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Samuel Pepys is as much a paragon of literature as Chaucer and Shakespeare. His Diary is one of the principal sources for many aspects of the history of its period. In spite of its significance, all previous editions were inadequately edited and suffered from a number of omissions--until Robert Latham and William Matthews went back to the 300-year-old original manuscript and deciphered each passage and phrase, no matter how obscure or indiscreet. The Diary deals with some of the most dramatic ev...

Adams was a historian, an intellectual born into the fourth generation of a family of distinguished politicians, diplomats and statesmen that included two presidents of the United States. His "Education" is thus steeped in history, that of his family and of the American politics, culture and identity they helped to shape. At the same time he elaborates his own 'dynamic theory of history' as the product of what he calls the conflict between the Virgin and the Dynamo: 'All the steam in the world c...

General Mark W. Clark was one of the most successful - and controversial - US officers of World War II. Reprinted here for the first time in fifty years are his memoirs, which have been newly updated by his biographer, Martin Blumenson. A 1917 graduate of West Point, Clark was wounded on his first day of combat while serving with the 5th Division in France in June 1918. In 1942, George Marshall sent Clark to England, where he so impressed Winston Churchill that the prime minister nicknamed him...

A taut, terse Holocaust narrative that is all the more powerful for its ironic reserve. -- Kirkus Reviews

The present-day Irish Republic was created by a revolutionary elite which developed between 1858 and 1900. This book analyses the social origins of the revolutionaries who became rulers of Ireland after 1921, and examines their political ideologies and prejudices. The author argues that they were heavily influenced not only by ancient agrarian grievances and memories of the Famine, but also by contemporary Catholic abhorrence of the Protestant and secular world represented by England and America...

Robert Hubard was an enlisted man and officer of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia (CSA) from 1861 through 1865. He wrote his memoir during an extended convalescence spent at his father's Virginia plantation after being wounded at the battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865. Hubard served under such Confederate luminaries as Jeb Stuart, Fitz Lee, Wade Hampton, and Thomas L. Rosser. He and his unit fought at the battles of Antietam, on the Chambersburg Raid, in the Shenandoa...

Odyssey of a Bombardier is the illustrated Prisoner of War "log" that depicts the experiences of bombardier Richard M. Mason in German prison camps after his B-17 "Flying Fortress" was shot down by the Germans in France in 1944, the final year of World War II. The log follows Mason from the day his plane crashed until his liberation in April, 1945, and his return home to the United States. Included are such topics as medical treatment and rehabilitation for wounded prisoners of the Germans, life...

Beginning as a young boy, Jules takes you through the unique process of becoming a Naval Aviator, engages you into his experiences as a brand new pilot in a combat squadron and, finally becoming a flying warrior. Having survived two combat cruises aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk from 1966-1968, compiling 332 career carrier take offs and landings, being shot at daily by enemy fire while completing 200 combat missions over Vietnam, he clearly shares the views of the aviators who flew al...

Frederick Whirlpool's Victoria Cross is displayed near the entrance to the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. It was the first VC pinned to an Australian uniform, yet almost nothing was known about its enigmatic recipient. Two acts of valour during the Indian Mutiny won him the Victoria Cross, but 17 severe sword wounds ended his career. After migrating to Australia in 1859, he became a volunteer rifleman and school teacher. His VC was presented in Melbourne in 1861\. He a...

'The Struggle' is a very readable account of an interesting life. The author was born in a rather poor peasant family in Poland. Through his own effort he made his way into the elite, becoming an officer and a fighter pilot of the Polish Air Force. During World War II he was among thousands of Polish airmen who came to Britain to fight the Germans, eventually rising to command a fighter squadron. After the war he was among thousands of Poles who settled in Britain, unable to return to their oppr...

The most revealing and touching passages written during the American Civil War are found in letters exchanged by loved ones. The letters of South Carolina Cavalryman James Michael Barr to his wife Rebecca offer an excellent example. Barr enlisted as a private in the 5th S.C. Cavalry Regiment in January 1863, just as the fortunes of war began to turn against the South. After serving more than a year in its native state--away from the great battles farther north--the 5th S.C. Cavalry was called to...

"I was born in a united Ireland, I want to die in a united Ireland". Born in Belfast in 1920, Joe Cahill has been an IRA man motivated by this ambition all his life. IRA activists rarely speak about their lives or their organisation, but here Cahill gives his full and frank story, his viewpoint, his experiences - from Northern Irish prison cells of the 1940s, on a death sentence, to Washington when the Good Friday Agreement was being negotiated. He tells of the visit he made to Colonel Gaddafi t...