Historical & Political Biographies

The long buried story of three extraordinary female journalists who permanently shattered the official and cultural barriers to women covering war.

Extraordinary times. Extraordinary courage.Here, from the bestselling author of The Great Escape, are eight true and startling escape stories from the Second World War. The heroism of the servicemen who dared to defy their captors in this volume is matched only by that of the underground movements and ordinary civilians who helped the escapees in these stories of daring, invention and doggedness against the odds. From the account of the Spitfire pilot left for dead by an execution squad in Sicily to the story of the air gunner forced to blag his way across the Baltic, every one is an unputdownable classic. 'As long as there are prisons men will try to escape from them; and as long as there is an RAF it will bring to the problems of escape the qualities of high resource, pure cussedness and that indefinable, damnably annoying refusal to lie down when dead, of which all the stories in this book are such excellent - and, I think, such exciting - examples.' H.E. Bates

If you are a long-time Alaskan hunter and trapper or an adventurous person that has dreamed about wilderness experiences in Alaska, you will not be able to put this book down. As other have said, "e; Marty is the real deal"e; when it comes to a person who has lived the wilderness lifestyle in Alaska. Luckily for us readers, Marty was willing to share his wonderful stories (some humorous, some harrowing) in this book. - Ted Spraker My good friend, Marty Meierotto, has lived a life that most of us have only dreamed of. His new book is filled with true life adventures that reflect both the joys and hazards of living in the remote Alaskan Bush. It is definitely a read worth your time. John Daniel President, National Trappers Association When I first met Marty Meierotto, I thought he looked like the vending machine repairman at a bowling alley in Cleveland. Three days later, having gotten lost in the Arctic while trapping with him and having him rescue me, I realized that there was nothing the guy couldn't do. Read this book and you'll see what I mean. -Bill Heavey editor-at-large Field & Stream

In this moving, revealing and highly readable memoir, Antony Penrose has composed a fitting tribute to his father, which also faces up to some of the more controversial aspects of Roland Penrose's life.

Vital prequel to the internationally bestselling biography STALIN: COURT OF THE RED TSAR

This is a long-overdue historical work on one of the most important figures in American history, written by an acclaimed historian of the antebellum era. Harriet Tubman was the first and only woman, fugitive slave, and black to work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

The first biography of Alaric to appear in English tells the history of the fourth-and fifth-century Roman Empire through the life of the Goth who attacked it.

The biography of Jane Digby, an 'enthralling tale of a nineteenth-century beauty whose heart - and hormones - ruled her head.' Harpers and QueenA celebrated aristocratic beauty, Jane Digby married Lord Ellenborough at seventeen. Their divorce a few years later was one of England s most scandalous at that time. In her quest for passionate fulfilment she had lovers which included an Austrian prince, King Ludvig I of Bavaria, and a Greek count whose infidelities drove her to the Orient. In Syria, she found the love of her life, a Bedouin nobleman, Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab who was twenty years her junior.Bestselling biographer Mary Lovell has produced from Jane Digby's diaries not only a sympathetic and dramatic portrait of a rare woman, but a fascinating glimpse into the centuries-old Bedouin tradition that is now almost lost.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

The Ottoman chronicles recount that the first sultan, Osman, dreamt of the dynasty he would found - a tree, fully-formed, emerged from his navel, symbolising the vigour of his successors and the extent of their domains.This is the first book to tell the full story of the Ottoman dynasty that for six centuries held sway over territories stretching, at their greatest, from Hungary to the Persian Gulf, and from North Africa to the Caucasus.Understanding the realization of Osman's vision is essential for anyone who seeks to understand the modern world.

The gripping, untold story of how Saudi Arabia's secretive and mercurial new ruler rose to power. Even in his youth as a prince among thousands of princes, Mohammed bin Salman nurtured sweeping ambitions. He wanted power - enough of it to reshape his hyper-conservative, insular Islamic kingdom. When his elderly father took the throne in 2015, MBS got his chance. As the hands-on-ruler, he made seismic changes, working doggedly to overhaul the kingdom's economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes and confront nearby enemies, especially Iran. His vision initially won fans at home and abroad as he convinced other nations that the moment had come to bet big on Saudi Arabia. Over time, however, the sheen of the visionary young reformer has tarnished, leaving many wondering whether MBS is actually an aspiring dictator whose lack of experience and rash decisions are destabilizing the world's most volatile region. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of covert interviews, MBS provides new insights into Saudi Arabia's catastrophic military intervention in Yemen, the bizarre detention of the Lebanese prime minister, the surprise arrest of hundreds of princes and businessmen, and the greatest scandal of the young prince's rise: the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi state officials with links to MBS - a crime that shocked the world. A riveting portrait of a determined autocrat on the rise, MBS asks how one man's actions and obsessions are shaking the Middle East.

"e;Top Gun"e; became a household name with the worldwide success of the film of the same title. The 1986 blockbuster starring Tom Cruise as a hotshot U.S. Navy fighter pilot was so popular (drawing $356 million worldwide) that recruiters set up desks in theaters that were showing it, looking to attract the next generation of combat aviators. The movie did for Navy pilots what The Right Stuff did for astronauts.With the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the real TOPGUN-as the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons program was known-approaching in 2019, and with Jerry Bruckheimer's sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, set to shoot next year, this is the time to publish the real story of the actual risk takers, disruptors, and innovators who revolutionized the art of aerial combat and created the center for excellence and incubator of leadership that thrives to this day.Here is the inside story of TOPGUN, told by the man who was picked to lead it at the start, from war to peace and back to war again, on and off the flight line, and through all six of our decades. Though Pedersen was a part of it at the beginning, some other great pilots carried on our work and he is eager to pay them tribute and make the book a celebration of our whole community. It's a great story, full of interesting characters and exciting history that American should know.

A biography of Israel's most iconic and controversial statesman.

Ash spewed into the sky. All eyes were on Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder sailed towards the phenomenon. A teenage Pliny the Younger waited. His uncle did not come back.

Matthew Qvortrup's definitive and insightful biography of Angela Merkel is essential reading for anyone interested in current affairs, the fate of Europe, or simply the story of a truly remarkable woman.

A superbly crafted and humane portrait of the last days - and last rulers - of the Russian Empire.

When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Hungarian Jew and a medical doctor, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform "e;scientific research"e; on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous "e;Angel of Death"e;: Dr. Josef Mengele. Nyiszli was named Mengele's personal research pathologist. Miraculously, he survived to give this terrifying and sobering account of the terror of Auschwitz. This new Penguin Modern Classics edition contains an introduction by Richard Evans.

On Christmas Day 1066, William, duke of Normandy was crowned in Westminster, the first Norman king of England. It was a disaster: soldiers outside, thinking shouts of acclamation were treachery, torched the surrounding buildings. To later chroniclers, it was an omen of the catastrophes to come.During the reign of William the Conqueror, England experienced greater and more seismic change than at any point before or since. Marc Morris's concise and gripping biography sifts through the sources of the time to give a fresh view of the man who changed England more than any other, as old ruling elites were swept away, enemies at home and abroad (including those in his closest family) were crushed, swathes of the country were devastated and the map of the nation itself was redrawn, giving greater power than ever to the king. When, towards the end of his reign, William undertook a great survey of his new lands, his subjects compared it to the last judgement of God, the Domesday Book. England had been transformed forever.

In 1999, Conrad Anker found the body of George Mallory on Mount Everest, casting an entirely new light on the mystery of the lost explorer.On 8 June 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine were last seen climbing towards the summit of Everest. The clouds closed around them and they were lost to history, leaving the world to wonder whether or not they actually reached the summit - some 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay.On 1 May 1999, Conrad Anker, one of the world's foremost mountaineers, made the momentous discovery - Mallory's body, lying frozen into the scree at 27,000 feet on Everest's north face. Recounting this day, the authors go on to assess the clues provided by the body, its position, and the possibility that Mallory had successfully climbed the Second Step, a 90-foot sheer cliff that is the single hardest obstacle on the north face. A remarkable story of a charming and immensely able man, told by an equally talented modern climber.

Behind the great polar explorers of the early twentieth century - Amundsen, Shackleton, Scott in the South and Peary in the North - looms the spirit of Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), the mentor of them all. He was the father of modern polar exploration, the last act of territorial discovery before the leap into space began.Nansen was a prime illustration of Carlyle's dictum that 'the history of the world is but the biography of great men'. He was not merely a pioneer in the wildly diverse fields of oceanography and skiing, but one of the founders of neurology. A restless, unquiet Faustian spirit, Nansen was a Renaissance Man born out of his time into the new Norway of Ibsen and Grieg. He was an artist and historian, a diplomat who had dealings with Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, and played a part in the Versailles Peace Conference, where he helped the Americans in their efforts to contain the Bolsheviks. He also undertook famine relief in Russia. Finally, working for the League of Nations as both High Commissioner for Refugees and High Commissioner for the Repatriation of Prisoners of War, he became the first of the modern media-conscious international civil servants.

2014 NAACP Image Award Winner: Outstanding Literary Work Biography / Auto Biography2013Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women HistoriansChoice Top 25 Academic Titles for 2013The definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movementPresenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks's politics and years of activism. She shows readers how this civil rights movement radical soughtfor more than a half a centuryto expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.