The set THE CRUSADES is a 4-volume work of art highly recommended for both high school and college-level libraries as a basic introductory reference. 1,000 A-Z entries and translated texts on individual crusades and crusaders reflect the contributions of over a hundred researchers from over twenty countries, and are accompanied by maps, bibliographic references, and black and white illustrations.

In this powerful book, David B. Edwards traces the lives of three recent Afghan leaders in Afghanistan's history--Nur Muhammad Taraki, Samiullah Safi, and Qazi Amin Waqad--to explain how the promise of progress and prosperity that animated Afghanistan in the 1960s crumbled and became the present tragedy of discord, destruction, and despair. Before Taliban builds on the foundation that Edwards laid in his previous book, Heroes of the Age, in which he examines the lives of three significant figures of the late nineteenth century--a tribal khan, a Muslim saint, and a prince who became king of the newly created state.

From Publishers Weekly
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Nicholas and Alexandra returns with a sequel to Dreadnought that is imposing in both size and quality, taking the British and German battle fleets through WWI. The fluent narrative begins amid the diplomatic crisis of July 1914 and ends with the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919.

Cellini's autobiographical memoirs, which he began writing in Florence in 1558, give a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his loves, hatreds, passions, and delights, written in an energetic, direct, and racy style. They show a great self-regard and self-assertion, sometimes running into extravagances which are impossible to credit. He even writes in a complacent way of how he contemplated his murders before carrying them out.

Why did Hitler order the daylight dash? How did the Germans get through? Did Churchill suppress the true facts? The author has found the answers to Churchill's angy questions. Through many first-hand accounts by surivors oif the action, both British and German, her reveals the full story of the dramatic break-out, and the desperate running battle that followed. On the British side, it is a disastrous one of tragedy mingled with farce, of brave men's lives thrown away by shocking incomptetence at the top; on the German side, one of well-laid plans brilliantly executed. It is a story that cannot fail to enthrall. With eight pages of illustrations and a map of the English Channel showing the course of the action.