No country in history has been more deeply penetrated by spies than divided Germany after the Second World War. Fighting for the eastern corner were the 'first class comrades' of the Stasi—the East German Ministry for State Security. Rising from the ruins of a defeated country, and guided by its KGB masters, the early Cold War saw the Stasi establish itself as one of the world's most notorious spy and secret police agencies.

When the Titanic sank on a cold night in 1912, barely 700 people escaped with their lives. Among them were six Chinese men. Arriving in New York, these six were met with suspicion and slander. Less than 24 hours later, they were expelled from the country and vanished. When historian Steven Schwankert first stumbled across the fact that eight Chinese nationals were on-board, of whom all but two survived, he couldn’t believe that there could still be untold personal histories from the Titanic. Now, at last, their story can be told.

Watching the Jackals is the untold history of Czechoslovakia's complex relations with Middle Eastern terrorists and revolutionaries during the closing decades of the Cold War. Richterova unveils the story of Prague's engagement with various factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, along with some of the era's most infamous terrorists.

Alexander the Great and Cleopatra may be two of the most famous figures from the ancient world, but the Egyptian era bookended by their lives—the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BC)—is little known. In The Last Dynasty, Toby Wilkinson unravels the incredible story of this turbulent era.

World history began in the Persian Gulf. The ancient port cities that dotted its coastlines created the first global seaboard, a place from where faiths and cultures from around the world set sail and made contact. More than a history, The Center of the World shows us that contradictions that define our modern age have always been present.

This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power.

It's now been over 150 years since ASPCA agents, at the direction of founder Henry Bergh, rescued little Mary Ellen Wilson from her abusive New York tenement home back in 1874. It's also been over 25 years since Eric A. Shelman and Stephen Lazoritz, M.D. released Out of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson, which remains the only book about the little girl's case.

Why did the chicken cross the globe? To leave its mark on the story of human civilization. From its wild origins in the forests of Southeast Asia to its central role in modern food systems, the humble hen has journeyed alongside humanity for thousands of years, influencing agriculture, culture, and commerce across continents. This fascinating narrative explores how the chicken descended from ancient dinosaurs, spread through trade and empire, and became both a symbol of fertility and sacrifice as well as a cornerstone of global diets.

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg offers a gripping, comprehensive history of the decisive campaign in the eastern theater. In this second of three volumes, A. Wilson Greene narrates the critical months from August through October 1864, during which Ulysses S. Grant's army group launched three major offensives against Robert E. Lee's defenses around Petersburg and the Confederate capital in Richmond.

Shinto, the indigenous faith of the Japanese people, continues to fascinate and mystify both the casual visitor to Japan and the long-time resident. Relatively unknown among the religions of the world, Shinto: The Kami Way provides an enlightening window into this Japanese faith.

Our nation's transportation system is crumbling. But as acclaimed scholar and ACLU president Deborah Archer warns in Dividing Lines, before we can think about rebuilding and repairing, we must consider the role race has played in transportation infrastructure, from the early twentieth century and into the present day.

Zero Sum brings to life the complex, vivid color of one of the greatest experiments in the history of global commerce. What have businesses learnt—or failed to learn—from this adventure, both about Russia and about dynamics between countries and companies in the face of relentless change?

Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the West has been in crisis. Social unrest, political polarization, and the rise of other great powers—especially China—threaten to unravel today’s Western-led world order. Many fear this would lead to global chaos. But the West has never had a monopoly on order.

In 2016, the United States was stunned by evidence of Russian meddling in the US presidential elections. But it shouldn't have been. Subversion—domestic interference to undermine or manipulate a rival—is as old as statecraft itself. The basic idea would have been familiar to Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Elizabeth I, or Bismarck. It came as a surprise in 2016 because the sole superpower had fallen asleep at the wheel. But what's really new? Have we entered a new age of vulnerability?

In January 1951, Lieutenant Evgeniy Borisov was sent to the headquarters of the Soviet 5th Army in Spassk-Dalnii, a small city in the Russian Far East. Borisov was there on a secret mission. Together with his superior, Major Rusinov, his job was to establish the 91st Special Forces Company. The 91st was to be one of forty-six similar units spread out across the Soviet Union. The new forces were called "spetsnaz"—short for spetsnialnoe naznachenie, which translates to "special purpose."