So many books about the American West leave out the more intriguing details:When, in 1803, the young USA doubled its size with the purchase from France of an unexplored vastness called La Louisiane, it was a British bank which lent the Americans most of the 15 million that they didn’t have. So the financial papers for the biggest real-estate deal in history are, to this day, held in a London vault. Not many people know that… If his ranching uncle-by-marriage had had his way, the teenaged W...

Why Not? After all, no-one had ever done it before. It would be one of the longest of all overland journeys - half way round the world, from the English Channel to Singapore. They knew that several expeditions had already tried it. Some had got as far as the desrts of Persia; a few had even reached the plains of India. But no one had managed to go on from there: over the jungle clad mountains of Assam and across northern Burma to Thailand and Malaya. Over the last 3,000 miles it seemed the...

Decades before Race Across the World, six friends made the epic journey from London to Singapore and back in two Land Rovers.Why not? No-one had ever done it: one of the longest of all overland journeys, from the English Channel to Singapore. Several expeditions had tried. Some had reached the Persian deserts; a few, the Indian plains. But none had gone further: over the jungle-clad Assamese mountains, across northern Burma, to Thailand and Malaya. It was ...

* NOW A MAJOR DOCUMENTARY SERIES ON ALL 4 *‘This is a fabulous adventure – reckless, insanely ambitious and filled with sweat, tears and laughter ... irresistible reading.’ Joanna Lumley‘Alex Bescoby weaves travel, adventure, history and the contemporary together like no one else. His great gift is to take us on a journey through past and present. By its end we have learned more about the world and ourselves.’ Dan Snow

The Oatman massacre is among the most famous and dramatic captivity stories in the history of the Southwest. In this riveting account, Brian McGinty explores the background, development, and aftermath of the tragedy.Roys Oatman, a dissident Mormon, led his family of nine and a few other families from their homes in Illinois on a journey west, believing a prophecy that they would find the fertile “Land of Bashan” at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. On February 18, 185...

A relentless killer’s unfinished business . . .Hannah Griffin was a girl when tragedy struck on her family's farm. She still remembers the flames reflected against the newly fallen snow and the bodies the police dug up—one of them her mother's. It was the nation's worst murder scene in decades and the killer was never found.Two decades later, Hannah is a CSI investigating a case of child abuse when the past comes hurtling back. Years of buried questions are...

Don’t miss the latest Natchez Burning novel, SOUTHERN MANFrom #1 New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes the second novel in his Natchez Burning trilogy of riveting crime fiction—which also includes Natchez Burning and the upcoming Mississippi Blood—an epic trilogy of blood and race, family and justice, featuring Southern lawyer Penn Cage.In this gripping suspense novel, former prosecutor Penn Cage and his fiancée, repor...

In writing this book the author had only one end in view, that of relating in a simple way his experiences as a mountaineer. In these days, when such experiences are fast becoming a thing of the past, the story is of special interest.

The diaries and letters of women on the overland trails in the mid- to late nineteenth century are treasured documents. These eleven selections drawn from the multivolume Covered Wagon Women series present the best first-person trail accounts penned by women in their teens who traveled west between 1846 and 1898. Ranging in age from eleven to nineteen, unmarried and without children of their own, these diarists had experiences different from those of older women who carried heavie...

What is the secret alchemy of great presidential leadership? Presidential Courage, Three Speeches That Changed America by Warren Kozak discovers the answer through three speeches and three presidents who faced the greatest challenges in American history. And by their lead and through their words, they transformed a nation.On the night of June 6, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed an anxious people whose sons were dying by the thousands in the D-Day invasion. In one of...

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Fit to Be Citizens? demonstrates how both science and public health shaped the meaning of race in the early twentieth century. Through a careful examination of the experiences of Mexican, Japanese, and Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles, Natalia Molina illustrates the many ways local health officials used complexly constructed concerns about public health to demean, diminish, discipline, and ultimately define racial groups. She shows...

This Prospective Guide isn’t here to hold your hand and walk you step-by-step through your adventure. Because that’s not adventure. No, this guide is here to offer some perspective. To share some tales. To offer a few opinions. To help you decide on which path to take. But the joy remains in the unknown.That’s the Prospective Perspective.Excerpt:"So you’re interested in a little northern adventure, eh? A little salt in your hair, jellyfish in your n...