The Bronze Age was indisputably a time of war. Warriors raised weapons against each other. Cities fought battles with cities. Nations campaigned against nations. But did the nations ever come together from every known continent to bear arms in a bloody war that affected world history? A war whose glorious story continues to be sung in epics around the world?

Packed with personal anecdotes and details you won’t find anywhere else, this is the secret history of World War II. “A fast-moving overview stuffed with interesting factoids and historical tidbits . . . Casual readers will find themselves carried along, and hardened military buffs will learn much that is new.”—Library Journal “It’s almost guaranteed to make you so interested in the subject you’ll want to learn . . . By including hundreds of interesting anecdotes and facts, [Mike] Wright not only piques our interest repeatedly, he also gives areal feel for the war era.”—Manchester Journal Inquirer “An excellent overview . . . [with] interesting chapters on spies, POWs, censorships, and the building of the atomic bomb . . . Wright’s style is accessible.”—The Post and Courier

The story of the War, brought to life through illustrations, photographs, diaries, and newspaper reports. In this illustrated exploration of World War I, readers discover what caused the war and why it eventually affected every corner of the globe. The key battles, events, and figures are all explored and recounted in succinct and easy-to understand text while illustrations and photographs bring the past vividly back to life.

From a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War I The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England's fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces. That the war was wicked, horrific, and inhuman is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. Indeed, more British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with little reluctance and with some enthusiasm. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper or more stimulating guide than Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War.

Presents, in question and answer format, a history of the United States from the exploration of Christopher Columbus to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A celebration of the brave, drunken pioneers who built our civilization one seemingly bad decision at a time, A Brief History of Vice explores a side of the past that mainstream history books prefer to hide. History has never been more fun—or more intoxicating. Guns, germs, and steel might have transformed us from hunter-gatherers into modern man, but booze, sex, trash talk, and tripping built our civilization. Cracked editor Robert Evans brings his signature dogged research and lively insight to uncover the many and magnificent ways vice has influenced history, from the prostitute-turned-empress who scored a major victory for women’s rights to the beer that helped create—and destroy—South America's first empire. And Evans goes deeper than simply writing about ancient debauchery; he recreates some of history's most enjoyable (and most painful) vices and includes guides so you can follow along at home. You’ll learn how to: • Trip like a Greek philosopher. • Rave like your Stone Age ancestors. • Get drunk like a Sumerian. • Smoke a nose pipe like a pre–Columbian Native American. “Mixing science, humor, and grossly irresponsible self-experimentation, Evans paints a vivid picture of how bad habits built the world we know and love.”—David Wong, author of John Dies at the End

Traces the crisis period leading up to America's entry in World War II, describing the nation's polarized interventionist and isolation factions as represented by the government, in the press and on the streets, in an account that explores the forefront roles of British-supporter President Roosevelt and isolationist Charles Lindbergh. (This book was previously featured in Forecast.)