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The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike.

The 14th century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.

France has influenced the course of history in Europe and the world for centuries. Considered one of the world’s most beautiful countries and home to some of the world’s most visited tourist locations, France has enthralled and fascinated the people who’ve discovered that, in many ways, the history of France encompasses both the good and bad in the human character.

On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the first great revolution of the twentieth century began as working-class men and women occupied buildings throughout Dublin, Ireland, including the general post office on O’Connell Street. Among the commoners in the GPO was a young staff captain of the Irish Volunteers named Michael Collins. He was joined a day later by a fourteen-year-old messenger boy, Eoin Kavanagh.

In The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Thomas Childers shows how the young Hitler became passionately political and anti-Semitic as he lived on the margins of society. Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty, he found his voice and drew a loyal following.

The harrowing story of one of history's most compelling military campaigns. In An Army at Dawn—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the American and British armies...

The astounding memoir of a World War II veteran who spent three and a half years in the slave-labor camps made famous by The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Loet Velmans was 17 when the Germans invaded Holland. He and his family fled to London on the Dutch Coast Guard cutter Seaman’s Hope and then sailed to the Dutch East Indies - now Indonesia - where he joined the Dutch army. In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the archipelago and made prisoners of the Dutch soldiers. For the next three and a half years Velmans and his fellow POWs toiled in slave-labor camps.

Ten years after the walk across Central Asia and Afghanistan that he memorialized in The Places in Between, Rory Stewart set out on a new journey, traversing a thousand miles between England and Scotland. Stewart was raised along the border of the two countries, the frontier taking on poignant significance in his understanding of what it means to be both Scottish and English, of his relationship with his father, who's lived on this land his whole life, and of his ties to the rich history and culture of the region.

In Cypria, named after a lost Cypriot epic which was the prequel to The Odyssey, British Cypriot writer Alex Christofi writes a deeply personal, lyrical history of the island of Cyprus, from the era of goddesses and mythical beasts to the present day. This sprawling, evocative and poetic book begins with the legend of the cyclops and the storytelling at the heart of the Mediterranean culture. Christofi travels to salt lakes, crusader castles, mosques and the eerie town deserted at the start of the 1974 war.

The fighting that raged in the East during the First World War was every bit as fierce as that on the Western Front, but the titanic clashes between three towering empires - Russia, Austro-Hungary, and Germany - remains a comparatively unknown facet of the Great War. With the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war in 2014, Collision of Empires is a timely expose of the bitter fighting on this forgotten front - a clash that would ultimately change the face of Europe forever.

The 25 years between the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and the Bourbon Restoration after Napoleon in 1814 is an astonishing period in world history. This era shook the foundations of the old world and marked a permanent shift for politics, religion, and society - not just for France, but for all of Europe. An account of the events alone reads like something out of a thrilling novel.

A murder in Belfast of gangland's most wanted man, Robbie Lawlor, uncovers a web of betrayal that spans out across the Irish underworld and beyond. Follow a bloody trail that leads all the way into the heart of one of the worst gang feuds Ireland has ever seen which culminates in the Narco style dismemberment of a teenage boy, Keane Mulready Woods. And as the curtain is pulled back on the inner workings of the world of organised crime, a cast of ruthless characters take centre stage for their place in a double-cross plot that feels like a fast-paced thriller.

When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired.

Richard Freiherr von Rosen was a highly decorated Wehrmacht soldier and outstanding panzer commander. After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, he led a company of Tigers at Kursk. Later he led a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank). Only 489 of these King Tiger tanks were ever built.

Using his own experiences, log books, and correspondence with other U-boat crewmen, Hans Goebeler offers rich and personal details about what life was like in the German Navy under Hitler. Since his first and last posting was to U-505, Goebeler's perspective of the crew, commanders, and war patrols paints a vivid and complete portrait unlike any other to come out of the Kriegsmarine. He witnessed it all, from deadly sabotage efforts that almost sunk the boat to the tragic suicide of the only U-boat commander who took his life during World War II.

No city has had as powerful and as enduring an impact on Western civilization as London. But what made the city the perfect environment for so many great developments? How did London endure the sweeping historical revolutions and disasters without crumbling? Find the answers to these questions and more in these 24 fascinating lectures.

The effects of the Italian Renaissance are still with us today, from the incomparable paintings of Leonardo da Vinci to the immortal writings of Petrarch and Machiavelli. But why was there such an artistic, cultural, and intellectual explosion in Italy at the start of the 14th century? Why did it occur in Italy? And why in certain Italian city-states such as Florence? Professor Bartlett probes these questions and more in 36 dynamic lectures.

Cecil John Rhodes became one of the most influential people in the history of the British Empire. He made a fortune in South Africa by leading the world's most important diamond mining company, De Beers. While he was a busy entrepreneur, he was also a member of the Cape Colony's legislature and served as prime minister from 1890 to 1896, a key period for the development of racial discrimination.

In German-occupied East Africa during World War I, British forces have arrived. In defiance of his orders, German military commander Paul von Lettow enlists soldiers, civilians, and African rebels to fight against the British, forming the first modern guerrilla uprising of the time. Amid his political battles, Lettow is embroiled in a romantic relationship with an American woman who loves him, but who objects to his war.

The finest fighting force in the world. Escape. Evade. Survive. Repeat. Seven gripping tales of overcoming the impossible. Arguably the finest special forces troops of the Second World War, the SAS was the jewel in the British military crown. But the near-impossible nature of their heroic missions sometimes left them trapped behind enemy lines, the enemy closing and forced to endure the unendurable. But the unendurable is all in a day’s work for these magnificent seven. Incredible odds. Outstanding bravery. Real adventure.