"Hospital Sketches" by Louisa May Alcott stands as a poignant testament to the human spirit amidst the turmoil of the American Civil War. This slim yet powerful volume encapsulates Alcott's firsthand experiences as a nurse, weaving together a collection of vivid narratives that offer an unfiltered glimpse into the stark realities of wartime hospitals and the resilient souls who inhabited them. In this autobiographical work, Alcott paints a vivid...

"'It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,' Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as...

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's brutally honest account of his experience as a militiaman during the Spanish Civil War. In the last days of 1936, Spain was five months into a bitter civil war, in which volunteers from many countries were helping the elected government of the Spanish Republic battle a military coup led by General Francisco Franco and backed by Hitler and Mussolini. Some foreigners flocking to Spain had come for another reason:...

In Bihac, Bosnia, in 1992, sixteen-year-old Amra and her family face starvation and the threat of brutal ethnic violence as Serbs and Bosnians clash, while a stray cat, Maci, provides solace.

This book is a powerful and unflinching account of the enduring impact of nuclear war, told through the stories of those who survived. On August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a small port city on Japan's southernmost island. An estimated 74,000 people died within the first five months, and another 75,000 were injured. Published on the seventieth anniversary of...

On the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, award-winning author Frye Gaillard reflects on the war-and the way we remember it-through letters written by his family, including his great-great grandfather and his two sons, both of whom were Confederate officers. As Gaillard explains in his introductory essay, he came of age in a Southern generation that viewed the war as a glorious lost cause. But as he read through letters collected by...

"This astonishing book by the prize-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid tells the tragedy of the Syrian War through the dramatic stories of four young people seeking safety and freedom in a shattered country. Extending back to the first demonstrations of 2011, No Turning Back dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict. As protests ignited in Daraa, some citizens were brimming with a sense of possibility. A privileged...

"1983: the United States Marine Corps experiences its greatest single-day loss of life since the Battle of Iwo Jima when a truck packed with explosives crashes into their headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. This terrorist attack, which killed 241 servicemen, continues to influence US foreign policy to this day, Now, the full story is revealed as never before. Based on comprehensive interviews with survivors, extensive military records, as well as personal...

In an internationally best-selling book, a modern neurosurgeon offers a revealing look into his life and work. Longlisted for both the Guardian First Book Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, DO NO HARM ranks alongside the work of Atul Gawande, Jerome Groopman, and Oliver Sacks. With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters,...

Dimitri Bontinck lived every parent's worst nightmare: his teenage son, introduced to Islam by his girlfriend, fell into the clutches of a radical mosque. Completely brainwashed, Jay snuck out of the house and traveled to Syria, all but vanishing. With no one to help him, Dimitri--a white, Christian-raised atheist--set off on his own to save his son. "Dimitri Bontinck lived every parent's worst nightmare. His teenage son, introduced to Islam by his...