NEW EDITION - FEATURING UPDATED INTRODUCTION AND NEW CHAPTERS The giant characters of history - from Mozart to Michelangelo, Shakespeare to Einstein, Henry VIII to Hitler, Catherine the Great to Margaret Thatcher, Jesus Christ to Genghis Khan - lived lives of astonishing drama and adventure, debauchery and slaughter, but they also formed our world and will shape our future. In this eclectic and surprising collection of short and entertaining life stories, Simon Sebag Montefiore introduces his choice of kings, empresses, sultans and conquerors, as well as prophets, explorers, artists, actresses, courtesans and psychopaths. From the ancient times, via crusades and world wars, up to the 21st century, this accessible history introduces readers to the titans who changed the world: the characters we should all know, and the stories we should never forget.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs—and one of our pre-eminent historians and a prizewinning writer—comes an inspiring, horrifying, and accessible collection of short, entertaining, and vivid life stories about the giant characters who have changed the course of world history. These titans of history—encompassing queens, empresses, and actresses, kings, sultans, and conquerors, as well as prophets, artists, courtesans, psychopaths, and explorers—lived lives of astonishing drama, courage and adventure, debauchery and slaughter, virtue and crime. The subjects range widely throughout time and geography from Buddha and Genghis Khan to Nero and Churchill; from Catherine the Great and Anne Frank to Toussaint l’Ouverture and Martin Luther King; from Mozart to Mao; from Jesus Christ and Shakespeare to Einstein and Elvis. Through these lives, Montefiore recounts the most momentous world events—from ancient times to the Crusades, the Holocaust, and the Gulf Wars. These are the historical figures that everyone should know and the stories we should never forget.

As a rising great power flexes its muscles on the political-military scene it must examine how to manage its relationships with states suffering from decline; and it has to do so in a careful and strategic manner. In Rising Titans, Falling Giants Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson focuses on the policies that rising states adopt toward their declining competitors in response to declining states’ policies, and what that means for the relationship between the two. Rising Titans, Falling Giants integrates disparate approaches to realism into a single theoretical framework, provides new insight into the sources of cooperation and competition in international relations, and offers a new empirical treatment of great power politics at the start and end of the Cold War. Shifrinson challenges the existing historical interpretations of diplomatic history, particularly in terms of the United States-China relationship. Whereas many analysts argue that these two nations are on a collision course, Shifrinson declares instead that rising states often avoid antagonizing those in decline, and highlights episodes that suggest the US-China relationship may prove to be far less conflict-prone than we might expect.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families • From the author of The Romanovs “Succession meets Game of Thrones.” —The Spectator • “The author brings his cast of dynastic titans, rogues and psychopaths to life...An epic that both entertains and informs.” —The Economist, Best Books of the Year Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global, spans all eras and all continents, and focuses on the family ties that connect every one of us. In this epic, ever-surprising book, Montefiore chronicles the world’s great dynasties across human history through palace intrigues, love affairs, and family lives, linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, and technology to the people at the heart of the human drama. It features a cast of extraordinary diversity: in addition to rulers and conquerors, there are priests, charlatans, artists, scientists, tycoons, gangsters, lovers, husbands, wives, and children. There is Hongwu, the beggar who founded the Ming dynasty; Ewuare, the Leopard-King of Benin; Henry Christophe, King of Haiti; Kamehameha, the conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, the Arab empress who defied Rome; Lady Murasaki, the first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, the Moroccan pirate-queen. Here too are moderns such as Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Volodymyr Zelensky. Here are the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads. These powerful families represent the breadth of human endeavor, with bloody succession battles, treacherous conspiracies, and shocking megalomania alongside flourishing culture, moving romances, and enlightened benevolence. A dazzling achievement as spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the whole human story in a single, masterful narrative.

In this, the third volume of an interdisciplinary history of the United States since the Civil War, Sean Dennis Cashman provides a comprehensive review of politics and economics from the tawdry affluence of the 1920s throught the searing tragedy of the Great Depression to the achievements of the New Deal in providing millions with relief, job opportunities, and hope before America was poised for its ascent to globalism on the eve of World War II. The book concludes with an account of the sliding path to war as Europe and Asia became prey to the ambitions of Hitler and military opportunists in Japan. The book also surveys the creative achievements of America's lost generation of artists, writers, and intellectuals; continuing innovations in transportation and communications wrought by automobiles and airplanes, radio and motion pictures; the experiences of black Americans, labor, and America's different classes and ethnic groups; and the tragicomedy of national prohibition. The cast of characters includes FDR, the New Dealers, Eleanor Roosevelt, George W. Norris, William E. Borah, Huey Long, Henry Ford, Clarence Darrow, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Orson Welles, Wendell Willkie, and the stars of radio and the silver screen. The first book in this series, America in the Gilded Age, is now accounted a classic for historiographical synthesis and stylisic polish. America in the Age of the Titans, covering the Progressive Era and World War I, and America in the Twenties and Thirties reveal the author's unerring grasp of various primary and secondary sources and his emphasis upon structures, individuals, and anecdotes about them. The book is lavishly illustrated with various prints, photographs, and reproductions from the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The five 'Titans of Industry' discussed in this series are, without a doubt, the most influential and impactful men in American history. Without any one of them, the entire landscape of the US would be different. They are the founders of the American economy. We live in a world today that is based on the actions of John D. Rockefeller. Everything we do and how we live are the result of oil and its power. J.P. Morgan is more than just the name on one of the largest banks in America; He built the financial world we live in today. Henry Ford not only revolutionized the automobile industry, but the assembly line he created has changed the way the entire world thinks about manufacturing. Grab a copy, pull up a chair, pour your favorite reading beverage, and dive into the lives of the men who built America.

**** New edition (an earlier version is cited in BCL3). Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Three top Wall Street analysts reveal enduring lessons in sustainable success from the great industrial titans—the high-tech companies of their day—to the disruptors that now dominate the economy. Before Silicon Valley disrupted the world with new technologies and business models, America’s industrial giants paved the way. Companies like General Electric, United Technologies, and Caterpillar were the Google and Amazon of their day, setting gold standards in innovation, growth, and profitability. Today’s leaders can learn a great deal from their successes, as well as their missteps. In this essential guide, three veteran Wall Street analysts reveal timeless lessons from the titans of industry—and offer battle-tested survival tactics for an ever-changing world. You’ll learn: how GE became the largest company on earth—only for a culture of arrogance to set in motion the largest collapse in history how Boeing reassessed risks, raised profits—and tragically lost its balance how Danaher avoided the pitfalls of tremendous success—by continually reinventing itself how Honeywell experienced a near-fatal cultural breakdown—and executed a flawless turnaround how Caterpillar relied too much on forecasting, lost billions—and rallied by recommitting to the basics Filled with illuminating case studies and brilliant in-depth analysis, this invaluable book provides a multitude of insights that will help you weather market upheavals, adapt to disruptions, and optimize your resources to your best advantage. You’ll learn hard-won lessons in innovation, growth, resilience, and operational excellence, as well as the time-proven fundamentals of continuous improvement for lasting success. In the end, you’ll have your own personal toolbox of useful takeaways from more than a century’s worth of data, experience, wisdom, and can-do spirit, courtesy of some of the greatest business enterprises of all time. This is how manufacturers survived the first disruptors of technology—and how today’s giants can survive and thrive during continuous cycles of disruption.

The Age of Titans examines how heavy warships crewed by thousands of men developed from the agile triremes so popular during the Greek Classical Age. Following Alexander the Great, a new focus on naval siege warfare explains the rise in popularity of big ship navies and defines the model of naval power they made possible.