In the dark winter of 1917, World War I was deadlocked. For Europe to be saved, the United States had to join the war—but President Wilson remained unshakable in his neutrality. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel America into the war came into a quiet British office. One of countless messages intercepted by the crack team of British decoders, the Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message from Berlin inviting Mexico to join Japan in an invasion of the United States: Mexico wo...

Mary, unloved and selfish, finds friendship and happiness helping her neurotic, invalid cousin become strong and healthy. Nature's powerful magic touches both children as they toil to revive their secret garden. The story alludes to some very modern themes including the ability of mental beliefs to create health, the strength of group optimism, and the restorative power of nature.

Silas Marner, a gentle linen weaver, is framed by his best friend for a heinous theft. Exiled from his small community, Marner retreats into bitter and miserly reclusion, caring only for the gold he receives for his work. When his small treasure horde is stolen, Marner feels betrayed by life yet again—until one fateful New Year's Eve, an abandoned golden-haired child appears mysteriously on his doorstep. Through his unselfish love for this child, Marner's heart reawakens to spiritual rebir...

In this Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I.This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of kings and kaisers and czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed—and how horrible it became.Tuchman masterfully portrays this transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, focusing on ...

Written when she was twenty-six, Agnes Grey is Anne Brontë's first novel. It tells the story of a rector's daughter who has to earn her living as a governess when her family enters a financial crisis. Drawing directly from her own experiences, Anne Brontë set out to describe the immense pressures that the governess' life involved: the frustration, the isolation, and the insensitive and cruel treatment on the part of employers and their families.Mature, insightful, and ed...

"There is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood." Thus wrote George Eliot about Romola, the book which is central in her career as a novelist and amongst her most colorful, fluent, and persuasive works.Set in Florence in 1492, a time of great political and religious turmoil, Eliot's novel blends vivid fictional characters with historical figures such as Savonarola, Machiavelli, and the Me...

Named for Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, who was the first to edit this work, The Nicomachean Ethics plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics. In the ten books of this work, Aristotle explains the good life for man: the life of happiness.For Aristotle, happiness exists when the soul is in accordance with virtue. Virtue exists in a deliberate choice of actions that take a middle course between excess and deficiency; this is the famous doctrine of the "golden mea...

A recognized classic and definitive account of its subject, The Origins of Totalitarianism traces the emergence of modern racism as an "ideological weapon for imperialism," begining with the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the nineteenth century and continuing through the New Imperialism period from 1884 to World War I.In her analysis of the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, Arendt focuses on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in the t...

“If a woman really believes herself to be a lower kind of being, she should place herself in subjection….If not, let her show her power of choosing something better.” This is the challenge thrown down to George Eliot’s heroine, Esther Lyon, who dreams of marrying into a life of refinement. But as she struggles to make her choice between two men, Esther finds her values challenged.Felix Holt is a respectably educated young man who has relinquished opportunity for life as an artisan....

A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street JournalThe fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and o...

In the spring of 1277, Prioress Eleanor goes on a pilgrimage to a famous East Anglian shrine. There are rumors that King Edward may also visit the shrine soon to seek God’s blessing for his invasion of Wales. Lurking in this sacred place, however, is an assassin hoping to murder a king.Soon after Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas arrive, a nun falls to her death from the priory bell tower. Brother Thomas finds the body, and the pair quickly grasp that this nun’s death was not an ...

The aim of this work is not a history of events but an account of the achievement and spirit of Greece.“What the Greeks discovered, how they brought a new world to birth out of the dark confusions of an old world that had crumbled away, is full of meaning for us today who have seen an old world swept away.”In The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton shares the fruits of her thorough study of Greek life, literature, philosophy, and art. She interprets their meaning and brings ...