Thucydides’ classic chronicle of the war between Athens and Sparta from 431 to 404 BCE persists as one of the most brilliant histories of all time. As one who actually participated in the conflict, Thucydides recognized the effect it would have on the history of Greece above all other wars. With a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth and romance, he compiled an exhaustively factual record of the disaster that eventually ended the Athenian empire.Conflicts between Athens and...

Here is one of the most extraordinary and invaluable documents in the annals of Native American history: the authentic testament of a remarkable “war shaman” who, for several years, held off both Mexico and the United States in fierce defense of Apache lands.During 1905 and 1906, Geronimo, the legendary Apache warrior and honorary war chief, dictated his story through a native interpreter to S. M. Barrett, then superintendent of schools in Lawton, Oklahoma.As Geronimo was b...

The Dialogues of Plato, written between 427 and 347 BC, rank among the most important and influential works in Western thought. Most famous are the first four, in which Plato casts his teacher Socrates as the central disputant in colloquies that brilliantly probe a vast spectrum of philosophical ideas and issues, among them art, beauty, virtue, and the nature of love. Socrates' ancient words are still true, and the ideas found in Plato's Dialogues still form the foundatio...

Early in May 1861, twenty-one-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment. He fought in all of its major battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote the remarkable account of "Co. Aytch," its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865.Co. Ay...

Xenophon, after being exiled from Athens, spent the last years of his life hunting, writing, and recalling in his books the great days of the Persian expedition. This record of one of the most famous marches in history contains an account of the day-to-day life of ordinary men and soldiers. It demonstrates how Greek theories of government and morality worked out in practice—for with his admiration for the great, Xenophon had a rare ability to understand and describe the outlook of lesser m...

"Children universally take it for granted that their parents love them and will never abandon them. Not by bread alone—children need not only food, water, and shelter but also a loving family to provide these things to them. Dealing with a child not only as a patient but also as a person helps a pediatrician become a part of the flowing river of life with its constant stories, the content and complexity of which are many times more fantastic and thrilling than the most sophisticated scienc...

All in the Family, Doctor Included is a work of love and dedication that honors the human spirit at all ages. Vladimir Tsesis once again brings us poignant moments, cozy chuckles and sage advice from his busy pediatrics practice.Dr. Tsesis speaks about the importance and the beauty of the American family and its glorious triumphs over the dramatic predicaments facing modern society. Both humorous and serious, it is dedicated to the contemporary American family in search of...

Powerful and riveting, this Newbery Honor–winning narrative describes the illness known as yellow fever, the toll it took on the nation’s capital—and the eventual triumph over the disease.Long before Covid and the West Nile virus, yellow fever was a medical mystery that forced thousands in Philadelphia, the nation’s temporary capital, to flee and brought the workings of the federal government to a virtual halt. An American Plague is a riveting account of t...

In this monumental work of moral and political philosophy, Plato sought to answer some of the world’s most formidable questions: What does it mean to be good? What enables us to distinguish between right and wrong? How should human virtues be translated into a just society? Perhaps the greatest single treatise written on political philosophy, The Republic has strongly influenced Western thought concerning questions of justice, rule, obedience, and the good life.This work i...

To appreciate the meaning and beauty of the great works of art, we must be familiar with the lives of the geniuses who created them, for in their personalities and life-stories lie the key to their masterpieces. Here are the vivid stories of these twenty painters who dreamed, struggled, and suffered so that they might give expression to their divine gifts: Giotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, El Greco, Diego Velasquez, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Joseph...

After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw, a companion of the gunfighters and rustlers who live along the Texas border.In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a young girl held prisoner and, in attempting to rescue her, brings down upon himself the wrath of her captors. Henceforth, he is forced to live a lonely life, hunted on one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws.Then, one day, a big-hearted captain of rangers takes Buck into ...

She was named Columbine, for she had been found as a child, lost in the woods, asleep among the columbine flowers. And now that she had turned nineteen and had finished school in Denver, she had returned to her beloved Colorado range land, where she would have to face the problems—and the people—in her life.There was old Bill Bellounds, the man who had raised her. There was the wild boy Jack whom people expected her to marry. There was Wilson Moore, the cultured cowboy who she cons...