"Richly detailed and well-researched," this story of one Native American chief's resistance to American expansionism "unfolds like a political thriller" ( Publishers Weekly).Toward the Setting Sun chronicles one of the most significant but least explored periods in American history—the nineteenth century forced removal of Native Americans from their lands—through the story of Chief John Ross, who came to be known as the Cherokee Moses.Son ...

On December 4th, 1872, a 100-foot brigantine was discovered drifting through the North Atlantic without a soul on board. Not a sign of struggle, not a shred of damage, no ransacked cargo—and not a trace of the captain, his wife and daughter, or the crew. What happened on board the ghost ship Mary Celeste has baffled and tantalized the world for 130 years. In his stunning new book, award-winning journalist Brian Hicks plumbs the depths of this fabled nautical mystery and finally un...

Thirty-four-year-old Michael Turner calls his life "a swing and a miss." His wife's uncle got him his job. His wife's grandmother got him his house. He travels too much, and his kids are growing up without him. He dreams of creating a new world for his family, but has no idea how to do it. When his wife, Julie, discovers a family secret with the power to alter their lives forever, Michael is forced to confront the one truth he's been avoiding all his life: Sometimes the only way to redirec...

The history of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley is as astonishing as its disappearance. On February 17, 1864, after a legendary encounter with a Union battleship, the iron “fish boat” vanished without a trace somewhere off the coast of South Carolina. For more than a century the fate of the Hunley remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Civil War. Then, on August 8, 2000, with thousands of spectators crowding Charleston Harbor, the Hunley was ra...

Popular media can spark the national consciousness in a way that captures people’s attention, interests them in history, and inspires them to visit battlefields, museums, and historic sites. This lively collection of essays and feature stories celebrates the novels, popular histories, magazines, movies, television shows, photography, and songs that have enticed Americans to learn more about our most dramatic historical era.From Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs to Abraham Lin...

High-contrast astronomical imaging has progressed significantly in the past decade. Many of these techniques have been laboratory demonstrated to perform at contrast levels adequate for the detection of Solar System-like planets and dust around nearby stars. None of them, however, have been demonstrated in space. The state of the art in high-contrast imaging systems that have been built for space-based observation, the environment best suited for spectroscopic study of exo-Earths, is the n...

On a dark night in February of 1864, the H.L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat, torpedoed the Union blockade ship USS Housatonic, a feat that would not be repeated for another 50 years. But fate was not kind to the Hunley that night as it sank with all of its crew on board before it could return to shore. Considered by many to be the Civil War’s greatest mystery, the Hunley’s demise and its resting place have been a topic of di...

In the bestselling tradition of The Devil in the White City, award-winning author Brian Hicks tells the explosive story of the Morro Castle-the elegant luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey in 1934.On September 7, 1934, the captain of the luxurious Ward Line flagship Morro Castle died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before his ship caught fire off the New Jersey coast. Much of the crew abandoned ship, leaving passengers to burn ...

Delve into the fascinating world of dirt in this history of culture, cleanliness, and our evolving perceptions of what is and isn't gross.In this engaging and often humorous study of life's imperfections, public health and hygiene authority Terence McLaughlin dissects our attitudes toward the filth that has accompanied society throughout human history. According to him, "dirt" is a matter of opinion.Cultural attitudes about everything from factory smoke to ...

The remarkable story of Gudrid, the female explorer who sailed from Iceland to the New World a millennium ago.Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid's story ...

This definitive, single-volume edition of the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography delivers "a Lincoln whom no other man . . . could have given us" ( New York Herald Tribune Book Review).Celebrated for his vivid depictions of the nineteenth-century American Midwest, Carl Sandburg brings unique insight to the life of Abraham Lincoln in this distinguished biography. He captures both the man who grew up on the Indiana prairie and the president who held the countr...

A study of medieval warfare and a formative event in the history of Britain.Edward I's conquest of Wales has not been the subject of a scholarly book for over a century. Research has advanced since then, changing our perception of the medieval military mind and shining fresh light on the key characters involved in the conquest. That is why Sean Davies's absorbing new study is so timely and important.Taking a balanced approach, he gives both the Welsh and En...