This collection of little-known stories from music history is "an effortless summer read for the music lover" ( Houston Chronicle).The author of the highly successful History Channel series The Greatest Stories Never Told returns with new historic tales, this time focusing on amazing music stories that aren't taught in the average classroomRick Beyer plums the vast archives of the History Channel to deliver a treasure trove of obscure and fascinating...

The Ghost Army of World War II describes a perfect example of a little-known, highly imaginative, and daring maneuver that helped open the way for the final drive to Germany. It is a riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way—ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously. – Tom BrokawIn the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer,...

Rick Beyer, the author of the acclaimed History Channel® series The Greatest Stories Never Told, returns with new historic tales, this time focusing on amazing war storiesSearch the annals of military history and you will discover no end of quirky characters and surprising true stories: The topless dancer who saved the Byzantine Empire; the World War I battle that was halted so a soccer game could be played; the scientist who invented a pigeon-guided missile in 194...

“A riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way—ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously.” —Tom BrokawThe first book to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives—now updated with new material.In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—artists, designers, architects, and sound e...

From the bestselling author of The Greatest Stories Never Told series, the "fascinating" history of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr's illustrious and eccentric political careers and their fateful rivalry: "Beyer brings these two towering figures to vivid life on the page" (Hampton Sides).The famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was the culmination of a story three decades in the making. Rivals unto...

“A riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way—ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously.” —Tom BrokawThe first book to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives—now updated with new material.In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—artists, designers, architects, and sound e...

From the bestselling author of The Greatest Stories Never Told series, the epic history of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr's illustrious and eccentric political careers and their fateful rivalry.The famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was the culmination of a story three decades in the making. Rivals unto Death vividly traces their rivalry back to the earliest days of the American Revolution, when Hamilton and Burr -- both bril...

Nearly all of the Civil War’s greatest soldiers—Grant, Lee, Sherman, Davis, and Jackson—were forged in the heat of the Mexican War. This is their story.The Mexican War has faded from our national memory, but it was a struggle of enormous significance. It was the first US war waged on foreign soil, and it nearly doubled the size of our nation. At this fascinating juncture of American history, a group of young men came together to fight as friends, only years later to fight as enemie...

Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are known to all; men like Morgan, Greene, and Wayne are less familiar. Yet the dreams of the politicians and theorists only became real because fighting men were willing to take on the grim, risky, brutal work of war.The soldiers of the American Revolution were a diverse lot: merchants and mechanics, farmers and fishermen, paragons and drunkards. Most were ardent amateurs. Even George Washington, assigned to take over the army around Boston in 1775, ...

A fresh and insightful history of how the German arts-and-letters scene was transformed under the Nazis.Culture was integral to the smooth running of the Third Reich. In the years preceding WWII, a wide variety of artistic forms were used to instill a Nazi ideology in the German people and to manipulate the public perception of Hitler's enemies. During the war, the arts were closely tied to the propaganda machine that promoted the cause of Germany's military campai...

Language, historically speaking, has always been slippery. Two dictionaries provide two different maps of the universe: which one is true, or are both false? Speaking in Tongues—taking the form of a dialogue between Nobel laureate novelist J. M. Coetzee and eminent translator Mariana Dimópulos—examines some of the most pressing linguistic issues that plague writers and translators well into the twenty-first century.The authors inquire if one can truly love an acqu...

A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art―and the artists and eras that produced itSome five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greates...