"A superb account of how the Confederate raider Shenandoah brought the American Civil War to the farthest reaches of the world." —Nathaniel PhilbrickThe sleek, 222-foot, black auxiliary steamer Sea King left London on October 8, 1864, ostensibly bound for Bombay. The subterfuge was ended off the shores of Madeira, where the ship was outfitted for war. The newly christened CSS Shenandoah then commenced ...

"Chaffin's well-told tale of two revolutions centers on the fascinating, sometimes intersecting careers of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette." —Peter S. Onuf, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Most Blessed of PatriarchsThomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette shared a singularly extraordinary friendship, one involved in the making of two revolutions—and two nations. Jefferson first met Lafayette in 1781, when the young Fre...

This revelatory account of the creation and wartime actions of the Confederacy's submarine is "a classic of Civil War history" (Clive Cussler).On the evening of February 17, 1864, the Confederacy's H. L. Hunley sank the Union's formidable sloop of war the USS Housatonic and became the first submarine in world history to sink an enemy ship. But after accomplishing such a feat, the Hunley and her crew of eight also vanished beneath the cold...

An illuminating and lively narrative of Charles Darwin’s formative years and adventurous voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle.Winner of the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Biography/MemoirCharles Darwin—alongside Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein—ranks among the world's most famous scientists. In popular imagination, he peers at us from behind a bushy white Old Testament beard. This image of Darwin the Sage, however, crowds out the vital you...

“The most eloquent, understanding, and yet very candid biography of Frémont that has appeared to date”—Howard R. Lamar, Yale UniversityThe career of John Charles Frémont (1813–90) ties together the full breadth of American expansionism from its eighteenth-century origins through its culmination in the Gilded Age. Tom Chaffin's biography demonstrates Frémont's vital importance to the history of American empire, and illuminates his role in shattering long-held myths ...

In 1845, seven years after fleeing bondage in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was in his late twenties and already a celebrated lecturer across the northern United States. The recent publication of his groundbreaking Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave had incited threats to his life, however, and to place himself out of harm's way he embarked on a lecture tour of the British Isles, a journey that would span seventeen months and change him as a man and a le...

Soon after winning the presidency in 1845, according to the oft-repeated anecdote, James K. Polk slapped his thigh and predicted what would be the "four great measures" of his administration: the acquisition of some or all of the Oregon Country, the acquisition of California, a reduction in tariffs, and the establishment of a permanent independent treasury. Over the next four years, the Tennessee Democrat achieved all four goals. And those milestones—along with his purported enunciation of...

“...a gripping narrative that offers a revelatory perspective on the combined origins of two nations...compelling drama and instructive history.” -- Wall Street JournalIn a narrative both panoramic and intimate, Tom Chaffin captures the four-decade friendship of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette.Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette shared a singularly extraordinary friendship, one involved in the making of two ...

On the evening of February 17, 1864, the Confederacy’s H. L. Hunley sank the Union’s formidable sloop-of-war, the USS Housatonic—to her own demise. For generations, searchers prowled Charleston’s harbor for the sunken boat, while legends surrounding the Hunley and its fate continued to grow. Even after the submarine was located in 1995 and recovered five years later, those legends have continued to grow.Now, in a tour de force of document sleuthing and in...

**This program is read by an AI-based synthesized voice.Unshackling America challenges the persistent fallacy that Americans fought two separate wars of independence. Willard Sterne Randall documents an unremitting fifty-year-long struggle for economic independence from Britain overlapping two armed conflicts linked by an unacknowledged global struggle. Throughout this perilous period, the struggle was all about free trade.**Neither Jefferson nor any other Founding...

A little-known moment in colonial history that changed the course of America’s future. A riveting account of a brutal killing, an all-out manhunt, and the first murder trial in America, set against the backdrop of the Pequot War (between the Pequot tribe and the colonists of Massachusetts Bay) that ended this two-year war and brought about a peace that allowed the colonies to become a nation.The year: 1638. The setting: Providence, near Plymouth Colony. A young Nip...

Well into the twenty-first century, Winston Churchill continues to be the subject of scores of books. Biographers portray him as a soldier, statesman, writer, painter, and even a daredevil, but Robert Schmuhl, the noted author and journalist, may be the first to depict him as a demanding, indeed exhausting White House guest. Drawing on years of research, Schmuhl not only contextualizes the unprecedented time Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt spent together between 1941 and 1945...