This acclaimed biography of the Gilded Age's Queen of Wall Street is "a must-read for all aspiring moguls" (Regina Herzlinger, Harvard Business School).When J. P. Morgan called a meeting of New York's financial leaders after the stock market crash of 1907, Hetty Green was the only woman in the room. The Guinness Book of World Records memorialized her as the World's Greatest Miser, and, indeed, this unlikely robber baron—who parlayed a comfortable inheritan...

"Slack engagingly reveals how the Federalist attack on the First Amendment almost brought down the Republic . . . An illuminating book of American history." — Kirkus Reviews , starred reviewIn 1798, with the United States in crisis, President John Adams and the Federalists in control of Congress passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticism of the government and its leaders a crime punishable by heavy fines an...

Gain the competitive edge by conducting a valuation of your company every year―quickly, accurately, and inexpensivelyBusiness leaders who know their company’s value at any given moment are more likely to seize the competitive edge―especially these days, when adding digital capabilities can dramatically affect value. But most businesses drop the ball because traditional valuation is complex, time-consuming, and expensive.Not anymore. Reed Phillips, Chairman ...

“Wonderfully detailed....Today’s vilified moguls look like pussycats compared with Hetty.” —ForbesA biography of the “Witch of Wall Street,” who amassed a fortune of $100 million before women had the right to voteA full century before Oprah and Martha Stewart became icons of female entrepreneurship, there was Hetty Green, America’s richest woman, who stood alone among the roguish giants of the Gilded Age. The Guinness Book of W...

**“An engrossing look at the human side of Benjamin Franklin . . . Using a post-feminist lens that’s critical of gender essentialism, Stuart rescues these women from obscurity . . . This is a terrific read: poignant, provocative, and probing.”—Library Journal, Starred ReviewA vivid portrait of the women who loved, nurtured, and defended America’s famous scientist and founding father.**Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin—the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionar...

In the summer of 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira—archaeological treasure hunter and denizen of Jerusalem's bustling marketplace—arrived unannounced in London claiming to have discovered the world's oldest Bible scroll. When news of the discovery leaked to the excited English press, Shapira became a household name. But before the British Museum could acquire them, Shapira's nemesis, French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau, denounced his find as a fraud. Humiliated, Shapira fled the countr...

The image of the Baron de Steuben training Washington's ragged, demoralized troops in the snow at Valley Forge is part of the iconography of our Revolutionary heritage, but most history fans know little more about this fascinating figure.In the first book on Steuben since 1937, Paul Lockhart, an expert on European military history, finally explains the significance of Steuben's military experience in Europe. Steeped in the traditions of the Prussian army of Frederick the Great—the ...

“A detailed and meticulously researched tale… that reads like a thriller.”—New York Times Book ReviewFrom the New York Times best-selling author of Blitzed, the incredible true story of two idealistic young lovers who led the anti-Nazi resistance in the darkening heart of BerlinSummertime, 1935. On a lake near Berlin, a young man is out sailing wh...

The fascinating, untold story of how British intelligence secretly used homing pigeons as part of a clandestine espionage operation to gather information, communicate, and coordinate with members of the Resistance to defeat the Nazis in occupied Europe during World War II.Between 1941 and 1944, British intelligence dropped sixteen thousand homing pigeons in an arc across Nazi-occupied Europe, from Bordeaux, France to Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of a spy operation code-named Columb...

The acclaimed social historian provides an in-depth look at eight society women who shaped upper class culture from the Gilded Age to WWII.Astor. Rockefeller. McCormick. Belmont. Family names that still adorn buildings, streets, and charity foundations. While their men blazed across America with their oil, industry, and railways, the matriarchs founded art museums, opera houses, and symphonies that functioned almost as private clubs. Linked by money, marriage, privi...

Reissued for the first time in decades, this ambitious work of Medieval scholarship by bestselling historians Frances and Joseph Gies traces the stories and fates of women in Medieval Europe over the course of a millennium.Medieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances an...

1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.In the US, the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer l...