Peter the Great: His Life and World

Written by Robert K. Massie

Format: Trade Paperback, 928 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: October 12, 1981
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-29806-5 (0-345-29806-3)

Against the monumental canvas of 17th- and 18th-century Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great–one of the most extraordinary rulers in history. He brought Russia from the darkness of its own Middle Ages into the Enlightenment and transformed it into the power that has its legacy in... Read more >

The Balkans
A Short History
Written by Mark Mazower

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: August 6, 2002
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-6621-3 (0-8129-6621-X)

Throughout history, the Balkans have been a crossroads, a zone of endless military, cultural, and economic mixing and clashing between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In this highly acclaimed short history, Mark Mazower sheds light on what has been called the tinderbox of Europe, whose troubles have... Read more >

The Great Islamic Conquests AD 632-750

Written by David Nicolle

Format: Trade Paperback, 96 pages
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
On Sale: May 19, 2009
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-84603-273-8 (1-84603-273-3)

Few, if any, centuries in world history have had such a profound and long-lasting impact as the first hundred years of Islamic history. In this book, David Nicolle, a former member of the BBC's Arabic service, examines the extensive Islamic conquests between 632 and 750 AD. These years saw the religion... Read more >

A Short History of Byzantium

Written by John Julius Norwich

Format: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 29, 1998
Price: $19.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-77269-9 (0-679-77269-3)

In this magisterial adaptation of his epic three-volume history of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich chronicles the world's longest-lived Christian empire. Beginning with Constantine the Great, who in a.d. 330 made Christianity the religion of his realm and then transferred its capital to the city that would bear his name, Norwich follows... Read more >

A Question of Honor
The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II
Written by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 12, 2004
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72625-5 (0-375-72625-X)

A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known story of the refugee Polish pilots who joined the RAF and played an essential role in saving Britain from the Nazis, only to be betrayed by the Allies after the war.

After Poland fell to the Nazis, thousands of Polish pilots, soldiers, and sailors... Read more >

My Silent War
The Autobiography of a Spy
Written by Kim Philby
Foreword by Graham Greene
Introduction by Phillip Knightley

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: September 24, 2002
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75983-3 (0-375-75983-2)

In the annals of espionage, one name towers above all others: that of H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, the ringleader of the legendary Cambridge spies. A member of the British establishment, Philby joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1940, rose to the head of Soviet counterintelligence, and, as MI6’s liaison with the CIA... Read more >

Communism
A History
Written by Richard Pipes

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: August 5, 2003
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-6864-4 (0-8129-6864-6)

With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has fused a lifetime's scholarship into a single focused history of Communism, from its hopeful birth as a theory to its miserable death as a practice.

At its heart, the book is a history of the Soviet Union, the most comprehensive reorganization of human... Read more >

The Haunted Land
Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism
Written by Tina Rosenberg

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 19, 1996
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-74499-3 (0-679-74499-1)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

In The Haunted Land Rosenberg examines how four newly democratic countries in Eastern Europe--East Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic--are dealing with the memories of forty years of communism. As these nations struggle to atone for the crimes committed during their... Read more >

Revolution 1989
The Fall of the Soviet Empire
Written by Victor Sebestyen

Format: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 2, 2010
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-38792-9 (0-307-38792-5)

At the start of 1989, six European nations were Soviet vassal states. By year's end, they had all declared national independence and embarked on the road to democracy. How did it happen so quickly? Victor Sebestyen, who was on the scene as a reporter, draws on his firsthand knowledge of the... Read more >

Twelve Days
The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Written by Victor Sebestyen

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 6, 2007
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-27795-4 (0-307-27795-X)

Twelve Days is a riveting day-by-day account of the defining moment of the Cold War—the inspiring but brutally crushed Hungarian Uprising.

Victor Sebestyen, a journalist whose own family fled Hungary, gives us a totally fresh account, incorporating newly released official documents, his family's diaries, and eyewitness testimony. We witness the thrilling... Read more >

The Taste of Ashes
The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe
Written by Marci Shore

Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: January 15, 2013
Price: $27.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-88881-5 (0-307-88881-9)

In the tradition of Timothy Garton Ash’s The File, Yale historian and prizewinning author Marci Shore draws upon intimate understanding to illuminate the afterlife of totalitarianism. The Taste of Ashes spans from Berlin to Moscow, moving from Vienna in Europe’s west through Prague, Bratislava, Warsaw, and Bucharest to Vilnius and Kiev... Read more >

Zimmermann Telegram

Written by Barbara W. Tuchman

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: March 12, 1985
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-32425-2 (0-345-32425-0)

In January of 1917, the war in Europe was, at best, a tragic standoff. Britain knew that Europe would be saved only if the U.S. joined the war. President Wilson was unshakable in his neutrality and in his efforts to mediate peace. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel... Read more >

Vera Gran-The Accused

Written by Agata Tuszynska

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: February 26, 2013
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-26912-6 (0-307-26912-4)

The extraordinary, controversial story of Vera Gran, beautiful, exotic prewar Polish singing star; legendary sensual contralto; Dietrich-like in tone, favorite of the 1930s Warsaw nightclubs, celebrated before, and during, her year in the Warsaw ghetto (spring 1941-summer 1942) . . . and her piano accompanist: Władysław Szpilman, made famous by Roman... Read more >

The House of Wittgenstein
A Family at War
Written by Alexander Waugh

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 20, 2010
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-27872-2 (0-307-27872-7)

From Alexander Waugh, the author of the acclaimed memoir Fathers and Sons, comes a grand saga of a brilliant and tragic Viennese family.

The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented, and most eccentric in European history. Karl Wittgenstein, who ran away from home as a wayward and rebellious youth... Read more >