Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, articulated a vision of a community that embraced sacrifice over the needs of the individual; the result was one of the most successful utopian experiments of nineteenth-century America. The Shakers, an idealistic offshoot of the ascetic Quaker religion, grew to as many as six thousand members in nineteen communities reaching from New England to the Midwest. Lee's experiment, focused mainly on simplicity, celibate communal living, and sexual equality...

An inside look at the work and adventures of Harry Hopkins and Averell Harriman in the creation of history's most remarkable international partnershipAfter the fall of France in June 1940, London became the center of world political theater. For the U.S. president, the vital question was: could Britain, with American help, hold out against the might of Nazi Germany? While keeping the United States officially neutral, Franklin D. Roosevelt devised an unprecedented strategy, leading ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Were World Wars I and II inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment?In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen—Winston Churchill first among them—the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century o...

**Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeWinner of the National Book Critics Circle AwardSelected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the YearDrawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory biography of its troubled mastermind.**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, this extraordinary biography delves into the ...

**NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Christian Science Monitor • St. Louis Post-Dispatch“Magisterial.”—The New York Times**In this extraordinary volume, Jean Edward Smith presents a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America’s thirty-fourth president. Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point and beyond. Drawing on a wealth ...

The "engrossing" Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning history of FDR's final years (Barbara Tuchman).The second entry in James Macgregor Burns's definitive two-volume biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt begins with the president's precedent-breaking third term election in 1940, just as Americans were beginning to face the likelihood of war. Here, Burns examines Roosevelt's skillful wartime leadership as well as his vision for post-war peace. Hailed by ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND KIRKUS REVIEWSFrom the acclaimed author of Citizens of London comes the definitive account of the debate over American intervention in World War II—a bitter, sometimes violent clash of personalities and ideas that divided the nation and ultimately determined the fate of the free world.At the center of this controversy...

“Engaging and original, rich in anecdote and analysis, this is a terrific work of history.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American LionThe acclaimed author of Troublesome Young Men reveals the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking head of CBS News in Europe; Averell Ha...

A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known story of the refugee Polish pilots who joined the RAF and played an essential role in saving Britain from the Nazis, only to be betrayed by the Allies after the war.After Poland fell to the Nazis, thousands of Polish pilots, soldiers, and sailors escaped to England. Devoted to liberating their homeland, some would form the RAF’s 303 squadron, known as the Kosciuszko Squadron, after the elite unit in which many had f...

This intimate biography reveals how FDR took personal charge of the military during WWII: "Splendid . . . the memoir Roosevelt didn't get to write" ( New York Times Book Review).Based on years of archival research and interviews with the last surviving aides and Roosevelt family members, Nigel Hamilton offers a definitive account of FDR's masterful—and underappreciated—command of the Allied war effort. Hamilton takes readers inside FDR's White House and int...

In this dual biography, New York Times bestselling author Arthur Herman brilliantly reveals how Lenin and Wilson rewrote the rules of modern geopolitics.In April 1917, Woodrow Wilson—champion of American democracy but also of segregation, advocate for free trade and a new world order based on freedom and justice—thrust the United States into the First World War in order to make the "world safe for democracy"—only to see his dreams for a liberal internationa...

Despite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations.Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations:-FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor-A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to the Oval Office-Roosevelt knew before any other world leader o...