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From Elizabeth II to future King William, The Windsor Legacy offers a riveting exploration of the British monarchy's resilience and influence over the past century, looking at its key players and conflicts, with a forward-looking examination of its future.

In an age where resilience is essential, The Windsor Legacy delivers an enthralling narrative of inspiration and royal intrigue. Penned by Robert Jobson, a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author and a front-line royal correspondent for over three decades, this extraordinary work will take readers deep into the heart of royal history as well as through the secrets that plague it to this day.

From the abdication crisis, royal family entanglements, Cold War espionage, betrayal, and scandalous love affairs to more recent constitutional crises and the monarchy's most closely guarded secrets and feuds. This riveting and stylish narrative, told through the key characters and clashes at the heart of the family, will be packed with exclusive revelations with a story as comprehensive as it is captivating.

A celebrated return of Robert Frank's seminal photobook The Americans to Aperture's catalog--one of the most important bodies of photographic work ever made.In the nearly seven decades since its publication in France in 1958, then in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank's The Americans has become one of the most influential and enduring works of American photography. Through eighty-three photographs taken across the country, Frank unveiled an America that had gone previously unacknowledged--confronting its people with an underbelly of racial inequality, corruption, injustice, and the stark reality of the American dream. Frank's point of view--at once startling and tenacious--is imbued with humanity and lyricism, painting a poignant and incomparable portrait of the nation at a turning point in history.This edition of The Americans is a celebrated return of an iconic title to Aperture's catalog, more than a half-century after the Aperture and Museum of Modern Art edition was published in 1968. Presented on the centennial of Frank's birth and coinciding with a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, it has been produced following the finest tritone printing from the 2008 edition for which Frank was personally involved in every step of the design and production. Frank's exacting vision, distinct style, and poetic insight changed the course of twentieth-century photography, and influenced subsequent generations of photographers, including Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Danny Lyon, Joel Meyerowitz, Ed Ruscha, and Garry Winogrand. Now extolled as one of the most groundbreaking photobooks of all time, The Americans remains as powerful and provocative as it was upon publication and continues to resonate with audiences today.

A classic collection of fifteen chilling horror tales by the author of Psycho

Pleasant Dreams (1960), published just a year after his more famous Psycho, finds Robert Bloch leaving behind his earlier Lovecraftian influences to find his own style and voice in this collection of masterful tales, in which the horror is often laced with an undercurrent of pitch-black humor.

In "Catnip," a young bully burns down the neighborhood witch's house and faces a grim reckoning with her black cat. "The Light-House" is a unique collaboration, in which Bloch completes a rare tale left unfinished by the great master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. "That Hell-Bound Train," winner of speculative fiction's most coveted prize, the Hugo Award, is the story of a pact with the devil in which readers may be surprised who gets the better end of the bargain. These and twelve other stories represent some of Bloch's best short fiction. This first-ever unabridged reprint of the original limited edition hardcover includes a new introduction by Joe R. Lansdale.

"Bloch is the high priest of chills, the demon prince of sweaty palms, the dark genius behind a thousand nightmares." - Harlan Ellison

"A hundred years from now, devotees of this genre will still be reading Robert Bloch." - Richard Matheson

Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote "Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde" as a "chilling shocker." He then burned the draft and, upon his wife's advice, rewrote it as the darkly complex tale it is today. Stark, skillfully woven, this fascinating novel explores the curious turnings of human character through the strange case of Dr. Jekyll, a kindly scientist who by night takes on his stunted evil self, Mr. Hyde. Anticipating modern psychology, "Jekyll And Hyde" is a brilliantly original study of man's dual nature -- as well as an immortal tale of suspense and terror. Published in 1866, "Jekyll And Hyde" was an instant success and brought Stevenson his first taste of fame. Though sometimes dismissed as a mere mystery story, the book has evoked much literary admirations. Vladimir Nabokov likened it to "Madame Bovary" and "Dead Souls" as "a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction."

A master manipulator accused of murder. An attorney sworn to defend her. Keera Duggan returns in a riveting novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

When Jenna Bernstein, disgraced wunderkind CEO of a controversial biotech company, is accused of murdering her former partner and lover, she turns to Seattle attorney Keera Duggan to defend her. Keera is more than a master chess player who brings her intuitive moves into court--she's Jenna's childhood friend. But considering their history, Keera knows that where Jenna goes, trouble follows.

Five years earlier, Keera's father successfully defended Jenna when she was tried for the killing of her company's chief scientist who threatened to go public with allegations of corporate fraud. Keera knows Jenna too well. When she was a kid, Keera saw Jenna for what she was: a manipulative and frighteningly controlling sociopath. Now, with only circumstantial evidence against Jenna, Keera is willing to bury any trepidation she might have to defend a woman she believes, this time, to be innocent.

As the investigation gets underway and disturbing questions arise, Keera puts her trust in a client who swears that this time she's telling nothing but the truth. If this is all just another devious game, Keera might be working to set a murderer free.

With more than a million copies in print, Robert Allen's Nothing Down for the '90s has probably helped more people achieve success in real estate than any book in history. Countless numbers of his readers are now financially independent and many actual millionaires attribute their wealth to his techniques. Why has this blockbuster bestseller been so successful? The answer is simple: it works! Now, in one of the most practical books you'll ever read, Robert Allen has created effective new wealth strategies for investing in real estate.

Real estate remains the one reliable investment in which profits can be made consistently, no matter where you live. Whether employment figures and stock prices are high or low, the real estate market never dries up -- it is one of the most dynamic income-producing vehicles ever created. The demand for housing will continue to be strong in most areas of the country for the foreseeable future. There will, of course, always be plenty of foreclosures, which are great opportunities to purchase properties cheaply. And, finally, mortgage qualification today is simpler than ever, with new mortgage packages that did not even exist twenty years ago.

Nothing Down for the 2000s shows you how to locate the best buys, deal with real estate agents, and manage properties, all with little -- or no -- money down. Discover step-by-step techniques and dynamic strategies to:

- Use real estate to build monthly income

- Finance bargain properties for equity or cash flow

- Guarantee and secure your retirement

- Find and profit from foreclosures before they are publicly listed

- Sell and trade for maximum gain

- Increase property value

- Use owner financing to create opportunities

- Obtain direct, legal tax cuts

- Profit from conversions

- Develop effective negotiation techniques, and much more

Excellent for beginners or experienced investors, Nothing Down for the 2000s is the key to generating low-risk, high-profit wealth and to a potential future of security and financial independence.

Driving to Michigan is a story about a family driving cross-country together. It features "boomer" parents who are traveling with their two adult "millennial" children in the confined space of a pickup truck. The story takes place during the time of the Covid pandemic, which adds another level of complexity and hilarity to the trek. While they are all together in the close quarters of the vehicle, the family converses with each other about all manner of topics and current events. This includes subject matter related to individual members of the family as well as to the world at large. Each family member has opportunities to express their own opinions about the world and their place in it. The other family members then have equal opportunity to respond and offer their own opinions. Naturally, boomers and millennials are not usually aligned on how they view and interact with each other or with the world. This is a recurring theme as this conflicted family drives from south to north and then back south again, transporting precious cargo on the way back home.

While they are traveling, the family covers all manner of topics like Covid, diversity-equity-inclusion, universal basic income, climate change, environmental-social-governance, partner abuse, drug abuse, pornography, body dysmorphia, bodybuilding, addiction, rehabilitation, death, mortuaries, funerals, and even redemption. t's a story that is highly relevant to families today. The author has written it so that it is both funny and tragic. He reminds you that, without a sense of humor and other coping skills, the runaway reality of addictive behavior and its aftermath can harm you or kill you or both. He also makes clear that your behavior can be equally damaging to the people around you who love and care for you the most.

There are so many families in America who have had to deal with the scourge of addiction. Addiction comes in many forms, some obvious and some much more subversive. With responsible families, addiction is not something you can ignore. If you do ignore it when it comes for your family, it's at the peril of you and your children. In Driving to Michigan, the author demonstrates how addiction can present itself as an irresistibly attractive and seductive pull to its negative core. He shows how it draws you in with a force of gravity and that, if you're not careful, it can pull you in past the point of no return. You can never let it pull you past that point. Addiction is a formidable demon with devastating force. Once someone is pulled into its orbit, it's nearly impossible to escape. When it comes for your family, what can you do? How do you prepare? How do you keep it away? And then, if it does break through your force field of protection, how do you fight it once it's inside? Unchecked, addiction will ravage everything and everyone you hold dear.

Driving to Michigan reminds us that addiction does not always present itself in an obvious manner in the early stages. It can be hidden, subterranean, lurking until it manifests out in the open with a vengeance. The author shows what it's like to be part of a family that is forced to deal with the unwanted reality of addictive behavior. He shows what kind of coping skills must be developed to deal with it, especially when it has overtaken other family members. By the end of the story the reader is offered a way of looking at the world. Is the universe a Hobbesian, malevolent, and deadly place, or is it a more benevolent and conscious place where you can develop yourself as a compassionate, sentient being. It offers a way to cope with tragedy and to maintain sanity in the midst of all the temptation and confusion of the world. The story demonstrates a life-altering test of emotional endurance and human perseverance by never giving up on your family.

From their acclaimed biographer, a final, powerful book about how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss, changing the course of American thought

In Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. For Emerson, it was the death of his young wife and, eleven years later, his five-year-old son; for Thoreau, it was the death of his brother; and for James, it was the death of his beloved cousin Minnie Temple. Filled with rich biographical detail and unforgettable passages from the journals and letters of Emerson, Thoreau, and James, these vivid and moving stories of loss and hard-fought resilience show how the writers' responses to these deaths helped spur them on to their greatest work, influencing the birth and course of American literature and philosophy.

In reaction to his traumatic loss, Emerson lost his Unitarian faith and found solace in nature. Thoreau, too, leaned on nature and its regenerative power, discovering that "death is the law of new life," an insight that would find expression in Walden. And James, following a period of panic and despair, experienced a redemptive conversion and new ideas that would drive his work as a psychologist and philosopher. As Richardson shows, all three emerged from their grief with a new way of seeing, one shaped by a belief in what Emerson called "the deep remedial force that underlies all facts."

An inspiring book about resilience and the new growth and creativity that can stem from devastating loss, Three Roads Back is also an extraordinary account of the hidden wellsprings of American thought.

Men's Work

Journeys of Strength, Compassion, and Transformation

"The heart of man is very much like the sea; it has its storms, it has its tides, and in its depths, it has its pearls too."

What does it mean to be a man in today's world? Men's Work explores this question through the voices of fourteen men who have embarked on a journey of self-discovery, growth, and transformation. In a society where traditional notions of masculinity are being challenged and redefined, these men share their personal stories of struggle and triumph, vulnerability and strength.

Through their experiences, they reveal how they've evolved into compassionate, caring, and thoughtful individuals, connected deeply to their masculine essence. Men's Work is a powerful testament to the enduring journey of becoming a man who is not just strong but also empathetic, not just driven, but also mindful. This book is a guide and an inspiration for anyone seeking to understand the evolving nature of masculinity in today's complex world.

Contributing Authors:

David Bennett, Wayne Carter, Ted Cutler, Devin Clark, Thomas Gelmi, Jason Honaker, Dave Kuhr, Mercedes Noam Kostuki, Robert Plagmann, Francis Rico, Don Ryan, Joel Sachs, John Spencer, Roy Underhill, Curtis Webster

This book contains not only extracts from the constitution of the Rosicrucian order, but a complete outline and explanation of all the customs, habits and terminology of the Rosicrucians, with diagrams and explanations of the symbols used in the teachings, an outline of the subjects taught, a dictionary of the terms, a complete presentation of the principles of cosmic consciousness, and biographical sketches of important individuals connected with the work. There are also special articles on the Great White Lodge and its existence, how to attain psychic illumination, the Rosicrucian code of life with twenty-nine Laws and regulation and a number of portraits of prominent mystics. Technical matter in the text and the numerous diagrams makes this book a real encyclopaedia of Rosicrucian explanations, aside from the dictionary of Rosicrucian terms.

New York Times Bestseller - Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award - Winner of the Saroyan International Prize for Writing - Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award - "The best outdoors book of the year." --Sierra Club

From a talent who's been compared to Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, David Quammen, and Jared Diamond, On Trails is a wondrous exploration of how trails help us understand the world--from invisible ant trails to hiking paths that span continents, from interstate highways to the Internet.

While thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own? Over the course of seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing.

Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic--the oft-overlooked trail--sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity's relationship with nature and technology shaped world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life?

Moor has the essayist's gift for making new connections, the adventurer's love for paths untaken, and the philosopher's knack for asking big questions. With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

'All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil.'

After taking an elixir created in his laboratory, mild mannered Dr Jekyll is transformed into the cruel and despicable Mr Hyde. Although seemingly harmless at first, things soon descend into chaos and Jekyll quickly realises there is only one way to stop Hyde. Stevenson's quintessential novella of the Victorian era epitomizes the conflict between psychology, science and religious morality, but is fundamentally a triumphant study of the duality of human nature.

Jim Hampton arrived in New Orleans, eager to escape the stress of quitting a lucrative law practice. Instead, he finds a city on edge as a tropical depression brews in the Gulf. The storm appears to be dredging up the odd and unusual like shells from the ocean floor. Shadowy figures appear in alleyways; mysterious voices seem to come from nowhere. Jim is skeptical of the locals' claims that these are warnings from victims of past storms. He had all but given up on belief in the supernatural. That is until he meets Myriam, who begins to restore the faith of his childhood. As the storm-turned-hurricane bears down on the city, Jim relies on that faith to counter a murderous cult chasing him through the darkest corners of the French Quarter. After a twisted journey of terror and revelation, Jim makes discoveries that will change his life forever.

From the author of The Old Ways and Underland, an "eloquent (and compulsively readable) reminder that, though we're laying waste the world, nature still holds sway over much of the earth's surface." --Bill McKibben

Winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature and a finalist for the Orion Book Award

Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses to himself as he embarks on a series of breathtaking journeys through some of the archipelago's most remarkable landscapes. He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history, memory, and landscape in a bewitching evocation of wildness and its vital importance.

In an Afghan village, a boy learns his letters under a mullah's stick and dreams of a life free of the Taliban; in Virginia, a cadet learns to read a map and lead a platoon into combat. Years later, on a wind-scoured ridgeline overlooking Zabul Province, helicopters roaring overhead, Afghan interpreter Abdulhaq Sodais and U.S. Army Lieutenant Spencer Sullivan must learn to trust each other if they hope to survive.

In 2021, when the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan, the Taliban reassert their rule, disappearing, torturing, and killing U.S. collaborators, including Abdulhaq's fellow interpreters. Yet Abdulhaq's applications for asylum in America are repeatedly denied.

With the Taliban closing in, Abdulhaq embarks on a cross-continental trek toward freedom. Caught up in the global refugee crisis, Abdulhaq must surrender himself to safehouses and human smugglers while Spencer fights his own war back in the U.S. to honor America's promise.

Not Our Problem, a war memoir and refugee story revealed in alternating voices, follows an Afghan refugee and an American soldier across borders and continents, tracing the long distance between a promise and its keeping-interrogating a world in crisis while celebrating how friendship can outlast the war that created it.

Robert Graysmith's New York Times bestselling account of the desperate hunt for a serial killer and his own investigation of California's unsolved Zodiac murders.

A sexual sadist, the Zodiac killer took pleasure in torture and murder. His first victims were a teenage couple, stalked and shot dead in a lovers' lane. After another slaying, he sent his first mocking note to authorities, promising he would kill more. The official tally of his victims was six. He claimed thirty-seven dead. The real toll may have reached fifty.

Robert Graysmith was on staff at the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when Zodiac first struck, triggering in the resolute reporter an unrelenting obsession with seeing the hooded killer brought to justice. In this gripping account of Zodiac's eleven-month reign of terror, Graysmith reveals hundreds of facts previously unreleased, including the complete text of the killer's letters.

''Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!'' Can young Jim Hawkins outwit Long John Silver in a battle of bravery on the high seas?

• Rediscover this adventure classic in this elegant Masterpiece Library Edition.
• Deluxe, durably bound keepsake volume.
• Embossed covers with iridescent highlighting.
• Reinforced cloth quarter-binding.
• Paper is acid-free and of archival quality.
• Cream-color pages with font, type size, and line spacing chosen for comfortable reading.
• Ribbon bookmark.
• A must for any library.
• Dimensions: 6-1/2'' wide x 9-1/4'' high.
• 224 pages.

Originally a magazine serial, Treasure Island, published in 1883, was Robert Louis Stevenson's (1850-1894) first success. He'd told a friend he wanted to write ''the best book about Buccaneers that can be had.''

From Robert Macfarlane, the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Underland--a celebration of the language of landscape and the power of words to shape our sense of place

For years now, the British writer Robert Macfarlane has been collecting place-words: terms for aspects of landscape, nature, and weather, drawn from dozens of languages and dialects of the British Isles. In this, his fifth book, Macfarlane brilliantly explores the linguistic and literary terrain of the British archipelago, from the Shetlands to Cornwall and from Cumbria to Suffolk, offering themed glossaries of hundreds of these rare, deeply local, poetical terms, organized by such geographical terrains as flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, woodlands, and underlands. Interspersed with this archive of place words are biographical essays in which Macfarlane writes of his favorite authors who have paid close attention to the natural world and who embody in their own work the huge richness of place language--from Barry Lopez and John Muir to Nan Shepard, J. A. Baker, and Roger Deakin. Landmarks is a book about the power of language and how it can become a way to know and love landscape, from a writer acclaimed for his own precision of utterance and distinctive, lyrical voice.

Frank's artist's book and love letter for his first wife exemplifies the poetic, virtuosic approach to photobooks that would come to define his storied career

Called "a poet with a camera" by Edward Steichen, Robert Frank (1924-2019) was one of many artists who searched for creative freedom in postwar Paris. It was while he was living in the city in 1949 that Frank produced a seminal volume in his oeuvre: a rare, personal photobook made for his then-girlfriend, artist Mary Frank (née Lockspeiser). In Mary's Book, the photographer chronicled his time in the city with his poetic, insightful and inquisitive eye, and experimented for the first time with combining text and image. This singular object proved an important bookmaking exercise for Frank, and remains as evidence of his maturing artistic vision, which led to one of the most influential photobooks of the 20th century, The Americans (1958).
Mary's Book reproduces this love letter in full for the first time, accompanied by insightful essays from leading scholars. This facsimile clothbound volume, inscribed "this is for you" in Frank's handwriting, re-creates the series of unbound pages nestled within one another, filled with handwritten notes and hand-cut prints. Readers can experience the Paris of the late 1940s through the visual harmonies of Robert Frank.

A new book of poems by the three-time poet laureate Robert Pinsky, a writer "rarely equalled" (Louise Glück).

Robert Pinsky, one of our most ambitious, inventive, and finely tuned poets, takes an original approach to the fraught, central matter of borders in Proverbs of Limbo, his first new book of poetry in eight years.

In this collection, the poet mines and maps limbal regions: those spaces between differences that can be at once creative and oppressive, enlightening and dark, exciting and fatal. For Pinsky, they include the familiar borders between demographic categories, as well as limbal realities that are more personal--clashing ways of understanding, personal history and world history, health and illness, freedom and compulsion, intimacy and community, personality and culture--all the countless variations of in-between.

The title Proverbs of Limbo tips its hat, at an angle, to the great poet William Blake's Proverbs of Hell. Blake's jagged, contrary proverbs resist, from within, the binary rights and wrongs of conventional Christianity: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"; "The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction."

Here, Pinsky embodies a different resistance to different conventions of understanding. "The Buddha," begins the title poem, "is a liquor store / On a busy corner."

A whistle-blower. A witch hunt. A cover-up. Secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, and government corruption. Welcome to 1890s Paris - From Robert Harris, the bestselling author of Conclave

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction - Winner of the American Library in Paris Book Award

Alfred Dreyfus has been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment on a far-off island, and publicly stripped of his rank. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, an ambitious military officer who believes in Dreyfus's guilt as staunchly as any member of the public. But when he is promoted to head of the French counter-espionage agency, Picquart finds evidence that a spy still remains at large in the military--indicating that Dreyfus is innocent. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.

In the heart of mid-1960s New York, Robert embarks on his freshman year at the School of Visual Arts, where he is introduced to the iconic Andy Warhol and his menagerie of fabulous crackpots. Robert finds another home in Max's Kansas City, the pulsating core of the city's creative underbelly, with superstars burning so bright they self-destruct right before his eyes.

Malcolm Morley, Robert's former instructor, secures a prestigious commission to paint England's Prime Minister and invites Robert to join him as an assistant. Robert's European escapades are filled with serendipitous meetings and collaborations with a cast of characters as vivid and dynamic as any he'd encountered in New York.

This speeding bullet thrill ride continues throughout Robert's career on Madison Avenue, becoming an executive creative director on top of his game at a world-acclaimed advertising agency, and he's front and center with the famous: Jennifer Connelly, Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger, Antonio Lopez, Bill King, Truman Capote, and more. A twist of fate introduces him to Don Hall, the love of his life, with whom he builds a remarkable existence. Together they become a major force in the fight against AIDS until tragedy strikes, leaving Robert to navigate the depths of grief and rediscover his purpose in Los Angeles.

With a twisted sense of humor and love for the absurd, Robert faces life's harshest trials-including multiple battles with cancer, surviving a cult kidnapping, and enduring the agony of loss during the AIDS crisis-his indomitable spirit and quirky humor seeing him through. Through a series of astoundingly outrageous and unexpected events, fueled by his unwavering dedication to his loved ones, Robert finds a reason to fight and move forward, determined to overcome his biggest challenge: to free himself from grief's paralyzing static, clinging to his soul.

With "characteristic wisdom and grace" (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author) Robert W. Merry explores a critical lesson about our nation that is as timely today as ever demonstrating how the country came apart during the enveloping slavery crisis of the 1850s.

The Mexican War brought vast new territories to the United States, which precipitated a growing crisis over slavery. The new territories seemed unsuitable for the type of agriculture that depended on slave labor, but they lay south of the line where slavery was permitted by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. The subject of expanding slavery to the new territories became a flash point between the North and South.

First came the 1850 compromise legislation, which strengthened the fugitive slave law and outraged the North. Then in 1854, Congress repealed the Missouri Compromise altogether, unleashing a violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas" over whether that territory would become free or enslaved. The 1857 Dred Scott decision--abrogating any rights of African Americans, enslaved or free--further outraged the North. And John Brown's ill-planned 1859 attack at the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry stirred anger and fear throughout the South.

Through a decade, the divide between the North and the South widened until disunion became inevitable. Then, in December 1860, in the wake of the Lincoln election, South Carolina finally seceded, leading the South of the Union. Beginning with the deaths of the great second-generation figures of American history--Calhoun, Webster, and Clay--Decade of Disunion tells the story of this great American struggle through the aims, fears, and maneuvers of the subsequent prominent figures at the center of the drama, with particular attention to the key players from Massachusetts and South Carolina.

Decade of Disunion is a "thoughtful and accomplished" (The Wall Street Journal) look at one of the most tumultuous times of American history, offering us a sobering reminder that democracy is not self-sustaining--it must be constantly and carefully tended.

No environment is more challenging for militaries than a city. No form of combat is more inherently destructive than urban warfare. And yet too often, militaries are both unprepared for the challenges of cities and unable to avoid being pulled into brutal urban fights. In an increasingly urban world, the future character of conflict will also be increasingly urban. This book sets out to understand that future.