The award-winning author of Target Switzerland uses "a wide breadth of research to attempt to answer why Switzerland escaped the Nazi onslaught" ( Daly History Blog).While surrounded by the Axis powers in World War II, Switzerland remained democratic and, unlike most of Europe, never succumbed to the siren songs and threats of the Nazi goliath.This book tells the story with emphasis on two voices rarely heard. One voice is that of scores of ...

The author of Sparta: Rise of a Warrior Nation continues his revealing history of the Ancient Greek city-state in this chronicle of its decline and defeat.Universally admired in 479 BC, the Spartans became masters of the Greek world by 402 BC, only for their state to collapse in the next generation. What went wrong? Was the fall of Sparta inevitable? In Sparta: Fall of a Warrior Nation, Philip Matyszak examines the political blunders and failures ...

A "wide-ranging, vivid" narrative history of one of the most coveted and complex regions of the world: the Caribbean ( The Observer).Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire's Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson offers a panoramic view of the region from the nort...

The author of The Great Illyrian Revolt examines one of the Roman Empire's most pivotal defeats—a surprise attack by Germanic barbarians in 9 AD.For twenty years, the Roman Empire conquered its way through modern-day Germany, claiming all lands from the Rhine to the Elbe. However, when at last all appeared to be under control, a catastrophe erupted that claimed the lives of 10,000 legionnaires and laid Rome's imperial ambitions for Germania into the dust.

"An excellent account and analysis of the Mexican Revolution, its background, its course, and its legacy . . . an important contribution [and] a must read!" (Samuel Farber, author of Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959).The most significant event in modern Mexican history, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 remains a subject of debate and controversy. Why did it happen? What makes it distinctive? Was it even a revolution at all?In The Mexican Revo...

"An intriguing account of two of Nazi Germany's top architects" and how their work prolonged the war for months—includes hundreds of photos ( WWII History).A Selection of the Military Book Club.While Nazi Germany's temporary ascendancy owed much to military skill, the talent of its engineers not only buoyed the regime but allowed it to survive longer than would normally be expected. This unique work focusing on Fritz Todt and Alber...

"Fascinating . . . [a] 300-plus year history of North America" from the award-winning historian and author of The Holocaust: History & Memory ( Military Heritage).Prize-winning author Jeremy Black traces the competition for control of North America from the landing of Spanish troops under Hernán Cortés in modern Mexico in 1519 to 1871 when, with the Treaty of Washington and the withdrawal of most British garrisons, Britain accepted American master...

A thorough history of the Winter War, the uneven Russo-Finnish conflict that began shortly after the start of World War II.On November 30, 1939, Stalin's Red Army attacked Finland, expecting to crush the outnumbered, ill-equipped Finnish forces in a matter of days. But, in one of the most astonishing upsets in modern military history, the Finnish defenders broke the Red Army's advance, inflicting devastating casualties and destroying some of the divisions that had ...

A selection of the Military Book Club: "A solid operational analysis" from "an established scholar of the Scandinavian theater" ( Publishers Weekly).This book describes the odd coalition between Germany and Finland in World War II and their joint military operations from 1941 to 1945. In stark contrast to the numerous books on the shorter and less bloody Winter War, which represented a gallant fight of a democratic "Davi...

"This thoroughly researched and superbly written study" examines the final days of WWII combat within Germany during the occupation of Franconia ( WWII History).At the end of World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower turned US forces toward the Franconian region of Germany, ordering them to cut off and destroy German units before they could escape into the Alps. Opposing this advance were German forces headed by SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon, a committed Nation...

Discover the epic history of human exploration and migration, and the stories of fearless pioneers the world over, with this stunning tour of history - map by map.Charting everything from the movement of early Homo species out of Africa some 1.8 million years ago to the astonishing voyages of Polynesian sailors across the Pacific from 4,000 BCE, and from the California Gold Rush to the Race for Space, entries explain the movements of people and cultures wh...

A definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins, from a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and the award-winning author of The Slave ShipAs many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America now known as the Underground Railroad. Yet imagery of fugitives ushered clandestinely from saf...