A historian's collection of stories about unknown contributors to the successes and failures of the Union and Confederate sides during the Civil War.You don't have to know much about the Civil War to be familiar with Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, or William Tecumseh Sherman. Bull's-Eyes and Misfires, however, tells the fascinating stories of fifty largely unknown people who dramatically changed the course of the Civil War by their hero...

There was little funny about a war in which 620,000 humans died. But it was finding humor amid devastation that kept Civil War soldiers marching toward the enemy. Union or Confederate, those in command proved adept at making mistakes. Many leaders were drunkards, couldn't speak English, didn't know a cannon's breech from its muzzle. Among the galleries of heroes were: Colonel Edward Baker, who told his Federals to follow the plume of his hat if they wanted to find war—and sent them over a ...

"A Spellbinding Tale Of The Last Days Of The Confederacy." --David J. Eicher, author of The Longest NightIn the only book to tell the definitive story of Confederate President Jefferson Davis's chase, capture, imprisonment, and release, journalist and Civil War writer Clint Johnson paints a riveting portrait of one of American history's most complex and enduring figures."Riveting And Revealing." --Marc Leepson, author of Desperate EngagementIn the ...

The relationship between religion and conflict has generated considerable academic and political debate. Although the majority of religions and spiritual traditions are replete with wisdom that propagates a broader unity among human beings, these same examples have been used to legitimize hatred and fear. While some studies claim that religion facilitates peacebuilding, reconciliation, and healing, others argue that religion exacerbates hostility, instigates vengeance-seeking behaviors, an...

New York City, November 25, 1864. Confederate officers attempt to destroy the city with a series of lethal fires that will forever diminish it to a mere speck of an island.What fueled these Southern patriots' rage? And what if they had succeeded?This terrifying scenario almost became a reality following what the New York Herald declared "a vast and fiendish plot." Infuriated by the Union's killing of their beloved General John Hunt Morgan and the burning of the Shen...

The latest installment in the New York Times bestselling Politically Incorrect Guide series expands on the hugely successful Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.Far from being the backwater of prejudice and ignorance that the liberal media would have you believe, the South has always been the center of American culture. From the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many others—to the frontiersmen who tamed the West, to the count...

This action-packed narrative history of destroyer-class ships begins with destroyers' first incarnation as torpedo boats in 1898 through the last true combat service of the ships in the Vietnam War. Nicknamed "tin cans" or "greyhounds," destroyers were quick naval ships used to defend larger battleships—and they proved indispensable in America's military victories. In Tin Cans and Greyhounds, author Clint Johnson brings listeners inside the quarter-inch hulls of destroyers to meet...

The award-winning author presents a provocative, thoroughly modern revisionist biographical history of one of America's greatest and most influential families—the Roosevelts—exposing heretofore unknown family secrets and detailing complex family rivalries with his signature cinematic flair.Drawing on previously hidden historical documents and interviews with the long-silent "illegitimate" branch of the family, William J. Mann paints an elegant, meticulously researc...

FINALIST FOR THE SPERBER PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM – BIOGRAPHYA fascinating history of the rise and fall of influential Gilded Age magazine McClure’s and the two unlikely outsiders at its helm—as well as a timely, full-throated defense of investigative journalism in AmericaThe president of the United States made headlines around the world when he publicly attacked the press, denouncing reporters who threatened his reputation as “muckrak...

This sweeping, international military history boldly reframes the Cold War as one of the three great conflicts of the twentieth century.The Cold War has long been viewed as a tense diplomatic standoff between global superpowers representing democracy and communism. Yet it fostered a series of deadly conflicts on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy accord hung over Europe, ferocious wars raged in the Cold War's killing fields...

"[A] tantalizing and beautifully researched book . . . Anyone emboldened by the #MeToo movement to come forward owes a significant debt to Pollard." ―Karen Abbott, The Washington PostIn Bringing Down the Colonel, the journalist Patricia Miller tells the story of Madeline Pollard, an unlikely nineteenth-century women's rights crusader. After an affair with a prominent politician left her "ruined," Pollard brought the man—and the hy...

**In this history of ideas, New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution."Lively and entertaining." —The New Yorker**Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power.In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the e...