Washington's Harrowing Escape from the Hudson ValleyIn October 1776 central Westchester witnessed a critical episode in the early campaign of George Washington's ragtag Continental Army and its quest for American independence. Often overlooked as just an interval between the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn and victory at Trenton, the Battle of White Plains showcased Washington's sly strategy of perseverance. Poor decision making and ignorance of the area's hilly terr...

From Jonas Bronck to today, discover stories and legends of New York's Bronx River.The Bronx River flows for twenty-three miles through Westchester County and the heart of the Bronx. It is New York City's only freshwater river, and it is exceptionally rich in history, folklore and environmental wonder. From Revolutionary War battlefields to native forests and lost villages, its lore and remarkable history are peopled with an array of legendary characters like Aaron...

From peglegged Peter Stuyvesant to CBGB’s, the story of the Bowery reflects the history of the city that grew up around it.It was the street your mother warned you about—even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well.The Bowery is New York’s oldest street and Manhattan’s broadest boule...

It was the street your mother warned you about—even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well.The Bowery is New York's oldest street and Manhattan's broadest boulevard. Like the city itself, it has continually reinvented itself over the centuries. Named for the Dutch farms, or bouweries, of the area...

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, two million Jewish immigrants poured into America, leaving places like Warsaw or the Russian shtetls to pass through Ellis Island and start over in the New World. This is a "brilliant" account of their stories (the New York Times).Though some moved on to Philadelphia, Chicago, and other points west, many of these new citizens settled in New York City, especially in Manhattan's teeming tenements. Like others before and a...

From William Shakespeare’s series of history dramas, to Sir Walter Scott, and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire*—*not to mention the smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones—the British civil war of 1455 to 1485 has inspired writers for centuries.Ed West’s My Kingdom for a Horse illuminates the bloody war fought for thirty long years between the descendants of King Edward III in a battle for the throne. Named after the emblems used by the two leading families,...

In The Holocaust by Bullets, Father Patrick Desbois documented for the first time the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine during World War II, based on wartime documents, interviews with locals, and the application of modern forensic practices on long-hidden gravesites. Nearly a decade of further work by his team, drawing on interviews with 5,000 neighbors of the Jews, has resulted in stunning new findings about the extent and nature of the genocide.The mass killings to...

A revealing glimpse into the tumultuous history of England’s medieval period, full of knights in shining armor and terrible peasant sufferingCovering the violent and disease-ridden period between 1272 to 1399, England in the Age of Chivalry … and Awful Diseases covers the events, personages, and ideas most commonly known as “medieval.” This includes Geoffrey Chaucer, the Peasants revolt, the Scottish wars of independence, the Great Famine of 1315, the Blac...

A revealing glimpse into the tumultuous history of England’s medieval period, full of knights in shining armor and terrible peasant suffering.Covering the violent and disease-ridden period between 1272 to 1399, England in the Age of Chivalry. . . And Awful Diseases covers the events, personages and ideas most commonly known as "medieval". This includes Geoffrey Chaucer, the Peasants revolt, the Scottish wars of independence, the Great Famine of 1315, the Black Death...

They stand proudly gazing across the Hudson River at the cliffs of New Jersey. Their brows are marked by ornamental pediments. Greek columns stand as sentries by their entrances and stone medallions bedeck their chests. They are seven graceful relics of Beaux Arts New York, townhouses built more than 100 years ago for a new class of industrialists, actors and scientists -- many from abroad -- who made their fortunes in the United States and shaped the lives of Americans.This book b...

Blazing hot meets icy cool in a momentous year in US historyOn New Year’s Day in 1967, the 200 million Americans who lived in the United States were about to experience a fascinating, exciting, and sometimes bewildering twelve months that for many formed an iconic portion of their lives. Despite the fact that the coming year produced no Black Friday, Pearl Harbor, or 9/11 attack, the nation still underwent dramatic changes in everything from support for the Vietnam...

The National Book Award–winning, New York Times–bestselling history of Yiddish-speaking immigrants on the Lower East Side and beyond.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, two million Jewish immigrants poured into America, leaving places like Warsaw or the Russian shtetls to pass through Ellis Island and start over in the New World. This is a "brilliant" account of their stories ( The New York Times).Though some moved on to ...