February 2017

The discovery of a nugget in California in 1848 set off the first gold rush in history. In 1849 alone, the population increased 500 percent as
80,000 men rushed to claim its riches; three years later, nearly 250,000 people lived there.

From the opening shots to General George Pickett's ill-fated charge, Bruce Catton tells the dramatic story of the battle that resulted in more than 51,000 Union and Confederate casualties and changed the course of the war.

Bruce Catton, Pulitzer-Prize winner and one of the most acclaimed historians of the Civil War, vividly recreates the 1863 Battle of
Gettysburg. From the opening shots to General George Pickett's ill-fated charge, he tells the dramatic story of the battle that resulted in
more than 51,000 Union and Confederate casualties and changed the course of the war.

Here, from New York Times bestselling historian Richard Russell, is the dramatic story of Germany - from the rise of Charlemagne to the
age of Martin Luther, from the Thirty Years' War to the iron rule of Otto von Bismarck, and from the formation of the Weimar Republic to
the fighting of two world wars.

"The finest historian of the American Revolution."
– Douglas Brinkley
For all his fame and familiarity, George Washington remains something of an enigma - the stiff portrait on the dollar bill. But his story is
full of drama. Here, acclaimed historian Richard Ketchum brings America's first president’s life to vivid life.

The relationship between Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton is like that of two complementary stages of a rocket. Galileo, the argumentative
"wrangler" who demanded that the universe be examined through a telescope rather than by means of a philosophy book, provided the
first liftoff, and Newton, the secretive mathematician who searched among his notes to find a mislaid proof for universal gravitation, put
the world into orbit.
Here, from award-winning journalist William Bixby, are their stories.

In the colonization of North America, Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden each sought a share. By the eighteenth
century, only Great Britain and France remained as rivals for the heart of the continent.
Three times, beginning in 1690, warfare arose between New France and New England. Settlements were destroyed, and armies clashed,
yet nothing was settled. Each country regarded the Ohio Valley as its own. A small skirmish in 1754 touched off a war that spread to
Europe, then to Africa, Asia, and even to islands in the Atlantic and Pacific. The fate of North America hung in the balance. This conflict,
the Great War for the Empire, may well be called the first of the world wars.
Here, award-winning historian Francis Russell brings to life the vast panorama that formed the background for this struggle in which the
English redcoats fought side by side with American colonists against French soldiers and their Indian allies

"Every man has two countries," Henri de Bornier once said, "his own and France."
Indeed, France has captivated us for centuries. Here, in this compelling history from acclaimed historian Marshall B. Davison, is its story:
from prehistory to its conquest by Julius Caesar; from its invasion by the Franks, who gave us the name we use today, to the reign of
Charlemagne; from the rule of the Bourbon monarchs, who reached their apex under the Sun King, Louis XIV, to the bloody days of the
French Revolution; from the ruthless rise and reign of Napoleon Bonaparte to the brutal Nazi occupation during World War II. This book is
a must-read for any Francophile.

People dreamed of flight for thousands of years. When we finally took to the skies, a new world opened up.
This sweeping, superbly researched history from American Heritage details how various pioneers and innovators - from the Wright
Brothers to Chuck Yeager - helped lift us into the sky.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain are most often remembered for the epochal voyage of Christopher Columbus. But the historic
landfall of October 1492 was only a secondary event of the year.
The preceding January, they had accepted the surrender of Muslim Granada, ending centuries of Islamic rule in their peninsula. And later
that year, they had ordered the expulsion or forced baptism of Spain's Jewish minority, a cruel crusade undertaken in an excess of zeal for
their Catholic faith.
Europe, in the century of Ferdinand and Isabella, was also awakening to the glories of a new age, the Renaissance, and the Spain of the
"Catholic Kings" - as Ferdinand and Isabella came to be known - was not untouched by this brilliant revival of learning.
Here, from the noted historian Malveena McKendrick, is their remarkable story.