Frank Carlson Library

Cataphracts' were the most heavily armoured form of cavalry in the ancient world, with riders and mounts both clad in heavy armour. Originating among the wealthiest nobles of various central Asian steppe tribes, such as the Massegatae and Scythians, they were adopted and adapted by several major empires. The Achaemenid Persians, Seleucids, Sassanians and eventually the Romans and their Byzantine successors. 0 0Usually armed with long lances, they...

True tales of executioners culled from the annals of history Award-winning mystery writer Howard Engel traces the hangman's tradition from medieval England and early Canada to the present-day United States. From beheadings and hangings to the electric chair, Engel offers gritty details of the executioner's process, focusing on key players who epitomize both the exemplars and buffoons of the dark profession. Citing far-removed examples of past punishments,...

The Politics of Upheaval, 1935-1936, volume three of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s Age of Roosevelt series, concentrates on the turbulent concluding years of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term. A measure of economic recovery revived political conflict and emboldened FDR's critics to denounce "that man in the White house." To his left were demagogues - Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Dr. Townsend. To his...

"A deeply-researched, dramatic, and character-driven narrative account of the violent struggle between Union and Confederate forces to claim the American West during the Civil War"-- "A dramatic, riveting, and deeply researched narrative account of the epic struggle for the West during the Civil War, revealing a little-known, vastly important episode in American history. In The Three-Cornered War Megan Kate Nelson reveals the fascinating history...

Penguin delivers you to the front lines of The Pacific Theater with the real-life stories behind the HBO miniseries. Former Marine and Pacific War veteran Robert Leckie tells the story of the invasion of Okinawa, the closing battle of World War II. Leckie is a skilled military historian, mixing battle strategy and analysis with portraits of the men who fought on both sides to give the listener a complete account of the invasion. Lasting eighty-three...

This traces the growing conflict that inexorably set the American colonies on the road to independence, but it is above all a spirited chronicle of the war itself, its military campaigns and strategies

Told from the tender perspective of a young girl who comes of age amid the Cambodian killing fields, this novel is based on the author's personal story. For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege...

Can they put the past behind them? Lorne Malcolm's wedding to her handsome suitor Daniel MacNeil is a joyful day much looked forward to by both families. But by the time Lorne's older sister, Rosa, returns from a trip to the flower shop on the morning of the wedding, Lorne has disappeared. When news arrives that Lorne has run off to Ireland with a wealthy landowner's son, Rory Thain, their families are shocked. None more so than Daniel. Jilted on...

In this fascinating collection of historical vignettes, author Martin W. Sandler restores to memory important events, people, and developments that have been lost to time. Though barely known today, these are major historical stories, from Ziryab, an eighth-century black slave whose influence on music, cuisine, fashion, and manners still reverberates, to Cahokia, a 12th century city north of the Rio Grande, which at its zenith contained a population...

Pen-and-ink drawings of nineteenth century New England mills demonstrate their changes in architecture, power production and mechanization.