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As an international war correspondent and radio commentator, William L. Shirer didn't just research the fall of France. He was there. In just six weeks, he watched the Third Reich topple one of the world's oldest military powers - and institute a rule of terror and paranoia. Based on in-person conversation with the leaders, diplomats, generals, and ordinary citizens who both shaped the events of this time and lived through them on a daily basis, Shirer shapes a compelling account of historical events - without losing sight of the personal experience.

“A dynamic group biography studded with design history and high-society dash . . . [This] elegantly wrought narrative bears the Cartier hallmark.”—The Economist The “astounding” (André Leon Talley) story of the family behind the Cartier empire and the three brothers who turned their...

From the bestselling author of The Storm Before the Storm and host of the Revolutions podcast comes the thrilling story of the Marquis de Lafayette’s lifelong quest to defend the principles of liberty and equality Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette...

This is the incredible true story of the greatest spy you’ve never heard of - as told to the author by the woman herself. At the outbreak of World War Two, Nancy Wake’s glamorous life in the South of France seemed far removed from the fighting. But when her husband was called up for military service, Nancy felt she had just as much of a duty to fight for freedom. By 1943, her fearless undercover work even in the face of personal tragedy had earned her a place on the Gestapo’s "most wanted" list.

This famous treatise began as a letter to a young French friend who asked Edmund Burke’s opinion on whether France’s new ruling class would succeed in creating a better order. Doubtless the friend expected a favorable reply, but Burke was suspicious of certain tendencies of the Revolution from the start and perceived that the revolutionaries were actually subverting the true "social order". Blending history with principle and graceful imagery with profound practical maxims, this book is one of the most influential political treatises in the history of the world.

A brand new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a...

Josephine's life story was as turbulent as the age, an era of revolution and social upheaval, of the guillotine and of frenzied hedonism. With telling psychological depth and compelling literary grace, Carolly Erickson brings the complex, charming, ever resilient Josephine to life in this memorable portrait, one that carries the reader from the sensual richness of her childhood in the tropics to her final lonely days at Malmaison.

The Three Musketeers are remembered for their courage, loyalty, and legendary adventures. But behind the romance of duels and royal intrigue lay a quieter, more disciplined world—one shaped by routine, silence, and service. This audiobook steps away from the noise of heroism and into the everyday reality of 17th-century France.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a must-listen narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness.

Library Journal Best Books of 2025 * New York Public Library Best Books of 2025 * Hyperallergic Favorite Art Books of 2025 * Publishers Weekly Best Books of Summer 2025 * BookBub Best Non-Fiction Release of the Season * Newsday’s Top Must-Read Book for Summer * Christian Science Monitor Best...

The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.

In this thrilling road trip from "Peking to Paris", a woman tries to save her car, her marriage, and her confidence from breaking down. In May 2007, leaving China’s Great Wall is Car 84, one of 128 antique autos racing in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. It’s guided by one Dina Bennett, the world’s least likely navigator: a daydreamer prone to carsickness, riddled with self-doubt, and married to a thrill-seeking perfectionist who is half-human, half-racecar. What could possibly go wrong?

From the moment Peter Mayle and his wife, Jennie, uprooted their lives in England and crossed the Channel permanently, they never looked back. Here the beloved author of A Year in Provence pays tribute to the most endearing and enduring aspects of his life in France—the charming and indelible...

Brought to you by Penguin. In six weeks in 1940, France was over-run by German troops and surrendered. One junior French general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18 June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally to him in London. At that moment...

> The Longest Day is Cornelius Ryan’s unsurpassed account of D-day, a book that endures as a masterpiece of military history. In this compelling tale of courage and heroism, glory and tragedy, Ryan painstakingly re-creates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism.

In December 1943, with the rising realization that the Allies are planning to invade Fortress Europe, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is assigned the title of General Inspector for the Atlantic Wall. His mission is to assess their readiness. His superior, theater commander, crusty old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had led the Reich to victory in the early years of the war, is now fed up with the whole Nazi regime. He lives comfortably in a plush villa in a quiet Paris suburb, waiting for the inevitable Allied invasion that will bring about their final defeat.

The first of two ground-breaking volumes on the Waterloo campaign, this audiobook is based upon a detailed analysis of sources old and new in four languages. It highlights the political stresses between the Allies, the problems of feeding and paying for the Allied forces assembling in Belgium during the undeclared war and how a strategy was thrashed out. It studies the neglected topic of how the Allies beyond the Rhine hampered the plans of Blücher and Wellington, thus allowing Napoleon to snatch the initiative from them.

An NPR Best Book of 2017 Heiress to the nearly forty-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the fourteenth wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At ninety-four, she was embroiled in what has...

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of personal monarchy, when the close friendship or petty feuding between kings and queens could determine the course of history. The Capetians of France and the Angevins of England waged war, made peace, and intermarried. In this lively history, Catherine Hanley traces the great clashes, and occasional friendships, of the two dynasties. Along the way, she emphasizes the fascinating and influential women of the houses—including Eleanor of Aquitaine—and shows how personalities and familial bonds shaped the fate of two countries.

Even after the legendary evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940 there were still large British formations fighting the Germans alongside their French allies. After mounting a vigorous counterattack at Abbeville and then engaging a tough defense along the Somme, the British were forced to conduct a second evacuation from the ports of Le Havre, Cherbourg, Brest, and St. Nazaire. Case Red captures the drama of the final three weeks of military operations in France in June 1940.