February 2017

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.

Dwight D. Eisenhower dreamed of serving under George S. Patton, Jr., but history reversed their roles. Their stormy relationship
dramatically shaped the Allied assault on the Third Reich. Here, in this short-form book from acclaimed historian Stephen Ambrose, is their
story.

All first-person accounts of great events have their own fascination, but the editors of American Heritage have discovered that people
writing about World War II seem to tell their own story with particular passion and eloquence. That is one reason American Heritage has
published so many of them - and why noted military historian Stephen W. Sears has selected the most compelling.
The result of his search is a uniquely moving and valuable anthology - a series of personal histories that, marshaled together, become an
intimate history of the Second World War.
Here is Edward Beach, the highly decorated submarine skipper and author of Run Silent, Run Deep, recalling what it was like to be sent
into hostile waters with torpedoes that didn't work; Charles Cawthon recounts the landing at Normandy Beach in a restrained and poetic
narrative whose quiet humor does nothing to blunt the savagery of the experience; General James Gavin tells of the jump into Sicily and of
a battle fought that never should have been fought; Hughes Rudd watched the war from overhead in a flimsy spotter plane, his "Maytag

Here, six eminent biographers explain the pleasures and problems of their craft of reconstructing other people's lives. The result is a book
rich in anecdote and in surprising new information about a variety of famous Americans.
The introductory essay is by William Zinsser (author of On Writing Well), who edited the six talks into freestanding essays in which:
David McCullough takes us along on the exhilarating journey to Missouri to find "The Unexpected Harry Truman."
Richard B. Sewall describes his twenty-year search for the elusive poet, Emily Dickinson.
Paul C. Nagel tells us about "The Adams Women" - four generations of women he came to admire while writing his earlier biography of
the Adams family.
Ronald Steel, author of a much-honored biography of the nation's greatest journalist, recalls in "Living with Walter Lippman," how the life
of the biographer can become entwined with that of his subject.
Jean Strouse, on the trail of J. P. Morgan, discusses the fact that "there are two reasons why a man does anything, a good reason and a
real reason."

Here, six eminent biographers explain the pleasures and problems of their craft of reconstructing other people's lives. The result is a book
rich in anecdote and in surprising new information about a variety of famous Americans.
The introductory essay is by William Zinsser (author of On Writing Well), who edited the six talks into freestanding essays in which:
David McCullough takes us along on the exhilarating journey to Missouri to find "The Unexpected Harry Truman."
Richard B. Sewall describes his twenty-year search for the elusive poet, Emily Dickinson.
Paul C. Nagel tells us about "The Adams Women" - four generations of women he came to admire while writing his earlier biography of
the Adams family.
Ronald Steel, author of a much-honored biography of the nation's greatest journalist, recalls in "Living with Walter Lippman," how the life
of the biographer can become entwined with that of his subject.
Jean Strouse, on the trail of J. P. Morgan, discusses the fact that "there are two reasons why a man does anything, a good reason and a
real reason."

The Erie Canal was a preposterous idea -- a man-made waterway, spanning wilderness valleys and rivers, channeling through hills of solid
rock or climbing over them, flowing across marshes and thickly wooded forests, all the way across New York State. Even President Thomas
Jefferson, usually ahead of his time, believed that it could not be built for at least a century, and yet, the Erie Canal came to be just as its
planners had thought it would.
For the first time in the history of the United States, there was now a cheap, fast route that ran through the Appalachians, the mountains
that had so effectively divided the West from the East of early America. With the canal, the country's fertile interior became accessible
and its great inland lakes were linked to all the seas of the world.
Here, from award-winning historian Ralph K. Andrist, is the canal's dramatic and little-told story.

The Erie Canal was a preposterous idea -- a man-made waterway, spanning wilderness valleys and rivers, channeling through hills of solid
rock or climbing over them, flowing across marshes and thickly wooded forests, all the way across New York State. Even President Thomas
Jefferson, usually ahead of his time, believed that it could not be built for at least a century, and yet, the Erie Canal came to be just as its
planners had thought it would.
For the first time in the history of the United States, there was now a cheap, fast route that ran through the Appalachians, the mountains
that had so effectively divided the West from the East of early America. With the canal, the country's fertile interior became accessible
and its great inland lakes were linked to all the seas of the world.
Here, from award-winning historian Ralph K. Andrist, is the canal's dramatic and little-told story.

English history is the story of a people who first settled an island off the coast of continental Europe thousands of years ago and went on
to rule most of the known world.
This fascinating book spans centuries and shows how people like Richard the Lionheart and Elizabeth I and events such as the Norman
Conquest and the defeat of the Spanish Armada shaped not just Britain but the world as we know it.

English history is the story of a people who first settled an island off the coast of continental Europe thousands of years ago and went on
to rule most of the known world. This fascinating book spans centuries and shows how people like Richard the Lionheart and Elizabeth I
and events such as the Norman Conquest and the defeat of the Spanish Armada shaped not just Britain but the world as we know it.
Y the famous Cambridge historian.

Award-winning historian Lacey Baldwin Smith vividly brings to life the story of Queen Elizabeth - perhaps the most influential sovereign in
England's history - and the age she created. She writes with a professional familiarity of the facts and events of the period.