War of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel That Stunned the Nation by John Sedgwick
Release Date: November 3, 2015
A provocative and penetrating investigation into the rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, whose infamous duel left the Founding Father dead and turned a sitting Vice President into a fugitive.
In the summer of 1804, two of America’s most eminent statesmen squared off, pistols raised, on a bluff along the Hudson River. That two such men would risk not only their lives but the stability of the young country they helped forge is almost beyond comprehension. Yet we know that it happened. The question is why.
The Washingtons: George and Martha, "Join'd by Friendship, Crown'd by Love" by Flora Fraser
Release Date: November 3, 2015
Here are the socially awkward young soldier and the charming and very rich young widow he wooed and won; the early years of their marriage at Mount Vernon; his inflexible determination and iron will throughout the long war; she, joining him every year in Valley Forge and the army's other winter quarters, essential to his personal well-being but also a commanding and admired figure in her own right; and, finally, the eight years of America's first presidency: he, the reluctant president, and she, the faultless first lady, both longing to return to their beloved Mount Vernon. Here, too, are the domestic Washingtons--Martha presiding over dinners for foreign dignitaries, keeping careful control of her children and her inheritance; George, even while commanding the revolutionary army, always concerned about her welfare and safety, worrying about his stepchildren, and when the rare occasion arose, dancing the night away with any pretty woman he could find. A major, and vastly appealing, contribution to the literature of our founding fathers...and founding mother.
Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe--and Started the Protestant Reformation by Andrew Pettegree
Release Date: October 27, 2015
A revolutionary look at Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the birth of publishing, on the eve of the Reformation’s 500th anniversary
When an obscure monk named Martin Luther tacked his “theses” on the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he was virtually unknown. Within months, his ideas spread across Germany, then all of Europe; within years, their author was not just famous, but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.
Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland
UK Release Date: September 3, 2015
US Release Date: October 20, 2015
Author and historian Tom Holland returns to his roots in Roman history and the audience he cultivated with Rubicon—his masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of perhaps the greatest civilization ever—with Dynasty.
Dynasty continues Rubicon's story, opening where that book ended: with the murder of Julius Caesar. This is the period of the great Roman Emperors, the first Roman Emperors, and, astonishingly, no writer has tackled such an obvious commercial history recently—and it's a colorful story, running from the rise of Augustus through to the death of Nero. Holland's expansive history also has shades of I Claudius, with five wonderfully colorful (and in three cases, thoroughly depraved) Emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—featured along such fascinating secondary characters as Livia, Agrippina, and Germanicus. Intrigue, murder, naked ambition and treachery, greed, gluttony, lust, incest, pageantry, decadence—what's not to like?
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