270 results for "World History"

Blood and iron

Turtledove, Harry
As Turtledove's brilliant series The Great War came to its end, the United States of America, in alliance with Germany, had defeated Great Britain, France and the Confederate States of America in a bloody conflict known as the first World War. As the 1920s begin, though, the seeds of a new conflict have alredy been sown. The United States, led by Theodore Roosevelt, swings wildly towards socialism. In Canada - now a US colony - nationalist s strike against the new American oppressors. But it is in the Confederacy, trapped in a ruinous economic depression, where fascism begins to spread, and the fires are fanned by a charismatic leader who may again plunge the world into war. 'The wizard of If.' Chicago Sun-Times 'The standard-bearer for alternate history.' USA Today
Hodder & Stoughton 2001 503 pages

The Indian clerk

Leavitt, David
Based on the remarkable true story of G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, and populated with such luminaries such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Indian Clerk takes this extraordinary slice of history and transforms it into an emotional and spellbinding story about the fragility of human connection and our need to find order in the world. A literary masterpiece, it appeared on four bestseller lists, including the Los Angeles Times , and received dazzling reviews from every major publication in the country.
Bloomsbury 2007 485 pages

The reservoir

Duchovny, David
"The Reservoir follows an unexceptional man in an exceptional time. We see our present-day pandemic world and New York City through the eyes of a former Wall Street veteran, Ridley, as he, in his enforced quarantined solitude, looks back upon his life. He examines his wins, his failures, the gnawing questions-his career, his divorce, his estranged daughter-and wonders what it all means and who he really is. Sitting and brooding night after night, gazing out his huge picture window high above the Central Park Reservoir, Ridley spots a flashing light in an apartment across the park as if a lonely quarantined person is signaling him in Morse code. His determination to find out who this mystery woman is, this fellow quarantine damsel in distress trapped in her own Fifth Avenue tower, leads him on an epic quest that will ultimately tempt him with either delusional madness or the fulfillment of his own mythic fate. Is he a dying man going mad or an everyman metamorphosing into a hero? Or both? We accompany Ridley as he leaves the safety of his apartment window to save the Fifth Avenue femme fatale and descends into a dangerous, increasingly surreal world of global conspiracies, madness, and sickness of this viral time; beyond that, into the enduring mysteries of love and fatherhood; and deeper still, into the bedrock mystery of life itself. As Ridley's actions grow more and more uncharacteristic, he realizes the key to all the mysteries of now, and even all of history, seem to lie deep beneath the freezing waters of the reservoir. The Reservoir is a twisted rom-com for our distanced time, when the merest touch could kill and conspiracy theories propagate like viruses-a contemporary union of Death in Venice, Rear Window, and The Plague"--
Akashic Books 2022 128 pages

The occupation trilogy

Modiano, Patrick
'Brisk, smart, witty, elliptical ... Recalls the directors of the New Wave ... Bracing and brilliant' Independent When Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature he was praised for using the 'art of memory' to bring to life the Occupation of Paris during the Second World War. Born in 1945, Modiano's brilliant, angry writings burst onto the Parisian literary scene and caused a storm. His first, ferociously satirical novel, La Place de l'Étoile , was remarkable in seriously questioning both Nazi collaboration in France and the myths of the Gaullist era. The Night Watch tells the story of a man caught between his work for the French Gestapo and for a Resistance cell. Ring Roads recounts a son's search for his Jewish father, who disappeared ten years previously. These brilliant, almost hallucinatory, evocations of the Occupation attempt to exorcise the past by exploring the morally ambiguous worlds of collaboration and resistance.
Bloomsbury 2017-05-18 336 pages

A cross and a star: memoirs of a Jewish girl in Chile

Agosín, Marjorie
In this unique memoir, renowned poet, fiction writer, critic, and activist Marjorie Agosin writes in the voice of her mother, Frida, the daughter of European Jewish immigrants, living in Chile in the years before, during, and after World War II. Frida recounts stories from her family's Jewish/Chilean history: of her father, who had to leave Vienna in 1920 because he fell in love with a Christian cabaret dancer; of her paternal grandmother, who came to Chile later with a number tattooed on her arm; and of her great grandmother, an immigrant from Odessa, who learned to speak Spanish in Chile and loved the language so much that she repeated its harmonious sounds even in her sleep. Frida's stories of the past soften the realities of present times, when some immigrants from Germany still display portraits of Hitler m their homes and Jews still remain, after two generations, strangers in their own land. These stories are permeated with the shadow of faraway war in Europe, which haunts Frida's dreams and is a vivid presence in the everyday life in this Chilean town. For Frida the cross and the star of the title come to define two worlds that are for her distinct, yet inexorably entwined. Agosin's poetic reflections reveal a culture and a landscape little-known outside of her native land, explore the boundaries of "voice", and create a moving testament to endurance and to the power of memory and of words.
Garnet 1997 16 pages

Stars and Stripes in Peril

Harry Harrison
"HARRY HARRISON IS ONE OF SCIENCE FICTION’S MOST PROLIFIC AND ACCOMPLISHED CRAFTSMEN." —The New York Times Book Review In the midst of Civil War, a stunned North and South join forces to combat a sudden attack of British troops. Though the Americans are victorious, three years later a new threat emerges. Her Majesty’s Army is massing for a possible attack through Texas. Into the gauntlet Lincoln sends his chosen angel of death, General Ulysses S. Grant—while his top soldiers, including Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman, plan the most daring naval invasion ever launched: an assault on British soil itself. Stars and Stripes in Peril is the new masterwork from one of the world’s most provocative authors. Venturing beyond a fascinating question of what if? Harry Harrison brilliantly examines the people and passions that make up nations both great and small—and shows how technology and politics had the power to shape history’s first great World War . . . half a century before it began . . . "Lovers of novels of alternate history hold Harry Harrison in high regard and his latest book can only enhance that esteem." —Abilene Reporter News
National Geographic Books 2001-10-02 352 pages

Future history 2050

Harding, Thomas
"This future history of the next thirty years, imagined by bestselling author Thomas Harding, is surprising, compelling and disturbingly believable. In 2020, a researcher is shocked to find a set of notebooks detailing the history of the next thirty years. Is this a hoax? Or could it be real? The notebooks, written in the year 2050, contain interview transcripts between teenage Billy and Gran Nancy. We learn about the great climate SHOCK, when global temperatures rise much faster than anticipated, resulting in catastrophic consequences for humanity. We learn about a shift away from democracy, toward unelected "ethnarchs" -- heads of corporations who use their access to our personal data to competently run the world. We learn about the giant city towers where most people live, work and play inside -- where it's safe from natural disasters and viral outbreaks. And between these interviews, we learn more about Billy, whose interest in the history that has been erased from the official record is causing trouble in 2050. Is it too late to change the past to save the future?"--Publisher's description.
Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press 2022 197 pages

Champion: a German boxer, a Jewish assassin and Hitler's revenge

Deutsch, Stephen
In the cauldron of Germany in the 1930s, two men from different worlds become key actors in the turbulent history of their time. Herschel Grynszpan, an undocumented Jewish adolescent living in Paris, wants to be a champion of his suffering people. Max Schmeling, a world champion boxer, becomes a reluctant symbol of the Third Reich. Their lives intertwine without touching, eventually converging in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. Dark haired, slight, and with deep-set, haunted eyes, Herschel receives a postcard from his parents--recently taken from their Hanover flat, put on a train, and dumped, with 12 thousand others, on the Polish border. Enraged, Herschel buys a gun and kills a minor German official in the German Embassy. The repercussions of this act trigger Kristallnacht, the opening curtain to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Max, as a result of his victory over the then-"invincible" Joe Louis in 1936, has become a poster boy for the Nazis. He and his movie-star wife, Anny Ondra, are feted by the regime--tea with Hitler, a passage on the airship Hindenburg--until his brutal two-minute beating in the rematch with Louis less than two years later. His story reaches a climax during Kristalnacht, where the champion performs an act of quiet heroism. Champion tells a story of tragedy and humanity as World War II unfolds. Set against a backdrop of racism, war, and displacement, it shines a light on those times as it holds a mirror to our own.
Universe 2020-07 367 pages

Mary of Nazareth: a novel

Halter, Marek
The ancient world through the eyes of a young Jewish woman—Mary of Nazareth. Mary was born into a Palestine oppressed by Herod the Great; she is accustomed to living with uncertainty and unrest. But when her beloved father is wrongly imprisoned by the Romans, she takes action. She calls upon a well-known rebel by the name of Barabbas, and together they set out to save her father. A daring escape is planned. And against staggering odds, Mary’s father is saved from crucifixion. Barabbas—flush with his success—is intent on leading a full-scale rebellion against Herod and the Romans. But as he speaks before Jewish leaders, Mary feels great frustration as the men endlessly debate morality, rebellion, and God's will. She has almost lost her father, but she is nevertheless compelled to speak out against violence. To her surprise, one man listens: Joseph. He makes Mary an offer that will change her life—and the history of the Jewish people—forever.
Three Rivers Press 2008-12-02 309 pages

Stars and Stripes Triumphant

Harry Harrison
In England, Irish-born citizens are being herded into prison camps. On the high seas, a furious British Navy is seizing American cargo ships bound for Europe. And on the Thames, a new weapon of unparalleled destructive force is sailing toward an impregnable city–spearheaded by a daring act of espionage. For U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, Britain’s Queen Victoria, Lord Palmerston, and a loyal opposition, a day of reckoning is at hand . . . and so is history’s most astounding battle. Harry Harrison’s series of alternate history, based on the U.S. Civil War, stands as a provocative work of imagination, drama, and brilliant historical insight. Now in the thrilling finale, Harrisontells a stunning, action-packed story of America’s rapidly growing military might being locked, loaded, and aimed at the heart of England itself. For the two countries that share a language and a heritage, the conflict began at the dawn of the U.S. Civil War. Just as America was about to tear itself to pieces, Britain itself committed an act of war by seizing a U.S. packet ship. In retaliation, the Confederate States rejoined the Union and took up arms against England. Repulsing a British invasion, and defeating her majesty’s army first in Canada, then in Mexico, then in Ireland, American pride and power swelled. Britain, like a wounded lion, howled in shame and anger. Now, Queen Victoria’s empire is more dangerous than ever before, turning against the Irish on her own soil, flexing her naval might, and all but forcing a weary President Lincoln to authorize the next step in a headlong journey toward war. A tale of daring and strategy, Stars and Stripes Triumphant explores how arrogance turns superpowers into victims, how regional conflicts can explode into world wars, and how the personalities of a few men and women can change the course of history itself–for better or for worse. From the Hardcover edition.
Ballantine Books 2003 304 pages

Pain Killers A Novel

Jerry Stahl
Down-and-out ex-cop and not-quite-reformed addict Manny Rupert accepts an undercover job to find out if a California prison inmate is who he claims to be: Josef Mengele, aka the Angel of Death. Did the sadistic legend, whose Auschwitz crimes still horrify, fake his own death thirty years ago? Suddenly Manny finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy involving genocide, drugs, eugenics, human experiments, and America's secret history of collusion with the Nazis—all while careening from one extreme of apocalypse-adjacent reality to the other. Not for the faint of heart, Jerry Stahl's Pain Killers hurtles readers into a disturbing, original, and alarmingly real world filled with some of the strangest sex, most horrific violence, and screaming wit ever found on the page.
HarperCollins 2010-03-16 448 pages

Nocturne

Armstrong, Diane
Few know the story of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Polish Resistance ... Even fewer know the stories of the children caught in it ... She closed her eyes and listened to the forbidden Chopin nocturne ... its magic hung in the air. It is Warsaw, 1939, and Elz'unia is an indulged teenager who longs for a heroic life filled with romance. But the outbreak of war shatters all her dreams. As bombs fall, she meets Adam, a taciturn airman whose fate becomes entwined with hers. In despair over the occupation, Adam joins the Polish resistance, then flies bombers for the RAF. Forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, Elz'unia learns that even children must create their own rules to survive. When the Ghetto defies the invaders, and later the entire city of Warsaw rises up, Elz'unia finds strength in ways she never imagined. NOCtURNE is a powerful and inspiring testament to resilience and courage in the face of cruelty and betrayal.
HarperCollins 2018-02 594 pages

Luminous traitor: the just and daring life of Roger Casement, a biographical novel

Duberman, Martin B.
"Roger Casement was an internationally renowned figure at the beginning of the 20th century, famous for exposing the widespread atrocities against the indigenous people in King Leopold's Congo and his subsequent exposure--for which he was knighted in 1911--of the brutal conditions of enslaved labor in Peru. An Irish nationalist of profound conviction, he attempted, at the outbreak of World War I, to obtain German support and weapons for an armed rebellion against British rule. Apprehended and convicted of treason in a notorious trial that captured worldwide attention, Casement was sentenced to die on the gallows. A powerful petition drive for the commutation of his sentence was inaugurated by George Bernard Shaw and a host of other influential figures. A gay man, Casement kept detailed diaries of his sexual escapades, and the British government, upon discovering the diaries, circulated its pages to public figures, thereby crippling what had been a mounting petition for clemency. In 1916, he was hanged. In this gripping reimagining, acclaimed historian Martin Duberman paints a full portrait of the man for the first time. Tracing his evolution from servant of the empire to his work as a humanitarian activist and anti-imperialist, Duberman resurrects and recognizes all facets--from the professional to the personal--of the fantastic life of this pioneer for human rights"--Provided by publisher.
University of California Press 2019 279 pages

Anything but yes: a novel of Anna del Monte, Jewish citizen of Rome, 1749

Davidow, Joie
"This beautiful work of historical fiction was inspired by the diary of an actual 18th-century Roman Jewish girl, imprisoned by the Catholic Church because someone with a grudge offered her to the Church. Anything But Yes is the true story of a young woman's struggle to defend her identity in the face of relentless attempts to destroy it. In 1749, 18-year-old Anna del Monte was seized at gunpoint from her home in Rome's Jewish ghetto and thrown into a convent cell at the Casa dei Convertiti, the house of converts. With no access to the outside world, she withstood isolation, sleep deprivation, endless lectures, and threats and promises. If Anna were to utter the simple word "yes," she would risk forced baptism, which meant never returning to her home and losing contact with any Jew-including her own family-for the rest of her life. Even in Italy today, few people know the full story of Rome's Jewish ghetto, the abduction of Jews, or the popes who were intent on forcibly converting every non-Catholic living in the long shadow of the Vatican. Young girls and small children were the primary targets of these forced conversions, for they were most vulnerable. But Anna del Monte was different. She was strong, brilliant, and educated, and wrote a diary of her experiences. Her diary became lost for more than 200 years but was rediscovered in Israel in 1989. Anything But Yes is based on Anna's diary and Joie Davidow's extensive research on life in the 18th-century Roman Jewish ghetto and its personalities, traditions, foods, and dialect"--
Monkfish Book Publishing Company 2023 233 pages

George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Pairing Up An Anthology

George R. R. Martin
Superheroes and villains do battle over the human heart in this delightful anthology featuring all-new stories from a wide range of contributors, all set in the Wild Cards universe, where an alien virus mutates some and grants superpowers to others, created by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Game of Thrones . An alien virus ravages the world, its results as random as a hand of cards. Those infected either draw the black queen and die, draw an ace and receive superpowers, or draw the joker and are bizarrely mutated. Nevertheless, human nature reigns supreme. And one of the most enduring human drives is the search for love. Aces and jokers alike both want to find it, or have lost it . . . or perhaps just want to use it for personal gain. Crazy, unconventional, touching, strange, and oh-so-familiar, this is love, Wild Cards-style. Within these stories: • A jewel thief seduces a popular actor just so she can track down a long-lost treasure. • A teenager trapped in the body of a giant snail attempts to win his love à la Cyrano de Bergerac. • A man discovers his purpose in life after meeting a beautiful butterfly woman. • A young hero who has been awarded the hideous name of Hero McHeroface finds some solace in the arms of an astrologer hiding her own unique powers. Pairing Up is the Wild Cards take on love—finding it, seeking it, losing it, or achieving it—as aces and jokers enter into the highest-stake game of all: gambling on their heart's desire. With stories by Kevin Andrew Murphy • Christopher Rowe • Marko Kloos • Melinda M. Snodgrass • Bradley Denton • Walton Simons • Peter Newman • Gwenda Bond • David Anthony Durham • Edited by George R. R. Martin
Random House Worlds 2024-04-09 448 pages

Traveler of the Century A Novel

Andrés Neuman
"The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman." —Roberto Bolaño Searching for an inn, the enigmatic traveler Hans stops in a small city on the border between Saxony and Prussia. The next morning, Hans meets an old organ-grinder in the market square and immediately finds himself enmeshed in an intense debate—on identity and what it is that defines us—from which he cannot break free. Indefinitely stuck in Wandernburg until his debate with the organ-grinder is concluded, he begins to meet the various characters who populate the town, including a young freethinker named Sophie. Though she is engaged to be married, Sophie and Hans begin a relationship that defies contemporary mores about female sexuality and what can and cannot be said about it. Traveler of the Century is a deeply intellectual novel, chock-full of discussions about philosophy, history, literature, love, and translation. It is a book that looks to the past in order to have us reconsider the conflicts of our present. The winner of Spain's prestigious Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, Traveler of the Century marks the English-language debut of Andrés Neuman, a writer described by Roberto Bolaño as being "touched by grace."
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2013-05-07 576 pages

Coup d'etat

Turtledove, Harry
In 1941, a treaty between England and Germany unravels--and so does a different World War II. In Harry Turtledove's mesmerizing alternate history of World War II, the choices of men and fate have changed history. Now it is the winter of 1941. As the Germans, with England and France on their side, slam deep into Russia, Stalin's terrible machine fights for its life. But the agreements of world leaders do not touch the hearts of soldiers. The war between Germany and Russia is rocked by men with the courage to aim their guns in a new direction. England is the first to be shaken. Following the suspicious death of Winston Churchill, with his staunch anti-Nazi views, a small cabal begins to imagine the unthinkable in a nation long famous for respecting the rule of law. With civil liberties hanging by a thread, a conspiracy forms against the powers that be. What will this daring plan mean for the European war as a whole? Meanwhile, in America, a woman who has met Hitler face-to-face urges her countrymen to wake up to his evil. For the time being, the United States is fighting only Japan--and the war is not going as well as Washington would like. Can Roosevelt keep his grip on the country's imagination? "Coup d'Etat" captures how war makes for the strangest of bedfellows. A freethinking Frenchman fights side by side with racist Nazis. A Czech finds himself on the dusty front lines of the Spanish Civil War, gunning for Germany's Nationalist allies. A German bomber pilot courts a half-Polish, half-Jewish beauty in Bialystock. And the Jews in Germany, though trapped under Hitler's fist, are as yet protected by his fear of looking bad before the world--and by an outspoken Catholic bishop. With his spectacular command of character, coincidence, and military and political strategies, Harry Turtledove continues a passionate, unmatched saga of a World War II composed of different enemies, different allies--and hurtling toward a horrific moment. For a diabolical new weapon is about to be unleashed, not by the United States, but by Japan, in a tactic that will shock the world. Praise for "Coup d'Etat" "Turtledove's masterful presentation of an alternate WWII reaches its fourth volume with its quality undiminished. . . . A tribute to [his] commanding skills."--"Booklist "(starred review) "For lovers of alternative history, and particularly the very popular Turtledove with his appealing weaponry, battle tactics, and setting details, this story will satisfy. It sets out to entertain . . . and that it does."--Historical Novels Review "The book's grand scope and Turtledove's impressive historical knowledge are admirable."--"Kirkus Reviews"
Del Rey 2012 416 pages