In three years, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, leading a few hundred Spanish soldiers, overcame a centuries-old empire that could put tens of thousands of warriors on the field. Even after his god-like reputation had been shattered, and his horses and cannons were no longer regarded as supernatural, his ruthless daring took him on to victory. Yet in the end, his prize was not the gold that he had sought, but the destruction of the entire Aztec civilization.

He Fought For Freedom! She Fought For Love! A Novel Of Revolt In The Days When Spain Ruled Mexico And Most Of What Became The U.S.A.Not since Gone with the Wind has there been such an epic. One quarter of a million words."Intensely Absorbing" Ft. Worth Star-TelegramThe Pulitzer Recommendee saga!"A love story reminiscent of Ramona." St. Lewis Post-Dispatch"Caught up in the revolt are lustful and brutal soldiers, women...

"You will search out the enemy and you will destroy him . . ." Those were the President's orders to Richard LeGrande. The Chief of State knew LeGrande was the one man who could be trusted to fulfill those instructions - if anyone could.LeGrande was the Spymaster.He was head of "GENOPS" (General Operations Agency). Behind this innocuous sobriquet, lay the last ditch organization ready at any moment to take on any job that was too dirty or too difficult for the Military or th...

"An exciting, deadly realistic spy novel." Roanoke PilotYou've read about James Bond, Matt Helm, Jason Bourne, and Gabriel Allon, men sent on ultra-deep-cover missions to singlehandedly counter deadly plots and return home undetected and, ideally, unscathed.What of the spymaster who must minutely scrutinize intelligence, assay it for developing threats, select the trustworthy person best fitted for the assignment, and then send that spy out on a deadly assignment, often int...

"The plot is gripping, the background sketched with telling detail, hate, fear, doubled-dealing in abundance, a story which builds to a brilliant climax, a battle in the corridors of power every bit as relentless as the threatened clash that could tear the world apart." —Manchester Evening NewsFrom his office in Washington, Richard LeGrande pulls aside the curtains and looks out over an America slumbering securely in its beds due to his never-ceasing vigila...

Between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, in a few favored areas of the world, humankind mastered the formulas that released it from the Stone Age. For the first time in history, people became civilized. This globe- and time-trotting book vividly describes how a number of major civilizations - the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Khmers, the Etruscans, and more - emerged, thrived, faded, but left a mark on our collective imagination and culture. Memories of some of these civilizations linger in the for...

Christopher Columbus did more than discover a new world. He changed the Old World. Through his adventures, he launched Europe's most powerful nations into an era of exploration and colonization - and, in the process, touched off a brutal period of genocide and slavery that would continue for centuries. But while we all think we know everything we need to know about Columbus, he remains an enigmatic figure. Only scholars are familiar with some parts of his remarkable life. Here, from histor...

Cast from their home country by religious intolerance, the Pilgrims' harrowing voyage to the New World was filled with hardships. But through it all they persisted, motivated by the promise of a better life in which they could gather and worship God in their own ways. A collection of ragtag ships carried them across the ocean, among them The Mayflower. Crammed into the ship's hull, 102 people made this most famous pilgrimage. Besieged by illness and Indians and, many of them believed, witc...

In Napoleon, National Book Award winner J. Christopher Herold tells the fascinating story of a legendary leader who changed the world in every aspect - political, cultural, military, and commercial. Napoleon Bonaparte's rise from common origins to the pinnacle of power, as well as his defeat at Waterloo, still influences our daily lives, from the map of Europe to the metric system. Here's the fascinating story of the great soldier-statesman.

New York Times bestselling historian Emma Moreau exposes and analyzes the events that turned ordinary French citizens into revolutionaries - from the attack on the Bastille to the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the bloodthirsty Reign of Terror that claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.

Here, from American Heritage, is the human, vital story of America's beginnings - from the journeys of early explorers and the founding of the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies to the French and Indian Wars and victory in the War of Independence.

During the course of most of Russia's turbulent history, czars ruled. The story of these men and women - as diverse as the lands they governed - is, in many ways, the story of Russia itself. From the birth of the Kievan state in the second half of the ninth century to the murder of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918, historians James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci trace the long and twisted line of imperial rule in Russia, offering many insights into the uses and abuses of absolute pow...