“Allert’s The Hitler Salute, a joyously sharp account of a massively evil slice of human history, doesn’t treat the Nazis’ obligatory two-word, one-arm greeting as a product of evil, but as its enabler. He argues, movingly, that the salute wounded Germans’ sociability, connectedness, and personal sovereignty, warping the holy human order.”—The New York Observer

"Provocative . . . A probing analysis of Nazi economic policies."—The Boston Globe

In this thematically-organized, thoroughly-illustrated reference text, five expert authors describe the fighting tactics, equipment and techniques used at the height of Napoleon Bonaparte's empire as well as the developments in weapons technology and changes in military systems.  The book shows in detail how the battles that would define Europe for years to come were fought and won.

"Guiding readers on a journey across the three interlocked powers of the late 18th century—France, Britain and the new United States—historian Andress regales with stories of such leaders as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who stoked the flames of revolution, and Edmund Burke, who tried to extinguish the blaze. Looking at the social, economic, political and imperial factors coming together in 1789, Andress weighs the ironies of that revolutionary moment: the Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man both appeared in that year, but Andress points out the familiar truth that the freedoms proclaimed by these documents were often compromised by the very governments that trumpeted them. A new language had emerged to confront those holding power, but that language too often licensed aggression against slaves, women and others seen as not subject to guarantees of liberty . . . he reminds us that the struggle between individual rights and oppressive social systems might have begun in 1789, but it is still with us today."—Publishers Weekly

"Andress writes as crisp and up-to-date an account of the Revolution's origins as I have read."—Adams Gopnik, The New Yorker

"In The Day of Battle, Rick Atkinson picks up where he left off in An Army at Dawn, his history of the North African campaign, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. A planned third volume, on the Normandy invasion and the war in Europe, will complete The Liberation Trilogy, which is shaping up as a triumph of narrative history, elegantly written, thick with unforgettable description and rooted in the sights and sounds of battle . . . He excels at describing the furor of battle, and the Italian campaign provides him with abundant raw material . . . Mr. Atkinson, a longtime correspondent and editor for The Washington Post, conveys all of this with sharp-edged immediacy and a keen eye for the monstrous and the absurd."—William Grimes, The New York Times

“This compact, meaty volume ought to be on the reading list of every candidate for national office in November's elections. In an age of cant and baloney, Andrew Bacevich offers a bracing slap of reality. The Limits of Power is gracefully written and easy to read . . . chockablock with provocative ideas and stern judgments. Bacevich's brand of intellectual assuredness is rare in today's public debates. Many of our talking heads and commentators are cocksure, of course, but few combine confidence with knowledge and deep thought the way Bacevich does here. His big argument is elegant and powerful.”—The Washington Post

"No reader can walk away from this [book] without understanding, and being moved by, the tremendous accomplishments of these women."—Geeta Sharma-Jensen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“In this remarkable book, Mia Bay understands Ida B. Wells in full—as thinker, writer, crusader, politician, and woman of the world. Finally, we have a biography worthy of one of the bravest and most influential activists in U.S. history.”—Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

"In A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History, New York University Professor Thomas Bender sets out to break our dependency on this comforting paradigm by challenging us to reimagine the development of the United States as but 'one history among histories' and to relocate our national history within 'an interdependent world' . . . [This book is] a sophisticated polemic combining intellectual precision with moral passion, written for a general audience in lively prose that is neither condescending nor arcane. Bender does not pretend to write an exhaustive history of the United States but rather whets our appetite with tastes of his global and spatial revisionism . . . If you are tired of learning about this country's past through a prism of nationalist myopia and relish a good argument, this is the book for you . . . You will never  again think about 'American history' in the same provincial way."—Tony Platt, San Francisco Chronicle

"For anyone interested in viewing America's traumatic Civil War from the perspective of ordinary individuals who found themselves in the Union and Confederate armies, Robert E. Bonner's The Soldier's Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War will be a very rewarding experience. This expertly edited collection of letters and drawings mailed to the families and friends of sixteen 'typical' but quite diverse citizen-soldiers conveys a deeply human dimension to America's most dehumanizing war."—David Brion Davis, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World

"We can be grateful if any are half as learned, lively and enriching as Orville Vernon Burton's The Age of Lincoln . . . He makes a virtue of jargon-free, accessible prose. But his language also allows readers to soak up the texture and complexity of developments with his sprawling, interlacing stories—stories with which all scholars may not always agree, but compelling tales that shed new light on America's complex heritage . . . The Age of Lincoln reminds us that ideas are everything, and a book bursting with so many of them will provide robust reading for years to come."—Catherine Clinton, Chicago Tribune (cover review)

“Orville Vernon Burton notes that ‘Lincoln chose his words deliberately,’ and so does Burton. His introductions and editorial notes are concise, lively, and reliable, and Lincoln’s words, as always, are gripping, brilliant, and deeply moving. There have been many collections of Lincoln’s writings, but this slender, thoughtfully selected compendium more than lives up to its title: essential.”—Harold Holzer, co-chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

“Kate Cambor’s Gilded Youth reads like a Balzac novel. The reader is enchanted by young Charcot and by Victor Hugo’s granddaughter, and comes to loathe the odious Léon Daudet, archetype of French anti-Semites. This book is at once a marvelous narration and a dark vision of the anxieties of familial influence.”—Harold Bloom

“Mount Vernon boasts stories that number in the hundreds, but one of its most dramatic tales has been left untold until now.  In Scott Casper’s compelling narrative we see sectional crisis, Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction through the eyes of Sarah Johnson and the hundreds of other African Americans who lived and labored at the fabled shrine.  The Mount Vernon that belonged to them as much as to Washington and his heirs now testifies to the signal importance of our nation’s African American past.”—Mary Kelley, Ruth Bordin Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan, and author of Learning to Stand and Speak

"[Yemen Chronicle] focuses on the themes of violence, honor, and hospitality in Arabic tribal society, and cultural misunderstandings and the efforts of a nonnative to be accepted in another culture . . . I highly recommend [Yemen Chronicle] to students of anthropology, Yemen, the Middle East, and anyone who has tried to live in a foreign culture."—David M. Witty, The Journal of Military History