Queen Elizabeth I was all too happy to play on courtly conventions of gender when it suited her "'weak and feeble' woman's body" to do so for political gain. But in Elizabeth, historian Lisa Hilton offers ample evidence why those famous words should not be taken at face value. With new research out of France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey, Hilton's fresh interpretation is of a queen who saw herself primarily as a Renaissance prince-an expert in Machiavellian...

After an unsavory art dealer is found dead in his hotel room, violinmaker Giovanni Castiglione must search for an instrument once owned by famed violinist Niccoli Paganini--and solve a mystery that has gone unanswered for over a century.

"When a devoted teacher comes under pressure for her progressive curriculum and a helicopter mom goes viral on social media, two women at odds with each other find themselves in similar predicaments, having to battle back from certain social ruin. Isobel Johnson has spent her career in Liston Heights sidestepping the community's high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a liberal agenda,...

"Based on unprecedented access to previously classified documents and dozens of interviews with key policymakers, here is the untold story of how George H. W. Bush faced a critical turning point of history, the end of the Cold War. The COLLAPSE OF THE Soviet Union was the greatest shock to international affairs since World War II. In that perilous moment, Saddam Hussein chose to invade Kuwait, China cracked down on its own pro-democracy protesters,...

Discusses the political and social struggles that continued in the United States after the Civil War ended in 1865.

"John F. Kennedy died almost half a century ago--yet because of his extraordinary promise and untimely death, his star still resonates strongly. On the anniversary of his assassination, celebrated political scientist and analyst Larry J. Sabato--himself a teenager in the early 1960s and inspired by JFK and his presidency--explores the fascinating and powerful influence he has had over five decades on the media, the general public, and especially on...

"Historian David O. Stewart restores James Madison, sometimes overshadowed by his fellow Founders, to his proper place as the most significant framer of the new nation. Short, plain, balding, neither soldier nor orator, low on charisma and high on intelligence, Madison cared more about achieving results than taking the credit. To reach his lifelong goal of a self-governing constitutional republic, he blended his talents with those of key partners....

On August 16, 1824, an elderly French gentlemen sailed into New York Harbor and giddy Americans were there to welcome him. Or, rather, to welcome him back. It had been 30 years since the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette had last set foot in the United States, and he was so beloved that 80,000 people showed up to cheer for him. The entire population of New York at the time was 120,000. Lafayette's arrival in 1824 coincided with one of...

"John Lisle reveals the untold story of the OSS Research and Development Branch-The Dirty Tricks Department-and its role in World War II. In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D.C. When he arrived, he was led to a barren room where he waited to meet the man who had summoned him. After a disconcerting amount of time, William "Wild Bill" Donovan,...

Rachel Carson, founder of the modern environmental movement, began work on her seminal book Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a dizzying array of synthetic pesticides had come into use. Leading this chemical onslaught was the insecticide DDT. Effective against crop pests as well as insects that transmitted human diseases such as typhus and malaria, DDT had at first appeared safe. But as its use expanded, alarming reports surfaced of collateral...