Band of Giants brings to life the founders who fought for our independence in the Revolutionary War. Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are known to all; men like Morgan, Greene, and Wayne are less familiar. Yet the dreams of the politicians and theorists only became real because fighting men were willing to take on the grim, risky, brutal work of war. We know Fort Knox, but what about Henry Knox, the burly Boston bookseller who took over the American...

When Chinese alchemists fashioned the first manmade explosion sometime during the tenth century, no one could have foreseen its full revolutionary potential. Invented to frighten evil spirits rather than fuel guns or bombs-neither of which had been thought of yet-their simple mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal went on to make the modern world possible. As word of its explosive properties spread from Asia to Europe, from pyrotechnics to battleships,...

Native Hawaiians have long been confused by the history they learn at school, which doesn't match up with the family stories they have heard so often from their elders. Drawing on oral histories and personal interviews with elderly Hawaiians, author Jack Kelly presents this first essay in a series of modern treatments of Hawaiian history, reflecting the truth as it was lived, told and retold by the people of the Islands. This grassroots history of...

An elephant hunter's chronicle of his safari into the interior of South Africa to search for a fabled diamond mine and to rescue the brother of the English gentleman who accompanies him across the deserts and mountains.

Adaptations of two famous stories by Irving: The first of Ichabod Crane and his encounter with the headless horseman, and the second about Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep and awakened twenty years later.

"A vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history. At the pinnacle of the Gilded Age, a boycott of Pullman sleeping cars by hundreds of thousands of railroad employees brought commerce to a standstill across much of the country. Famine threatened, riots broke out along the rail lines. Soon the U.S. Army was on the march and gunfire rang from the streets of major cities. This epochal tale offers fascinating portraits...

Wisecracking ladies' man Bret Maverick and his more serious brother Bart are two handsome bachelors on the loose in the wild west. They have more success at the game of poker than the game of love. Yet they keep trying their luck in one frontier outpost after another.

The conclusion of the love story between Jamie and Shelley.

Jamie falls deeply in love.