As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches, the fascination with all things Civil War continues ever more strongly. With I Used to Know That: Civil War, snippets of history class will come rushing back as you recall that: The mere election of Abraham Lincoln pushed seven Southern states to secede. Distinguished soldier and military strategist Robert E. Lee was offered command of the U.S. Army two days before he was chosen to lead the rebel army of Northern Virginia. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy spinster who lived in the Confederate capital, feigned craziness to mask her activities as one of the Union's most effective spies. Robert Smalls, a slave, absconded with a Confederate ship, went on to pilot ships for the Union Navy, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives after the war. Author Fred DuBose takes you beyond the history book and in a lively style brings to life colorful stories that include heroes, brilliant military strategists, blunderers, spies, wives on the home front, Underground Railroad facilitators, surgeons, and journalists who took the highs and lows of the war to the public.

As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches, the fascination with all things Civil War continues ever more strongly. With I Used to Know That: Civil War, snippets of history class will come rushing back as you recall that: The mere election of Abraham Lincoln pushed seven Southern states to secede. Distinguished soldier and military strategist Robert E. Lee was offered command of the U.S. Army two days before he was chosen to lead the rebel army of Northern Virginia. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy spinster who lived in the Confederate capital, feigned craziness to mask her activities as one of the Union's most effective spies. Robert Smalls, a slave, absconded with a Confederate ship, went on to pilot ships for the Union Navy, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives after the war. Author Fred DuBose takes you beyond the history book and in a lively style brings to life colorful stories that include heroes, brilliant military strategists, blunderers, spies, wives on the home front, Underground Railroad facilitators, surgeons, and journalists who took the highs and lows of the war to the public.

In the early morning of April 12, 1861, Captain George S. James ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter, beginning a war that would last four years and claim many lives. This book brings together a collection of voices to help explain the commencement of Am.

It can be difficult to keep different historical events and figures straight in your head, which is why I Used to Know That: World History presents major episodes in history with short, easily understood sections. Among the people, movements, and events covered are: · Ancient Greece and Rome-Learn about the birth of democracy and the death of the Roman Republic · The Middle Ages-From the Crusades to the Hundred Years War and the signing of the Magna Carta to the Black Plague · The Renaissance-A cultural revival that changed art, poetry, learning, and religion forever · The Revolutionary War-How America became independent; George Washington, the “father of the nation” · The Age of Empire-European colonialism in Africa and Asia; American expansion and the Civil War · Wars of the 20th Century-World War I and World War II; Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt; the Cold War; the rise and fall of fascism and communism Packed with important facts and sweeping overviews of historical events, I Used to Know That: World History is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of civilization and the geopolitical situation of today.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A leading political scientist examines the dramatic rise in violent extremism around the globe and sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States “Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) WINNER OF THE GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD • THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, The Times (UK), Esquire, Prospect (UK) Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country. Perhaps surprisingly, both autocracies and healthy democracies are largely immune from civil war; it’s the countries in the middle ground that are most vulnerable. And this is where more and more countries, including the United States, are finding themselves today. Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs—where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them—and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind. In this urgent and insightful book, Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face—and the knowledge to stop it before it’s too late.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation. An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality. With a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher." -Ambrose Bierce, Epigrams If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? I Used to Know That: Philosophy examines this and many other related questions. Spanning over some two-and-a-half thousand years of philosophical thought, this book covers the main highlights, from Pythagoras and Heraclitus, to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to Descartes, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Sartre. From the Socratic method to structuralism, you'll get an overview of all the major theories, presented in an easy-to-understand and engaging format. This lively, fun-to-read compendium explains how philosophy began and uncovers the thinkers and movements that have used it in both brilliant and frightening ways. It includes: Short biographies of all the great philosophers, from the early Greeks to the modern greats All the main -isms and -ologies, from atomism to utilitarianism, via epistemology and ontology Quips, quotes, and conundrums to impress your friends at your next dinner party So if you ever paused to wonder about the origin of the phrase "platonic love" or why Nietzsche came to believe that "God is dead," this is the book for you. It will refresh and enlighten you, and it may even make you stop and reflect on the larger questions of life. Because after all, as Socrates said, "the unexamined life is not worth living."

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA

The little-known history of anti-secession Southerners: “Absolutely essential Civil War reading.” —Booklist, starred review Bitterly Divided reveals that the South was in fact fighting two civil wars—the external one that we know so much about, and an internal one about which there is scant literature and virtually no public awareness. In this fascinating look at a hidden side of the South’s history, David Williams shows the powerful and little-understood impact of the thousands of draft resisters, Southern Unionists, fugitive slaves, and other Southerners who opposed the Confederate cause. “This fast-paced book will be a revelation even to professional historians. . . . His astonishing story details the deep, often murderous divisions in Southern society. Southerners took up arms against each other, engaged in massacres, guerrilla warfare, vigilante justice and lynchings, and deserted in droves from the Confederate army . . . Some counties and regions even seceded from the secessionists . . . With this book, the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Most Southerners looked on the conflict with the North as ‘a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,’ especially because owners of 20 or more slaves and all planters and public officials were exempt from military service . . . The Confederacy lost, it seems, because it was precisely the kind of house divided against itself that Lincoln famously said could not stand.” —Booklist, starred review

The Great Lie of the Civil War If you think the Civil War was fought to end slavery, you’ve been duped. In fact, as distinguished military historian Samuel Mitcham argues in his provocative new book, It Wasn’t About Slavery, no political party advocated freeing the slaves in the presidential election of 1860. The Republican Party platform opposed the expansion of slavery to the western states, but it did not embrace abolition. The real cause of the war was a dispute over money and self-determination. Before the Civil War, the South financed most of the federal government—because the federal government was funded by tariffs, which were paid disproportionately by the agricultural South that imported manufactured goods. Yet, most federal government spending and subsidies benefited the North. The South wanted a more limited federal government and lower tariffs—the ideals of Thomas Jefferson—and when the South could not get that, it opted for independence. Lincoln was unprepared when the Southern states seceded, and force was the only way to bring them—and their tariff money—back. That was the real cause of the war. A well-documented and compelling read by a master historian, It Wasn’t About Slavery will change the way you think about Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the cause and legacy of America’s momentous Civil War.