HISTORY
The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months that Changed the World
By A. J. Baime
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
430 pages, $30
If Harry S. Truman was an “accidental president,” then maybe what this nation needs are a few more strategic accidents.
The term “accidental president,” on which historian A. J. Baime constructs his latest bo…
NONFICTION
The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny
By Michael Wallis
Liveright
453 pages, $27.99
It’s been 170 years since a wagon train destined for California from Springfield, Ill. got itself hung up in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountain range during a freakishly long and severe winter.
Only about half of the 80…
NONFICTION
Putin: His Downfall and Russia’s Coming Crash
By Richard Lourie
St. Martin’s Press
264 pages, $26.99
Many Americans are asking: Just who is this Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin who has so intoxicated our president with his strength and power, his vast fortune and his inherent iniquity?
For sure, most of us know Putin is president of the Russian Fe…
HISTORY
The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin’s House
By Daniel Mark Epstein
Ballantine Books
438 pages, $30
The story line of “The Loyal Son” contains all the trappings of a Shakespearean tragedy.
It has warring kings, noblemen in the House of Lords scheming over fabulous riches, a revolution on one side of the Atlantic, and a fragile peace between mort…
NONFICTION
My Fellow Soldiers: General John Pershing and the Americans Who Helped Win the Great War By Andrew Carroll; Penguin Press, 383 pages ($30)
The World Remade: America In World War I By G.J. Meyer; Bantam Books, 651 pages ($30)
You’d be hard pressed to find two more diverse takes on America’s involvement in World War I than the new books by Andrew Carroll …
BIOGRAPHY
Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet
By Lyndal Roper
Random House
540 pages, $40
This fall marks the 500th anniversary of the day an Augustinian monk at a backwater university in today’s east-central Germany hung his 95 theses on a door peg at the Wittenberg Castle Church and provided the spark that would ignite a firestorm of religious reformation …
NONFICTION
The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For
By David McCullough
Simon & Schuster, 176 pages, $2
One does not expect to find a deep sense of history in a small, unassuming package. Think of Winston Churchill’s “The Second World War,” or Bruce Catton’s Civil War masterpiece, or Ulysses S. Grant’s wonderful personal memoirs. All of formida…
NONFICTION
City of Sedition: The History of New York City During the Civil War
By John Strausbaugh
Twelve
423 pages, $30.
The City of New York holds a curious fascination for countless Americans, author John Strausbaugh among them.
For some, it’s the excitement of the bright lights and tall buildings. For others, it’s the tremendous wealth pulsing throug…
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