Describes the life of the brilliant general who became America's most infamous Revolutionary War traitor.

PRAISE FOR 1858

"Highly recommended—a gripping narrative of the critical year of 1858 and the nation's slide toward disunion and war...Readers seeking to understand how individuals are agents of historical change will find Chadwick's account of the failed leadership of President James Buchanan especially compelling."

—G. Kurt Piehler, author of Remembering War the American Way

"Chadwick's excellent

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Blending history and high drama, Antony and Cleopatra remains one of Shakespeare's finest achievements.

"The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York--the revolutionary hero, back from the...

An introduction to the life of Benedict Arnold that highlights not only the traitorous actions that made him legendary, but also his heroic involvement in the American Revolution.

A definitive biography of the mythic general who refused to accept the Nazi domination of France, drawing on unpublished letters, memoirs, and papers in the newly opened de Gaulle archives that show how this volatile man put a broken France back at the center of world affairs. In the early summer of 1940, when France was overrun by German troops, one junior general who had fought in the trenches in Verdun refused to accept defeat. He fled to London,...

A biography of Edward Lansdale, the CIA operative. Boot chronicles his rise and fall as a proponent of a visionary "hearts and minds" diplomacy in Vietnam who was ultimately overruled by the American military bureaucracy, which favored bombs and troop build-ups over winning the people's trust. "The legendary Edward Lansdale (1908-1987), a covert operative so roguish that he was said to be the model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American, remains...

"Few in history can match the breadth and depth of the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette. Over fifty incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought as one with righteous revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic. As an idealistic and courageous teenager serving in the American Revolution, he used his considerable wealth and savvy to help the Americans defeat the British. Then he returned home, and was a principal...

A new biography of Gen. George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times. Historian T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer's legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer's historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person--capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic...

"A major new biography of one of America’s most storied military figures. General Sherman’s 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet Sherman proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family. As a soldier,...