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1968: The Year That Rocked The World
by Mark Kurlansky

ISBN 0345455827 (0-345-45582-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Given its broad and vibrant subject, it would be quite difficult for a writer of any proficiency to pen a boring book on 1968, and Mark Kurlansky has indeed pulled together an entertaining and enlightening popular history with 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. With the Vietnam War and Soviet repression providing sparkplugs in the East and West, student movements heated up in Berkeley, Prague, Mexico City, Paris, and dozens of other hotspots. With youth in ascendancy, music, film, and athletics became generational battlegrounds between opposition forces that couldn't be more appalled with one another. Not so fortuitously, the Summer Olympics in Mexico City and a presidential election in the United States conspired to elevate the tension higher as months passed. Kurlansky is skilled at concisely capturing the personalities behind the conflicts, whether they be heartbroken Czech leader Alexander Dubcek as Eastern Bloc troops violently suppress his nation's uprising or respected veteran newsman Walter Cronkite reluctantly editorializing against the war in Vietnam. The author is more than willing to choose heroes (the doomed Robert Kennedy) and villains (victorious presidential candidate Richard Nixon), and clearly sides with the rebels in most cases. In general, Kurlansky is more adept at covering the political front than he is the equally revolutionary arts world, and it's apparent that any chapter in this book could be expanded into a book of its own. One's expectation is that captivated readers will view 1968 as a portal into a deeper exploration of a fascinating time. --Steven Stolder [via]
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The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991
by Eric Hobsbawm

ISBN 0679730052 (0-679-73005-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Dividing the century into the Age of Catastrophe, 1914-1950, the Golden Age, 1950-1973, and the Landslide, 1973-1991, Hobsbawm marshals a vast array of data into a volume of unparalleled inclusiveness, vibrancy, and insight, a work that ranks with his classics The Age of Empire and The Age of Revolution. Includes 32 pages of photos. [via]
More editions of The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991:
- The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991: ISBN 0844671215 (0-8446-7121-5)
  Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
- The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991: ISBN 0679730052 (0-679-73005-2)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
The Age of Extremes : 1914-1991
by Eric J. Hobsbawn

ISBN 0394585755 (0-394-58575-5)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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- The Age of Extremes : 1914-1991: ISBN 0394585755 (0-394-58575-5)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991
by E. J. Hobsbawm

ISBN 0718133072 (0-7181-3307-2)
Hardcover, Michael Joseph

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Book summary:
1st large trade edition paperback about fine condition [via]
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- Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991: ISBN 0718133072 (0-7181-3307-2)
  Hardcover, Michael Joseph
Ah Ku and Karayuki-San: Prostitution in Singapore 1870-1940
by James F. Warren

ISBN 9971692678 (9971-69-267-8)
Softcover, Singapore Univ Pr

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- Ah Ku and Karayuki-San: Prostitution in Singapore 1870-1940: ISBN 9971692678 (9971-69-267-8)
  Softcover, Singapore Univ Pr
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American Diplomacy
by George Frost Kennan

ISBN 0226431479 (0-226-43147-9)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr

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Book summary:
Drawing on his diplomatic experience and expertise, George F. Kennan offers an informed, plain-spoken appraisal of United States foreign policy. His evaluations of diplomatic history and international relations cut to the heart of policy issues much debated today.

This expanded edition retains the lectures and essays first published in 1951 as American Diplomacy, 1900-1950 and adds two lectures delivered in 1984 as well as a new preface by the author. In these additional pieces, Kennan explains how some of his ideas have changed over the years. He confronts the events and topics that have come to occupy American opinion in the last thirty years, including the development and significance of the Cold War, the escalation of the nuclear arms race, and the American involvement in Vietnam.

"A book about foreign policy by a man who really knows something about foreign policy."--James Reston,New York Times Book Review

"These celebrated lectures, delivered at the University of Chicago in 1950, were for many years the most widely read account of American diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century. . . . The second edition of the work contains two lectures from 1984 that reconsider the themes of American Diplomacy"--Foreign Affairs, Significant Books of the Last 75 Years.

[via]
More editions of American Diplomacy:
- American Diplomacy: ISBN 0226431460 (0-226-43146-0)
  Hardcover, University of Chicago Press
- American Diplomacy: ISBN 0226431479 (0-226-43147-9)
  Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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American Diplomacy: 1900-1950
by George Frost Kennan

ISBN 0451611683 (0-451-61168-3)
Softcover, New Amer Library

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Book summary:
A review of American diplomacy. [via]
More editions of American Diplomacy: 1900-1950:
- American Diplomacy: 1900-1950: ISBN 0451611683 (0-451-61168-3)
  Softcover, New Amer Library
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
by Antony Beevor

ISBN 014303765X (0-14-303765-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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- The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939: ISBN 014303765X (0-14-303765-X)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by Marc Levinson

ISBN 0691123241 (0-691-12324-1)
Hardcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger: ISBN 0691123241 (0-691-12324-1)
  Hardcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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The Century
by Peter Jennings, Todd Brewster

ISBN 0385483279 (0-385-48327-9)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing

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"We have sought," write Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, "to distinguish our story from other histories by holding each chapter up to a litmus test: Have we looked at this time from the perspective of someone who lived through it? And in doing so, have we captured a sense not only of the events of a particular era, but of the mood, the prevailing attitudes?" Thus, the experiences of ordinary men and women come to life in sidebars that appear throughout The Century. Sharpe James, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, recalls the sense of excitement and possibility he felt when Jackie Robinson became the first black ballplayer in the major leagues. Gilles Ryan remembers what it was like to be a high-school student in Dayton, Tennessee, during the Scopes Trial. Connie Chang talks about emigrating to the United States from Korea and establishing a liquor store in Los Angeles, only to have it destroyed in the civil unrest.
Comparisons to Harold Evans's The American Century are, perhaps, inevitable, but in addition to the emphasis on ordinary lives, The Century is further distinguished by the effective use of color photography (as well as several black-and-white shots). The book's sweeping narrative, shaped by Jennings and Brewster's comprehensive text, also flows a bit more smoothly than Evans's telegraphic prose; one can almost imagine Jennings reciting from these pages as he hosts the ABC/History Channel documentaries to which this book is a companion piece. [via]
More editions of The Century:
- The Century: ISBN 0385483279 (0-385-48327-9)
  Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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Diplomacy
by Henry Kissinger

ISBN 0671510991 (0-671-51099-1)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

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In this brilliant, controversial, and monumental book, former Secretary-of-State Henry Kissinger explains, based on his own experience, what diplomacy is, and why, historically, Americans, from our presidents down to the man in the street, have always distrusted the whole idea. 30 photos. 6 maps. Index. [via]
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Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
by Hannah Arendt, Amos Elon

ISBN 0143039881 (0-14-303988-1)
Softcover, Penguin Classics

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Book summary:
While living in Argentina in 1960, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped and smuggled to Israel where he was put on trial for crimes against humanity. The New Yorker magazine sent Hannah Arendt to cover the trial. While covering the technical aspects of the trial, Arendt also explored the wider themes inherent in the trial, such as the nature of justice, the behavior of the Jewish leadership during the Nazi Régime, and, most controversially, the nature of Evil itself.
Far from being evil incarnate, as the prosecution painted Eichmann, Arendt maintains that he was an average man, a petty bureaucrat interested only in furthering his career, and the evil he did came from the seductive power of the totalitarian state and an unthinking adherence to the Nazi cause. Indeed, Eichmann's only defense during the trial was "I was just following orders."
Arendt's analysis of the seductive nature of evil is a disturbing one. We would like to think that anyone who would perpetrate such horror on the world is different from us, and that such atrocities are rarities in our world. But the history of groups such as the Jews, Kurds, Bosnians, and Native Americans, to name but a few, seems to suggest that such evil is all too commonplace. In revealing Eichmann as the pedestrian little man that he was, Arendt shows us that the veneer of civilization is a thin one indeed. [via]
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Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
by John W. Dower

ISBN 0393320278 (0-393-32027-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Embracing Defeat tells the story of the transformation of Japan under American occupation after World War II. When Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Forces in August 1945, it was exhausted; where America's Pacific combat lasted less than four years, Japan had been fighting for 15. Sixty percent of its urban area lay in ruins. The collapse of the authoritarian state enabled America's six-year occupation to set Japan in entirely new directions.
Because the victors had no linguistic or cultural access to the losers' society, they were obliged to govern indirectly. Gen. Douglas MacArthur decided at the outset to maintain the civil bureaucracy and the institution of the emperor: democracy would be imposed from above in what the author terms "Neocolonial Revolution." His description of the manipulation of public opinion, as a wedge was driven between the discredited militarists and Emperor Hirohito, is especially fascinating. Tojo, on trial for his life, was requested to take responsibility for the war and deflect it from the emperor; he did, and was hanged. Dower's analysis of popular Japanese culture of the period--songs, magazines, advertising, even jokes--is brilliant, and reflected in the book's 80 well-chosen photographs. With the same masterful control of voluminous material and clear writing that he gave us in War Without Mercy, the author paints a vivid picture of a society in extremis and reconstructs the extraordinary period during which America molded a traumatized country into a free-market democracy and bulwark against resurgent world communism. --John Stevenson [via]
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English History 1914-1945
by A. J. P. Taylor

ISBN 0198217153 (0-19-821715-3)
Hardcover, Oxford University Press

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Book summary:
Beginning on August 4, 1914, the day Britain entered the "Great War," this book guides us through three decades of unparalleled upheaval and change in Britain that eventually lead to the defeat of Japan in 1945--a momentous event that marked the end of the Second World War. Twin themes of international conflict and mass unemployment in England predominate. And besides a full account of foreign and domestic politics that were enacted to deal with them, Taylor pays particular attention to the impact of events on everyday lives. It is an essential work from one of the finest historians of the twentieth century--a book that no one interested in British affairs will want to be without. [via]
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Fire
by Sebastian Junger

ISBN 0060088613 (0-06-008861-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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The events explored in Fire focus on "people confronting situations that could easily destroy them," and as he demonstrated in The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger is skilled at breaking such situations down to their core elements. In this exciting book, he reports on raging forest fires in the Western U.S, war zones in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the deadly diamond trade in Sierra Leone, the plight of travelers kidnapped by guerrillas in Kashmir, the last living whale harpooner on the Caribbean island of Bequia, and the Greek-Turkish conflict on Cyprus. There is also a fascinating chapter on John Colter (explorer, fur trader, and member of the Corps of Discovery led by Lewis and Clark) in which he comments on the need for some to seek adventure as a means of escape from our relatively safe modern world: "Life in modern society is designed to eliminate as many unforeseen events as possible, and as inviting as that seems, it leaves us hopelessly underutilized.... Threats to our safety and comfort have been so completely wiped out that we have to go out of our way to create them." Junger has a keen grasp on this mentality (in fact, he exhibits it himself), and in Fire he clearly explains the fears and difficulties involved in reporting on dangerous events from foreign countries: "You have two weeks to understand a completely alien culture, find a story that no one has heard of, and run it into the ground. It never feels even remotely possible. But it is." And he has done it well in this thrilling book. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of Fire:
- Fire: ISBN 0393010465 (0-393-01046-5)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- Fire: ISBN 0060088613 (0-06-008861-3)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
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The First World War
by John Keegan

ISBN 0375700455 (0-375-70045-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Despite the avalanche of books written about the First World War in recent years, there have been comparatively few books that have concentrated on delivering the big picture--a comprehensive account of the war and its campaigns from start to finish--and this book fills the gap superbly. As readers familiar with John Keegan's previous books, such as the The Face Battle, Six Armies in Normandy, and The Second World War, will know, Keegan is a historian of the old school. He has no earth-shattering new theories to challenge the status quo, no first-person accounts to tug on the emotions; what he does have, though, is the gift for talking the lay person through the twists and turns of a complex narrative in a way that is never less than accessible or engaging. Keegan never tries to ram his learning down your throat. Where other authors have struggled to explain how Britain could ever allow itself to be dragged into such a war in 1914, Keegan keeps it practical. The level of communications that we enjoy today just didn't exist then, and so it was much harder to keep track of what was going on. By the time a message had finally reached the person in question, the situation may have changed out of all recognition. Keegan applies this same "cock-up" theory of history to the rest of the war, principally the three great disasters at Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele. The generals didn't send all those troops to their death deliberately; they did so out of incompetence, ineptitude, and because they had no idea of what was actually going on at the front. Whether deliberate or not, though, the end result was nearly one million dead British and Commonwealth soldiers. The First World War is not afraid to point the finger at those generals who deserve it, but even Keegan has to admit he doesn't have all the answers. If it all seems so obviously futile and such a massive waste of life now, he asks, how could it have seemed worthwhile back then? Why did so many people carry on, knowing they would die? Why indeed. --John Crace [via]
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Flapper: A Madcap Story Of Sex, Style, Celebrity, And The Women Who Made America Modern
by Joshua Zeitz

ISBN 1400080541 (1-4000-8054-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Blithely flinging aside the victorian manners that kept her disapproving mother corseted, the new woman of the 1920s puffed cigarettes, snuck gin, hiked her hemlines, danced the charleston, and necked in roadsters. More important, she earned her own keep, controlled her own destiny, and secured liberties that modern women take for granted. Her newfound freedom heralded a radical change in american culture.whisking us from the alabama country club where zelda sayre first caught the eye of f. Scott fitzgerald to muncie, indiana, where would-be flappers begged their mothers for silk stockings, to the manhattan speakeasies where patrons partied till daybreak, historian joshua zeitz brings the era to exhilarating life. This is the story of america's first sexual revolution, its first merchants of cool, its first celebrities, and its most sparkling advertisement for the right to pursue happiness.the men and women who made the flapper were a diverse lot. There was coco chanel, the french orphan who redefined the feminine form and silhouette, helping to free women from the torturous corsets and crinolines that had served as tools of social control. Three thousand miles away, lois long, the daughter of a connecticut clergyman, christened herself "lipstick" and gave new yorker readers a thrilling entrée into manhattan's extravagant jazz age nightlife.in california, where orange groves gave way to studio lots and fairytale mansions, three of america's first celebrities-clara bow, colleen moore, and louise brooks, hollywood's great flapper triumvirate-fired the imaginations of millions of filmgoers.dallas-born fashion artist gordon conway and utah-born cartoonist john held crafted magazine covers that captured the electricity of the social revolution sweeping the united states. [via]
More editions of Flapper: A Madcap Story Of Sex, Style, Celebrity, And The Women Who Made America Modern:
- Flapper: A Madcap Story Of Sex, Style, Celebrity, And The Women Who Made America Modern: ISBN 1400080533 (1-4000-8053-3)
  Hardcover, Crown Pub
- Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, And the Women Who Made America Modern: ISBN 1400080541 (1-4000-8054-1)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Fly In The Cathedral
by Brian Cathcart

ISBN 0374530262 (0-374-53026-2)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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If you want to understand how something works, you can dismantle it and study its pieces. But what if the thing you're curious about is too small to see, even with the most powerful microscope? Brian Cathcart's The Fly in the Cathedral tells the intriguing story of how scientists were able to take atoms apart to reveal the secrets of their structures. To keep the story gripping, Cathcart focuses on a time (1932, the annus mirabilis of British physics), a place (Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory), and a few main characters (Ernest Rutherford, the "father of nuclear physics," and his protégés, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton).
Rutherford and his team knew that the long-accepted atomic model was held together by nothing more than trumped-up math and hope. They hoped to find out what held oppositely charged protons and electrons together, and what strange particles shared the nucleus with protons. In a series of remarkable experiments done on homemade apparatus, these Cambridge scientists moved atomic science to within an inch of its ultimate goal. Finally, Cockcroft and Walton--competing furiously with their American and German peers--put together the machine that would forever change history by splitting an atom. The Fly in the Cathedral combines all the right elements for a great science history: historical context, gritty detail, wrenching failure, and of course, glorious victory. Although the miracles that occurred at Cambridge in 1932 were to result in the fearful, looming threat of atomic warfare, Cathcart allows readers to find unfiltered joy in the accomplishments of a few brilliant, ingenious scientists. --Therese Littleton [via]
More editions of The Fly In The Cathedral:
- The Fly In The Cathedral: ISBN 0374157162 (0-374-15716-2)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- The Fly in the Cathedral: ISBN 0374530262 (0-374-53026-2)
  Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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The Glory and the Dream
by William Manchester

ISBN 0553345893 (0-553-34589-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
William Manchester, author of "The Death of a President" and "The Arms of Krupp," talks with Heywood Hale Broun, Jr. about his book "The Glory and the Dream," a penetrating and dramatic work that spans four decades and virtually every aspect of the American way of life, from 1932 to 1972. Originally broadcast in 1974, re-issued on CD in 2007. 1 audio CD, 52 min. Product No. C40088D. [via]
More editions of The Glory and the Dream:
- The Glory and the Dream: ISBN 0553345893 (0-553-34589-3)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America 1932-1972
by William Raymond Manchester

ISBN 0316544965 (0-316-54496-5)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co

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- Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America 1932-1972: ISBN 0316544965 (0-316-54496-5)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman

ISBN 034538623X (0-345-38623-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:
paperback [via]
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A History of Private Life: Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
by Antoine Prost, Gerard Vincent, Arthur Goldhammer

ISBN 0674400046 (0-674-40004-6)
Softcover, Belknap Pr

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Book summary:
This fifth and final volume in an award-winning series charts the inner history of our times from the tumult of World War I to the 1990s. Nine historians present a picture of cultures in transition and in the process scrutinize a myriad of subjects - the sacrament of confession, volunteer hotlines, Nazi policies toward the family, the baby boom, evolving sexuality, the history of contraception, and ever-changing dress codes. They draw upon unexpected sources, including divorce hearing transcripts, personal ads, and little-known demographic and consumer data. Perhaps the most notable pattern to emerge is a polarizing of public and private realms. Productive labour shifts from the home to an impersonal public setting. Salaried or corporate employment replaces many independent, entrepreneurial jobs, and workers of all kinds aggressively pursue their leisure time. Zoning laws segregate industrial and commercial areas from residential neighbourhoods, which are no longer a supportive "theatre" of benign surveillance, gossip, and mutual concern, but an assemblage of aloof and anonymous individuals or families. Scattered with personal possessions and appliances, homes grow large by yesterday's standards and are marked by elaborate spatial subdivisions. Men and women are obsessed with health, fitness, diet and appearance as the body becomes the focal point of personal identity. In the search for sexual and individualistic fulfillment, romantic love becomes the foundation of marriage. Couples marry at an older age; families are smaller. The divorce rate rises, and with it the number of single-family households. Women, entering the work forces in unprecedented numbers, frequently function as both breadwinner and homemaker. The authors interrelate these patterns with the changing roles of state and religion in family matters, the socialization of education and elder care, the growth of feminism, the impact of media on private life, and the nature of secrecy. "Riddles of Identity in Modern Times" chronicles a period when the differentiation of life into public and private realms, once a luxury of the wealthy, gradually spread throughout the population. This final volume, differing from the French edition, portrays Italian, German and American family family life in the 20th century. The authors, Chiara Saraceno, Ingeborg Weber-Kellerman and Elaine Tyler May enlarge the European and Atlantic canvas that depicts the modern identity. [via]
More editions of A History of Private Life: Riddles of Identity in Modern Times:
- A History of Private Life: Riddles of Identity in Modern Times: ISBN 067439979X (0-674-39979-X)
  Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
- A History of Private Life: Riddles of Identity in Modern Times: ISBN 0674400046 (0-674-40004-6)
  Softcover, Belknap Pr
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An Illustrated History of the First World War
by John Keegan

ISBN 037541259X (0-375-41259-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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John Keegan's The First World War was everywhere praised, and became the definitive account of the war that created the modern world. The New York Times Book Review acclaimed Keegan as "the best military historian of our day," and the Washington Post called the book "a grand narrative history [and] a pleasure to read."

Now Keegan gives us a lavishly illustrated history of the war, brilliantly interweaving his narrative--some of it derived from his classic work and some of it new--with a brilliant selection of photograps, paintings, cartoons and posters drawn from archives across Europe and America, some published here for the first time. These images take us into the heart of battles that have become legend: Ypres, Gallipoli, Verdun, the Somme. They show us the generals' war and the privates' war--young soldiers, away from home for the first time, coming of age under fire.

We see how a civilization at the height of its power and influence crippled itself as the faith in progress, rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment was shattered. We see how four empires--the German, the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman--collapsed, and how the seeds for the Second World War were planted. Keegan tells how ambition, mistrust and failures of diplomacy and communication all played a part in allowing this conflict to set ablaze what was then the world's most prosperous society. And he describes how the effects of this war lasted long after it ended; its ghosts still haunt Europe today.

An Illustrated History of the First World War carries us across the Europe of nearly a century ago, revealing the devastation, camaraderie, political machinations and battlefield maneuverings that changed the world. It presents the essential cast of that cataclysmic drama, from the decision makers at the top--Haig, Joffre, Hindenberg, Pershing--to the troops in the trenches. Through its unique amalgam of pictorial and narrative brilliance, the book illuminates the war as no other work has done. [via]
More editions of An Illustrated History of the First World War:
- An Illustrated History of the First World War: ISBN 037541259X (0-375-41259-X)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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In the Time of the Americans: Fdr, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, Macarthur-The Generation That Changed America's Role in the World
by David Fromkin

ISBN 0679767282 (0-679-76728-2)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Coming of age during World War I and attaining their finest hour in World War II and the Cold War, these men -- FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur -- transformed America from an isolated frontier nation into a global superpower. As he tells their stories, Fromkin, author of A Peace to End All Peace, shows how this generation not only made America great but largely succeeded in making it a force for good. [via]
More editions of In the Time of the Americans: Fdr, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, Macarthur-The Generation That Changed America's Role in the World:
- In the Time of the Americans: FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur - The Generation That Changed America's Role in the World: ISBN 0394589017 (0-394-58901-7)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
- In the Time of the Americans: Fdr, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, Macarthur-The Generation That Changed America's Role in the World: ISBN 0679767282 (0-679-76728-2)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
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Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
by David Remnick

ISBN 0679751254 (0-679-75125-4)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Book summary:
David Remnick was Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post between 1988 and 1991 and later a staffer at the New Yorker. While with The Post he covered events the emergence of perestroika, the taking of power by democrats, the failed Communist counter-coup of August 1991 and beyond. His gripping personal account of that historic period is filled with vivid sketches of people. He writes with passion of the twofold nature of the crimes of Stalinist communism--"murder and the unending assault against memory." His powerful literary style is suggested in the title, the mausoleum holding Lenin's body being a central image in his book for the construction and maintenance of the dead culture of communism. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. [via]
More editions of Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire:
- Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire: ISBN 0679423761 (0-679-42376-1)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
- Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire: ISBN 0679751254 (0-679-75125-4)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
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Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century
by Peter Watson

ISBN 0060084383 (0-06-008438-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
This major narrative history of the people and ideas that shaped the modern world is a brilliantly reasoned examination of the thought and individuals that made twentieth-century culture. From Freud to Babbitt, from Relativity to Susan Sontag, from Proust to Henri Bergson to Saul Bellow, the books range is encyclopedic, covering the major writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers who produced the ideas by which we live. Beginning with four seminal ideas that were introduced in 1900 -- the unconscious, the gene, the quantum, and Picasso's first paintings in Paris-Peter Watson has produced a fluent and engaging narrative of the intellectual tradition of the past century.
The book is divided into four parts -- Freud to Wittgenstein; Spengler to Animal Farm; Sartre to the Sea of Tranquillity; the counterculture to Kosovo -- and there are forty-two chapters. Watson emphasizes that "the century may be understood as a period during which the scientific method colonized all modes of thought and changed the way thinking is done." He sees the first half of the century as a period of discovery and the last half as a period of analysis, synthesis, and understanding, and he explores the role of the United States in setting the century's agenda in many areas. Unlike more conventional histories, in which the focus is on political events and personalities, The Modern Mind is an illuminating blueprint of twentieth-century thought and culture and the men and women who created it.
[via]
More editions of Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century:
- The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century: ISBN 0060194138 (0-06-019413-8)
  Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
- Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century: ISBN 0060084383 (0-06-008438-3)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties
by Paul Johnson

ISBN 0060935502 (0-06-093550-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
The history of the 20th century is marked by two great narratives: nations locked in savage wars over ideology and territory, and scientists overturning the received wisdom of preceding generations. For Paul Johnson, the modern era begins with one of the second types of revolutions, in 1919, when English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington translated observations from a solar eclipse into proof of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which turned Newtonian physics on its head. Eddington's research became an international cause célèbre: "No exercise in scientific verification, before or since, has ever attracted so many headlines or become a topic of universal conversation," Johnson writes, and it made Einstein into science's first real folk hero.
Einstein looms large over Johnson's narrative, as do others who sought to harness the forces of nature and society: men like Mao Zedong, "a big, brutal, earthy and ruthless peasant," and Adolf Hitler, creator of "a brutal, secure, conscience-less, successful, and, for most Germans, popular regime." Johnson takes a contentious conservative viewpoint throughout: he calls the 1960s "America's suicide attempt," deems the Watergate affair "a witch-hunt ... run by liberals in the media," and deems the rise of Margaret Thatcher a critical element in Western civilization's "recovery of freedom"--arguable propositions all, but ones advanced in a stimulating and well-written narrative that provides much food for thought in the course of its more than 800 pages. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
by Tom Reiss

ISBN 1400062659 (1-4000-6265-9)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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A thrilling page-turner of epic proportions, Tom Reisss panoramic bestseller tells the true story of a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince in Nazi Germany. Lev Nussimbaum escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan and, as Essad Bey, became a celebrated author with the enduring novel Ali and Nino as well as an adventurer, a real-life Indiana Jones with a fatal secret. Reiss pursued Levs story across ten countries and found himself caught up in encounters as dramatic and surrealand sometimes as heartbreakingas his subjects life.

[via]
More editions of The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life:
- The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life: ISBN 0812972767 (0-8129-7276-7)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life: ISBN 1400062659 (1-4000-6265-9)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63
by Taylor Branch

ISBN 0671687425 (0-671-68742-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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An award-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr., a history of the civil rights movement, and a portrait of an era, Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters begins slowly but soon catches the listener in a tumult of unforgettable events. Branch's thorough research has been synthesized into an impressive account of the violence, courage, and confusion at the beginning of the civil rights movement, building to a powerful conclusion with a blow-by-blow retelling of the events in Birmingham, Alabama. Ably narrated by Joe Morton and C.C.H. Pounder, the audio abridgment is occasionally choppy, but well-done considering the print edition runs about 900 pages. The broad cast of characters includes Baptist preachers and student movement leaders as well as President John F. Kennedy and his cabinet. If you are daunted by the sheer mass of the print edition of Parting the Waters, this abridged production is for you. However don't be surprised if you find yourself wanting more and digging into the print version after all or perhaps the audio version of Pillar of Fire, Taylor's second book in his projected three-part series. (Running time: 6 Hours; 4 cassettes) [via]
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A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
by David Fromkin

ISBN 0233983937 (0-233-98393-7)
Hardcover, A. Deutsch

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Peopled with larger-than-life figures such as Winston Churchill (around whom the story is structured), General Kitchener and T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, Attaturk, Emir Feisal and Lloyd George the book describes the showdown with the Ottoman Empire which erupted into the devastating Eastern campaign of World War I and led to the formation - by bureaucracy and subterfuge by Americans and Europeans - of the states known collectively as the Middle East. The years 1914-1922 were the creative, formative years when everything seemed possible, but the events of 1922, the pivotal year, set the course for a future of endless wars and acts of terrorism that became the legacy of this period. Issues such as The Allenby Declaration establishing nominal independence for Egypt, the Palestine Mandate and the Churchill White Paper (from which Israel and Jordan sprang), the installing of Hashemite leaders of predominantly Shi'ite teritories, new leaders for Egypt and Iraq, the Russian declaration of a Soviet Union intent on re-establishing her rule over Moslem Central Asia - David Fromkin shows how all these changed the Middle East (and Europe) forever. [via]
More editions of A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922:
- A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922: ISBN 0805008578 (0-8050-0857-8)
  Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
- A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922: ISBN 0233983937 (0-233-98393-7)
  Hardcover, A. Deutsch
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Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
by David Fromkin

ISBN 0805068848 (0-8050-6884-8)
Softcover, Henry Holt & Co

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This definitive, fascinating account of the creation of the modern Middle East is panoramic, absorbing, highly readable and richly detailed. Depicting the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the states known collectively as the Middle East, Fromkin's descriptions involve some of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century. Chosen as a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Best Book of 1989. [via]
More editions of Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East:
- A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East: ISBN 0380713004 (0-380-71300-4)
  Softcover, Hearst Book Group of Canada, The
- Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East: ISBN 0805068848 (0-8050-6884-8)
  Softcover, Henry Holt & Co
Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War
by Robert Fisk

ISBN 0192801309 (0-19-280130-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr

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More editions of Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War:
- Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War: ISBN 0192801309 (0-19-280130-9)
  Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon
by Robert Fisk

ISBN 1560254424 (1-56025-442-4)
Softcover, Nation Books

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Book summary:
Prizewinning journalist Robert Fisk offers a brilliant account of the tragedy of war as seen in the conflict in Lebanon. "Eminently readable . . . a chronicle of a continuing war without heroes".--The New York Times. [via]
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The Polish Revolution: Solidarity
by Timothy Garton Ash

ISBN 0300095686 (0-300-09568-6)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr

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A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
by Samantha Power

ISBN 0060541644 (0-06-054164-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide:
- A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide: ISBN 0465061508 (0-465-06150-8)
  Hardcover, Perseus Books Group
- A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide: ISBN 0060541644 (0-06-054164-4)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
by Bryan Burrough

ISBN 1594200211 (1-59420-021-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoovers FBI to tell the full storyfor the first timeof the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoovers G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBIs rise to power.
[via]
More editions of Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34:
- Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34: ISBN 0143035371 (0-14-303537-1)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- PUBLIC ENEMIES: Americas Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34: ISBN 1594200211 (1-59420-021-1)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
by William Shirer

ISBN 1567311636 (1-56731-163-6)
Hardcover, Fine Communications

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Book summary:
Before the Nazies could destroy the files, famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer sifted through the massive self-documentation of the Third Reich, to create a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind--now in a special 30th anniversary edition.
"One of the most important works of history of our time."
THE NEW YORK TIMES [via]
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The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black And White Southerns Transformed America
by James N. Gregory

ISBN 0807856517 (0-8078-5651-7)
Softcover, Univ of North Carolina Pr

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Between 1900 and the 1970s, twenty million southerners migrated north and west. Weaving together for the first time the histories of these black and white migrants, James Gregory traces their paths and experiences in a comprehensive new study that demonstrates how this regional diaspora reshaped America by "southernizing" communities and transforming important cultural and political institutions.
Challenging the image of the migrants as helpless and poor, Gregory shows how both black and white southerners used their new surroundings to become agents of change. Combining personal stories with cultural, political, and demographic analysis, he argues that the migrants helped create both the modern civil rights movement and modern conservatism. They spurred changes in American religion, notably modern evangelical Protestantism, and in popular culture, including the development of blues, jazz, and country music.
In a sweeping account that pioneers new understandings of the impact of mass migrations, Gregory recasts the history of twentieth-century America. He demonstrates that the southern diaspora was crucial to transformations in the relationship between American regions, in the politics of race and class, and in the roles of religion, the media, and culture. [via]
More editions of The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black And White Southerns Transformed America:
- The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black And White Southerns Transformed America: ISBN 0807829838 (0-8078-2983-8)
  Hardcover, Univ of North Carolina Pr
- The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black And White Southerns Transformed America: ISBN 0807856517 (0-8078-5651-7)
  Softcover, Univ of North Carolina Pr
To the Finland Station
by Edmund Wilson

ISBN 1590170334 (1-59017-033-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Truman
by David Willis McCullough

ISBN 0671869205 (0-671-86920-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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This warm biography of Harry Truman is both an historical evaluation of his presidency and a paean to the man's rock-solid American values. Truman was a compromise candidate for vice president, almost an accidental president after Roosevelt's death 12 weeks into his second term. Truman's stunning come-from-behind victory in the 1948 election showed how his personal qualities of integrity and straightforwardness were appreciated by ordinary Americans, perhaps, as McCullough notes, because he was one himself. His presidency was dominated by enormously controversial issues: he dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, established anti-Communism as the bedrock of American foreign policy, and sent U.S. troops into the Korean War. In this winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize, McCullough argues that history has validated most of Truman's war-time and Cold War decisions. [via]
More editions of Truman:
- Truman: ISBN 0671456547 (0-671-45654-7)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- Truman: ISBN 0671869205 (0-671-86920-5)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred
by Niall Ferguson

ISBN 0713997087 (0-7139-9708-7)
Hardcover, Allen Lane

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The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? "The War of the World" comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece. [via]
More editions of The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred:
- The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred: ISBN 0713997087 (0-7139-9708-7)
  Hardcover, Allen Lane
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The War of the World: Twentieth-century Conflict And the Descent of the West
by Niall Ferguson

ISBN 1594201005 (1-59420-100-5)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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Niall Fergusson's most important book to date-a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing.
From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the cold war, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of human history. How can we explain the astonishing scale and intensity of its violence when, thanks to the advances of science and economics, most people were better off than ever before-eating better, growing taller, and living longer? Wherever one looked, the world in 1900 offered the happy prospect of ever-greater interconnection. Why, then, did global progress descend into internecine war and genocide? Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics, and evolutionary theory, Niall Ferguson-one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People"-masterfully examines what he calls the age of hatred and sets out to explain what went wrong with modernity.
On a quest that takes him from the Siberian steppe to the plains of Poland, from the streets of Sarajevo to the beaches of Okinawa, Ferguson reveals an age turned upside down by economic volatility, multicultural communities torn apart by the irregularities of boom and bust, an era poisoned by the idea of irreconcilable racial differences, and a struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new states. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was the West. Some even talk of the American century. But for Ferguson, the biggest upshot of twentieth-century upheaval was the decline of Western dominance over Asia.
A work of revelatory interpretive power, The War of the World is Niall Ferguson's masterwork. [via]
More editions of The War of the World: Twentieth-century Conflict And the Descent of the West:
- The War of the World: Twentieth-century Conflict And the Descent of the West: ISBN 1594201005 (1-59420-100-5)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA