A true, never-before-told story—discovered in a secret Vatican archive—of sex, poison, and lesbian initiation rites in a nineteenth-century convent.In 1858, a German princess, recently inducted into the convent of Sant’Ambrogio in Rome, wrote a frantic letter to her cousin, a confidant of the Pope, claiming that she was being abused and feared for her life. What the subsequent investigation by the Church’s Inquisition uncovered were the extraordinary secrets of San...

"Fascinating profiles" of remarkable nuns, from an eighty-three-year-old Ironman champion to a crusader against human trafficking ( Daily News [New York])."In an age of villainy, war and inequality, it makes sense that we need superheroes," writes Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. "And after trying Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, we may have found the best superheroes yet: Nuns."In If Nuns Ruled the World, veteran reporter Jo...

The remarkable true story of a turn-of-the-19th century murder and the trial that ensued—a showdown in which iconic political rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr joined forces to make sure justice was served—from bestselling author of the Edgar finalist, Murder of the Century.In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic. Waging a fierce battle for its uncertain future were two political parties: the well-moneyed Federalist...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Within the origin of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes hides a fascinating family story—and a crucial history of feminism in the twentieth-century.“Everything you might want in a page-turner…skeletons in the closet, a believe-it-or-not weirdness in its biographical details, and something else that secretly powers even the most “serious” feminist history—fun.” —Entertainment WeeklyThe Secret Histor...

The gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris.As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. But while trying to solv...

Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, was the sixth child of Queen Victoria. Born in 1848, that year of revolution in Europe, her childhood was painfully overshadowed by the death of her father, the Prince Consort. Her mother's subsequent seclusion not only rocked the foundations of the Monarchy but also proved to be a traumatic period for her family. Whilst still a teenager, Princess Louise found herself thrust into the centre of British political life.Her marriage in 1871 to the Ma...

A gripping account of China’s nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion, one of the largest civil wars in history. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles—a sweeping yet intimate portrait of the conflict that shaped the fate of modern China.The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a fail...

**The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal.“A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine“Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of bot...

“A fascinating romp through the feminine side of the infamous Khan clan” (Booklist) by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan“Enticing . . . hard to put down.”—Associated PressThe Mongol queens of the thirteenth century ruled the largest empire the world has ever known. The daughters of the Silk Route turned their father’s conquests into the first truly international empire, fostering trade, educa...

A brilliant, clear-eyed consideration of the visual representation of violence in our culture--its ubiquity, meanings, and effects.Considered one of the greatest critics of her generation, Susan Sontag followed up her monumental On Photography with an extended study of human violence, reflecting on a question first posed by Virginia Woolf in Three Guineas*: How in your opinion are we to prevent war?*"For a long time some people believe...

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power.Hatshepsut—the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne—was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir, however, paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut out-maneuvered the mother of Thutmose III, the infant ...

Also published as Empty Cradles.In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, ri...