#1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Lillian Smith Award. An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of almost one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of African Americans north, and transformed American society and politics forever. The flood brought with it a human storm: white and black collided, honor and money collided, regional and national powers collided. New Orleans’s elite used their power to divert the flood to those without political connections, power, or wealth, while causing Black sharecroppers to abandon their land to flee up north. The states were unprepared for this disaster and failed to support the Black community. The racial divides only widened when a white officer killed a Black man for refusing to return to work on levee repairs after a sleepless night of work. In the powerful prose of Rising Tide, John M. Barry removes any remaining veil that there had been equality in the South. This flood not only left millions of people ruined, but further emphasized the racial inequality that have continued even to this day.

Drawn from primary source documents from around the world, "John Barry: First Among Captains" brings the story of this self-made American hero--the Father of the American Navy--back to life in a major new biography.

Barry, award-winning author of "

For almost 100 years photos, journals, newspaper clippings, Naval records and love letters waited quietly to tell the story of how a Depression-era Southern boy with nothing but talent and ambition rose to become a Navy fighter pilot and hero in WWII. John Barry, Jr, born in poverty in coastal Carolina, lived with his siblings and parents in fish shacks and often had to scrounge through garbage to find food. He and his brothers and sisters were sent to an orphanage after his mother died and father couldn’t find work. His athletic talent and personality earned him a college education and officer’s training as a Navy pilot. He found love and married a hometown girl shortly before he was deployed. His personal journal entries told the story of the heat and exhaustion of life aboard the carriers, the loss of good friends in dogfights and bad landings, and the real horrors of the war. In stark contrast, his letters home were filled with descriptions of the beauty of the Pacific Islands, the friendships made aboard ship, his desire for home, as well as advice for his pregnant wife. This stunning example of a war-time love story is filled with battle action, and is a personal look into the life and love of a man whose mantra was “Why Can’t I.” It is a journey of discovery into a different and more innocent time. Here are his times. This is his story.

In this text, this astonishing 50-year career is at last celebrated in all its musical facets. The authors draw on their own experience and on conversations with those who've known John Barry since his formative years.

A revelatory look at the separation of church and state in America—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Great Influenza For four hundred years, Americans have fought over the proper relationships between church and state and between a free individual and the state. This is the story of the first battle in that war of ideas, a battle that led to the writing of the First Amendment and that continues to define the issue of the separation of church and state today. It began with religious persecution and ended in revolution, and along the way it defined the nature of America and of individual liberty. Acclaimed historian John M. Barry explores the development of these fundamental ideas through the story of Roger Williams, who was the first to link religious freedom to individual liberty, and who created in America the first government and society on earth informed by those beliefs. This book is essential to understanding the continuing debate over the role of religion and political power in modern life.