in 1981. His grandson, a writer, retells his story, the notebooks giving...

"Chronicling General Lafayette's years in Washington's army, Vowell reflects on the ideals of the American Revolution versus the reality of the Revolutionary War. Riding shotgun with Lafayette, Vowell swerves from the high-minded debates of Independence Hall to the frozen wasteland of Valley Forge, from bloody battlefields to the Palace of Versailles, bumping into John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Lord Cornwallis, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette and...

Chronicles the events of 1944 to reveal how nearly the Allies lost World War II, citing the pivotal contributions of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin. Jay Winik brings to life in gripping detail the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt. It was not inevitable that World War II would end as it did, or that it would even end well. 1944 was a year that could...

"They called it the Reagan revolution," Ronald Reagan noted in his Farewell Address. "Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense." Nearly two decades after that 1989 speech, debate continues to rage over just how revolutionary those Reagan years were. The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction identifies and tackles some of the controversies and historical...

From a Pulitzer Prize winner, a powerful history that reveals how the twin strands of liberty and slavery were joined in the nation's founding. New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinized...

"Today John Hancock is known for his signature, but during the Revolutionary Era, he was famed for his statesmanship. Brooke Barbier explores Hancock's position as a committed revolutionary who nonetheless understood the value of compromise. By shunning political extremes, Hancock became hugely influential in the infant United States."--

"A riveting, kaleidoscopic account of nine days in the life of a country on the edge, as the assassination of Nelson Mandela's protégé by a white supremacist threatens to derail South Africa's democratic transition and plunge the nation into civil war"-- "Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela has been free for three years and is in power sharing talks with President FW de Klerk when a white supremacist shoots the Black leader's popular...

"Our heroine, a moderately successful TV writer in L.A., wants her life to be as sunny and perfect as a Hollywood rom-com: a cool job, a wacky best friend, and lots of age-appropriate hot guys just dying to date her. Instead, she's a self-described spinster who is swimming in anxiety and just might have a tiny little brain tumor. So she turns to an unlikely source for inspiration: the eighteenth-century novelist and diarist Frances Burney, who pretty...

For Einstein, 1905 was a remarkable year. It was also a miraculous year for the history and future of science. In six short months, he published five papers that would transform our understanding of nature. This unparalleled period is the subject of Rigden's book, which deftly explains what distinguishes 1905 from all other years in the annals of science, and elevates Einstein above all other scientists of the twentieth century.