“Mesmerizing.… Conant’s book has brought [Maggie Higgins] back to life.” —Andrew Nagorski, Wall Street Journal A spirited portrait of twentieth-century war correspondent Maggie Higgins and her tenacious fight to the top in a male-dominated profession. Marguerite Higgins was both the scourge and envy of the journalistic world. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, she first catapulted to fame with her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. Brash, beautiful, ruthlessly competitive, and sexually adventurous, she forced her way to the front despite being told the combat zone was no place for a woman. Her headline-making exploits earned her a reputation for bravery bordering on recklessness and accusations of “advancing on her back,” trading sexual favors for scoops. While the Herald Tribune exploited her feminine appeal—regularly featuring the photogenic "girl reporter" on its front pages—it was Maggie’s dogged determination, talent for breaking news, and unwavering ambition that brought her success from one war zone to another. Her notoriety soared during the Cold War, and her daring dispatches from Korea garnered a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence—the first granted to a woman for frontline reporting—with the citation noting the unusual dangers and difficulties she faced because of her sex. A star reporter, she became part of the Kennedy brothers’ Washington circle, though her personal alliances and politics provoked bitter feuds with male rivals, who vilified her until her untimely death. Drawing on new and extensive research, including never-before-published correspondence and interviews with Maggie’s colleagues, lovers, and soldiers and generals who knew her in the field, journalist and historian Jennet Conant restores Maggie’s rightful place in history as a woman who paved the way for the next generation of journalists, and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time.

In Legendary Rivals Jaclyn Neel argues for a new interpretation of the foundation myths of Rome. Instead of a negative portrayal of the city’s early history, these tales offer a didactic paradigm of the correct way to engage in competition. Accounts from the triumviral period stress the dysfunctional nature of the city’s foundation to capture the memory of Rome’s civil wars. Republican evidence suggests a different emphasis. Through diachronic analyses of the tales of Romulus and Remus, Amulius and Numitor, Brutus and Collatinus, and Camillus and Manlius Capitolinus, Neel shows that Romans of the Republic and early Principate would have seen these stories as examples of competition that pushed the bounds of propriety.

A grand scheme for retaking Iserlohn is delivered to Reinhard, who with renewed determination seeks to become ruler of the galaxy and to fulfill the oath he made with a dear, departed friend. But what are the aims of Phezzan, the third force at work behind the scenes? Meanwhile, no sooner is Yang breathing a sigh of relief when Julian returns from his first combat mission than he is summoned to an inquest and departs for the capital of the alliance. As if waiting for this opportunity to strike, however, the imperial military's secret weapon appears right at the gates of Iserlohn. The battle begins! Who will endure? -- VIZ Media

In the thirty-sixth century humanity has conquered the galaxy and colonized countless star systems. The Galactic Empire, modeled along Prussian lines, and the democratic Free Planets Alliance are at war, and the fate of every human being in the universe hangs in the balance. This classic Japanese space opera, adapted into a legendary anime, is finally available in English for the first time. After a coup d'état erupts in the Free Planets Alliance, military strategist Yang Wen-li is ordered to use his tactical wizardry to put down the rebellion, but the ringleader holding the capital is someone he once trusted deeply. Meanwhile, in the Galactic Empire, Reinhard will soon face a new trial, as in the wake of the emperor's death he stands amidst an intensifying power struggle among the aristocracy. The unbeatable magician and the unstoppable genius: the battles these heroes wage will send shock waves across the galaxy!

Born in the 1890s on opposite sides of the Atlantic, friends for more than forty years, Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West lived strikingly parallel lives that placed them at the center of the social and historical upheavals of the twentieth century. In Dangerous Ambition, Susan Hertog chronicles the separate but intertwined journeys of these two remarkable women writers, who achieved unprecedented fame and influence at tremendous personal cost. American Dorothy Thompson was the first female head of a European news bureau, a columnist and commentator with a tremendous following whom Time magazine once ranked alongside Eleanor Roosevelt as the most influential woman in America. Rebecca West, an Englishwoman at home wherever genius was spoken, blazed a trail for herself as a journalist, literary critic, novelist, and historian. In a prefeminist era when speaking truth to power could get anyone—of either gender—ostracized, blacklisted, or worse, these two smart, self-made women were among the first to warn the world about the dangers posed by fascism, communism, and appeasement. But there was a price to be paid, Hertog shows, for any woman aspiring to such greatness. As much as they sought voice and power in the public forum of opinion and ideas, and the independence of mind and money that came with them, Thompson and West craved the comforts of marriage and home. Torn between convention and the opportunities of the new postwar global world, they were drawn to men who were as ambitious and hungry for love as themselves: Thompson to the brilliant, volatile, and alcoholic Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis; West to her longtime lover H. G. Wells, the lusty literary eminence whose sexual and emotional demands doomed any chance they may have had at love. Tragically, both arrangements produced troubled sons, whose anger and jealousy at their mothers’ iconic fame eroded their sense of personal success. Brimming with fresh insights obtained from previously sealed archives, this penetrating dual biography is a story of twinned lives caught up in the crosscurrents of world events and affairs of the heart—and of the unique trans-Atlantic friendship forged by two of the most creative and complex women of their time.

Throughout the nineteenth century Scotland was transformed from an agricultural nation on the periphery of Europe to become an industrial force with international significance. A landmark in its field, this volume explores the changes in the Scottish book trade as it moved from a small-scale manufacturing process to a mass-production industry. This book brings together the work of over thirty leading experts to explore a broad range of topics that include production technology, bookselling and distribution, the literary market, reading and libraries, and Scotland's international relations.

One of the few consistent aspects of my life is that I can be described as a people watcher. It is a hobby I engage in every time I am in the presence of others. From my observations there is no trait that we humans possess more obvious, consistent, plentiful, and yet, undeservedly shunned as a monstrosity of power hungry men, than the very trait of ambition. I am still always a little surprised when a cringe follows the allegation of such conduct. If thought about in an everyday context I could envision few circumstances, outside of the atom bomb, which would evoke that same recoil. Certainly, I would say, no one would detest written language, civilization, interstellar technologies, and every other realm where mans ambition carries us onward and upward. I do, however, fully recognize the dark side of mans desire and confess my intent fascination in it. I find it oddly commendable the risks some are willing to take. If administered in the right dosage ones success cannot be quantified. But as in life people do choose to overdose. It is in these choices, and the consequences thereof, where the book resides most heavily.