"With the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, the next two centuries for France would be tumultuous. Critically acclaimed historian and political commentator Jonathan Fenby provides an expert and riveting journey through this period as he recounts and analyzes the extraordinary sequence of events of this period from the end of the First Revolution through two others, a return of Empire, three catastrophic wars with...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11” (The New York Times Book Review), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

A gripping narrative that spans five decades,

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Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle.

After steaming out of New York City on December 1, 1917, laden with a staggering three thousand tons of TNT and other explosives, the munitions ship Mont-Blanc fought its way up the Atlantic coast, through waters prowled by enemy U-boats. As it approached the lively port city of Halifax, Mont-Blanc's deadly cargo erupted with the force of 2.9 kilotons of TNT - the most powerful explosion ever visited on a human population, save for Hiroshima and Nagasaki....

“Reads like a novel. A fast-paced page-turner, it has everything: sex, wit, humor, and adventures. But it is an impressively researched and important story.”
—David Fromkin, author of Europe’s Last Summer


Vienna, 1814 is an evocative and brilliantly researched account of the most audacious and extravagant peace conference in modern European history. With the feared Napoleon Bonaparte presumably defeated...

"John Julius Norwich--who the Wall Street Journal called "the very model of a popular historian"--has crafted a big, bold tapestry of the early sixteenth century, when Europe and the Middle East were overshadowed by a quartet of legendary rulers, all born within a ten-year period: Francis I of France, the personification of the Renaissance, who became a highly influential patron of the arts and education. Henry VIII, who was not expected to inherit...

A woman from the sea is captured by 17th century French sailors so that King Louis XIV can eat her rejuvenating organs. The captive, who has green hair and flaps for legs, sings beautifully and this moves a woman courtier to save her. A look at what it means to be human. In seventeenth-century France, Louis XIV rules with flamboyant ambition. In his domain, wealth and beauty take all; frivolity begets cruelty; science and alchemy collide. From the...

"Before 1871, Germany was not yet a nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France-all without destroying itself in the process? In...

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte will stop at nothing to marry the Hapsburg princess he hopes will bear him a royal heir, in this compelling novel from bestselling author Michelle Moran.
 
After the bloody French Revolution, Emperor Napoleon’s power is absolute. When eighteen year old Marie-Louise is told that the Emperor has demanded her hand in marriage, her father presents her with a terrible choice: marry the cruel,...

“I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing that, only then does he take up novel writing.” —William Faulkner
 
Winner of the National Book Award

Forty-two stories make up this magisterial collection by the writer who stands at the pinnacle of modern American fiction.

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