First published in the "First Folio" in 1623 and likely written in the 1590s, "King John" is one of William Shakespeare's best historical plays. It centers on the events of King John's reign of England during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. King John, son of Henry I of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, inherits the throne after the death of his older brother, King Richard I. John's claim to the throne is challenged by the King of...

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained...

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003" George M. Fredrickson (1934–2008) was the Edgar E. Robinson Professor of U.S. History at Stanford University. His many books include Diverse Nations, Black Liberation, and White Supremacy. Albert M. Camarillo is the Leon Sloss Jr. Memorial Professor of American History at Stanford University. Are antisemitism and white supremacy manifestations of a general phenomenon? Why didn't racism appear...

"An epic, mesmerizing oral history of Hollywood and Los Angeles by the author of the contemporary classic Edie; Jean Stein influenced the art of oral history in her groundbreaking book Edie : American Girl, an indelible portrait of Andy Warhol 'superstar' Edie Sedgwick. Now, in West of Eden, Stein turns her lens toward the city Sedgwick came from--Los Angeles--and a mythic cast of fortune hunters and aspiring moguls whose quests for fame and power...

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

"Joshua Slocum's autobiographical account of his solo trip around the world is one of the most remarkable - and entertaining - travel narratives of all time. Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world's great circumnavigators - Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year...

The “fascinating” #1 New York Times bestseller that awakened the world to the destruction of American Indians in the nineteenth-century West (The Wall Street Journal).
First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee generated shockwaves with its frank and heartbreaking depiction of the systematic annihilation of American Indian tribes across the western frontier. In this nonfiction account, Dee...

The only chronicle by an ancient general of his own campaigns, this historical treasure is also a work of profound literary merit. Julius Caesar's fascinating account of his conquests offers a trove of priceless details about the cultures of Gaul, Germany, and Britain during the First century B.C.-and of the great man himself. Despite his extensive background in politics, Caesar expresses himself without hiding behind rhetoric, in an uncluttered,...

""Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me." With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester wears a scarlet "A" upon her breast, the sign of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name, her husband begins his vindictive search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect. Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of...

Text and contemporary photographs chronicle the life of immigrant children at home, school, work, and play during the late 1800's and early 1900's.