Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 7565 items
The Cleopatras
By Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. 2024
'A thrilling biography, filled with the imperial ambitions and merciless intrigues' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORECleopatra: lover, seductress, and Egypt's greatest queen.A…
woman more myth than history, immortalized in poetry, drama, music, art, and film.She captivated Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, the two greatest Romans of the day, and died in a blaze of glory, with an asp clasped to her breast - or so the legend tells us.But the real-life story of the historical Cleopatra VII is even more compelling. She was the last of seven Cleopatras who ruled Egypt before it was subsumed into the Roman Empire. The seven Cleopatras were the powerhouses of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, the Macedonian family who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great. Emulating the practices of the gods, the Cleopatras married their full-blood brothers and dominated the normally patriarchal world of politics and warfare. These extraordinary women keep a close grip on power in the wealthiest country of the ancient world.Each of the seven Cleopatras wielded absolute power. Their ruthless, single-minded, focus on dominance - generation after generation - resulted in extraordinary acts of betrayal, violence, and murder in the most malfunctional dynasty in history. Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones offers fresh and powerful insight into the real story of the Cleopatras, and the beguiling and tragic legend of the last queen of Egypt.Praise for The Cleopatras:'A real treat for those who relish epic histories of family power' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE'Admirably readable' ROBIN LANE FOX'Unlocks the fascinating history of many queens' KARA COONEY 'A vivid account' ADRIAN DODSONThe Cleopatras
By Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. 2024
'A thrilling biography, filled with the imperial ambitions and merciless intrigues' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORECleopatra: lover, seductress, and Egypt's greatest queen.A…
woman more myth than history, immortalized in poetry, drama, music, art, and film.She captivated Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, the two greatest Romans of the day, and died in a blaze of glory, with an asp clasped to her breast - or so the legend tells us.But the real-life story of the historical Cleopatra VII is even more compelling. She was the last of seven Cleopatras who ruled Egypt before it was subsumed into the Roman Empire. The seven Cleopatras were the powerhouses of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, the Macedonian family who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great. Emulating the practices of the gods, the Cleopatras married their full-blood brothers and dominated the normally patriarchal world of politics and warfare. These extraordinary women keep a close grip on power in the wealthiest country of the ancient world.Each of the seven Cleopatras wielded absolute power. Their ruthless, single-minded, focus on dominance - generation after generation - resulted in extraordinary acts of betrayal, violence, and murder in the most malfunctional dynasty in history. Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones offers fresh and powerful insight into the real story of the Cleopatras, and the beguiling and tragic legend of the last queen of Egypt.Praise for The Cleopatras:'A real treat for those who relish epic histories of family power' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE'Admirably readable' ROBIN LANE FOX'Unlocks the fascinating history of many queens' KARA COONEY 'A vivid account' ADRIAN DODSONOne Last Summer Before the Revolution
By Anna Peicheva. 2024
Nature was the first to rebel. The summer of 1916 roared with thunderstorms, wind in the face, and icy rain…
from the sky. But people barely noticed the weather. War was on everyone's lips, interfering with creativity, study, love, life, dividing society into two camps. Revolution already loomed in the electrified air; yet the Tsar, who had unleashed the war, did not notice. He trusted his own newspapers, followed battles in the movies, and worried most about his family... Here is a documentary cross-section of the epoch through the letters, emotions, and thoughts of the participants; but we also rise above the fray - the finest threads connecting all our heroes are especially visible from above: from the emperor to the poet, from the military doctor to the poor peasant woman. These threads intertwined into the fuse of the future revolution, ignited by the summer lightning of 1916. The book is inspired by the work of German writer Florian Illies "1913: The Summer of the Century."Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
By Jeff Guinn. 2009
Previous books and films have emphasized the supposed glamour of America's most notorious criminal couple, thus contributing to ongoing mythology.…
The real story is completely different—and far more fascinating.With newly discovered material, bestselling author Jeff Guin tells the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more importantly, fame. The timing for their first heist could not have been better, when most Americans, reeling from the Great Depression, were desperate for escapist entertainment. Thanks to newsreels, true crime magazines, and new-fangled wire services that transmitted scandalous photos of Bonnie smoking a cigar to every newspaper in the nation, the Barrow Gang members almost instantly became household names. In the minds of the public, they were cool, calculating bandits who robbed banks and killed cops with equal impunity. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Clyde and Bonnie were perhaps the most inept crooks ever, and their two-year crime spree was as much a reign of error as it was of terror. Lacking the sophistication to plot robberies of big-city banks, the Barrow Gang preyed mostly on small mom-and-pop groceries and service stations. Even at that, they often came up empty-handed and were reduced to breaking into gum machines for meal money. Both were crippled, Clyde from cutting off two of his toes while in prison and Bonnie from a terrible car crash caused by Clyde's reckless driving. Constantly on the run from the law, they lived like animals, camping out in their latest stolen car, bathing in creeks, and dining on cans of cold beans and Vienna sausages. Yet theirs was a genuine love story. Their devotion to each other was as real as their overblown reputation as criminal masterminds was not. Now, thanks in great part to surviving Barrow and Parker family members and collectors of criminal memorabilia who provided Jeff Guinn with access to never-before-published material, we finally have the real story of Bonnie and Clyde and their troubled times, delivered with cinematic sweep and unprecedented insight by a masterful storyteller.Ghosts in a Photograph: A Chronicle
By Myrna Kostash. 2022
In Ghosts in a Photograph, award-winning nonfiction writer Myrna Kostash delves into the lives of her grandparents, all of whom…
moved from Galicia, now present-day Ukraine, to Alberta at the turn of the twentieth century. Discovering a packet of family mementos, Kostash begins questioning what she knows about her extended families’ pasts and whose narrative is allowed to prevail in Canada.This memoir, however, is not just a personal story, but a public one of immigration, partisan allegiance, and the stark differences in how two sets of families survive in a new country: one as homesteaders, the other as working-class Edmontonians. Working within the gaps in history—including the unsolved murder in Ukraine of her great uncle—Kostash uses her remarkable acumen as a writer and researcher to craft a probable narrative to interrogate the idea of straightforward and singular-voiced pasts and the stories we tell ourselves about where we come from.Rich in detail and propelled by vital curiosity, Ghosts in a Photograph is a determined, compelling, and multifaceted family chronicle.Fire in the Hole!: The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success
By Bob Parsons. 2024
In Fire in the Hole!, Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy, shares his story of extraordinary success as a self-made serial…
entrepreneur.Born in the tough town of East Baltimore to parents who were inveterate gamblers, billionaire philanthropist Bob Parsons' early years were marked by hardship and financial struggle. While he vowed his own children would never lack for anything, never did he imagine the wealth he would one day amass as the founder of Parsons Technology, GoDaddy, PXG Golf, and YAM Worldwide. In his literary debut, Fire in the Hole!, this extraordinary entrepreneur recounts the exploits of his youth, his hellish days at the mercy of Catholic school nuns, his harrowing tour of combat duty in Vietnam as a US Marine, his pioneering contributions to the software and internet industries, and his latest ventures in power sports, golf, real estate, and marketing. Along the way, we witness his remarkable resilience as he copes with his mother&’s mental illness and his father&’s struggles, battles PTSD resulting from both his childhood and war traumas, and mounts a quest to find new and effective treatments for himself and others who suffer from this affliction. He strongly supports veterans organizations, and believing in the concept of paying it forward, has awarded grants to more than ninety-six charities and organizations worldwide through the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation. Perhaps the only thing that has come easy to Parsons is his gift for storytelling. His reflections are at turns heartbreaking, heartwarming, hilarious, and inspiring. If ever there were a story about a self-made man whose wealth can be measured as much by the contents of his heart as by the contents of his bank account, this is it. More than anything, Fire in the Hole! is a "can't put down," damn good read!Hypochondria: What's Behind the Hidden Costs of Healthcare in America
By Hal Rosenbluth, Marnie Hall. 2024
A hypochondriac CEO shares his journey through the broken American healthcare system, analyzing its costliness and proposing a solution.New York…
Times–bestselling author Hal Rosenbluth is the maverick executive behind Take Care Health Systems, the former president of Walgreens Health and Wellness and the now chairman and CEO of New Ocean Health Solutions. He is also a hypochondriac who amassed 227 medical claims in just two years. In Hypochondria: What&’s Behind the Hidden Costs of Healthcare in America, Rosenbluth and co-author Marnie Hall venture through Rosenbluth&’s 227 claims. They take a brutally honest, but humorous journey from the evolution of Rosenbluth&’s global management firm to his onset of Type 2 Diabetes, a tale woven with sleeping meds, nocturnal PB&J sandwiches, and anti-anxiety drugs; to founding a company with the youngest Johnson & Johnson president and his most recent entry to digital healthcare.Hypochondria is not just a memoir. Along the way, the authors address the broader impact that each stakeholder—health plans, providers, health systems, and big pharma—have on the nation&’s overstressed healthcare system. The book also offers a well-rounded guide to the traditional and not-so-typical solutions that can help people manage illness anxiety. Entertaining and enlightening, Hypochondria opens a new dialogue about how the U.S. can get better at managing health and arresting costs of care, which includes promoting greater discussion amongst patients, families, providers, employers, and healthcare executives. This book should serve as a beacon for change, unraveling the commercialization of healthcare, dissecting Big Pharma&’s role in America&’s pill-popping culture, and proposing alternative, disruptive solutions.Zhou Enlai: A Life
By Jian Chen. 2024
The definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, the first premier and preeminent diplomat of the People’s Republic of China, who protected…
his country against the excesses of his boss—Chairman Mao.Zhou Enlai spent twenty-seven years as premier of the People’s Republic of China and ten as its foreign minister. He was the architect of the country’s administrative apparatus and its relationship to the world, as well as its legendary spymaster. Richard Nixon proclaimed him “the greatest statesman of our era.” Yet Zhou has always been overshadowed by Chairman Mao. Chen Jian brings Zhou into the light, offering a nuanced portrait of his complex life as a revolutionary, a master diplomat, and a man with his own vision and aspirations who did much to make China, as well as the larger world, what it is today.Born to a declining mandarin family in 1898, Zhou received a classical education and as a teenager spent time in Japan. As a young man, driven by the desire for China’s development, Zhou embraced the communist revolution as a vehicle of China’s salvation. He helped Mao govern through a series of transformations, including the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Yet, as Chen shows, Zhou was never a committed Maoist. His extraordinary political and bureaucratic skill, combined with his centrist approaches, enabled him to mitigate the enormous damage caused by Mao’s radicalism.When Zhou died in 1976, the PRC that we know of was not yet visible on the horizon; he never saw glistening twenty-first-century Shanghai or the broader emergence of Chinese capitalism. But it was Zhou’s work that shaped the nation whose influence and power are today felt in every corner of the globe.Gunboat Command: The Biography of Lieutenant Commander Robert Hichens DSO* DSC** RNVR
By Antony Hichens. 2014
This biography draws heavily on the personal diaries of the subject, Robert Hichens (or Hitch as he was universally known).After…
a brief description of his early life, time at Oxford, his motor racing achievements (including trophies at Le Mans in his Aston Martin) and RN training, the book focuses on his exceptional wartime experiences. Hitch was the most highly decorated RNVR officer of the war with two DSOs, three DSCs and three Mentions in Despatches. He was recommended for a posthumous VC. We read of his early days in vulnerable minesweepers and the Dunkirk Dynamo operation, (his first DSC).In late 1940 he joined Coastal Forces serving in the very fast MGBs, soon earning his own command and shortly after command of his Flotilla. He was the first to capture an E-Boat. His successful leadership led to many more successes and his reputation as a fearless and dynamic leader remains a legend today.The book contains detailed and graphic accounts of running battles against the more heavily armed E-boats. Tragically he was killed in action in April 1943, having refused promotion and a job ashore.Louis XIV: The Real Sun King
By Aurora Von Goeth, Jules Harper. 2018
A concise, straightforward biography of the seventeenth-century French monarch and his seventy-two-year reign. Innovator. Tyrant. Consummate showman. Passionate lover of…
women. After the death of King Louis XIII in 1643, the French crown went to his first-born son and heir, four-year old Louis XIV. In the extraordinary seventy-two years that followed, Louis le Grand—France&’s self-styled &“Sun King&”—ruled France and its people, leaving his unique and permanent mark on history and shaping fashion, art, culture and architecture like none other before. This frank and concise book gives the reader a personal glimpse into the Sun King&’s life and times as we follow his rise in power and influence: from a miraculous royal birth no one ever expected to the rise of king as absolute monarch, through the evolution of the glittering Château de Versailles, scandals and poison, four wars and many more mistresses . . . right up to his final days. Absolute monarch. Appointed by God. This is Louis XIV, the man. We will uncover his glorious and not-so-glorious obsessions. His debilitating health issues. His drive and passions. And we will dispel some myths, plus reveal the people in his intimate circle working behind the scenes on the Louis propaganda machine to ensure his legacy stayed in the history books forever. This easy-to-read narrative is accompanied by a plethora of little-known artworks, so if you&’re a Louis XIV fan or student, or just eager to know more about France&’s most famous king, we invite you to delve into court life of seventeenth-century French aristocracy, the period known as Le Grand Siècle—&“The Grand Century.&”How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War
By Allen Packwood. 2019
An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill&’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston…
Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain&’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country&’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK&’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill&’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain&’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.Lady Under Fire on the Western Front: The Great War Letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding MM
By Andrew Hallam, Nicola Hallam. 2010
When Britain went to war in 1914 many people rallied to the cause, determined to join the colors or be…
useful in some other way. Lady Dorothie Mary Evelyn Feilding was one of the latter. ‘Lady D spent almost three years on the Western Front in Belgium driving ambulances for the Munro Motor Ambulance Corps, an all-volunteer unit. During her time in Flanders her bravery was such that she received the Belgian Order of Leopold, the French Croix de Guerre and was the first woman to be awarded the British Military Medal. She wrote home to Newnham Paddox, near Rugby, almost daily. Her letters reflect the mundane, tragedy and horror of war and also the tensions of being a woman at the front contending with shells, gossip, funding, lice, vehicle maintenance and inconvenient marriage proposals. Though Dorothie was the daughter of an Earl and from a privileged upbringing she had an easy attitude that transcended social boundaries and that endeared her to all that she came in to contact with whether royalty or the ordinary fighting man.To Hell and Back: The Classic Memoir of World War II by America's Most Decorated Soldier
By Audie Murphy. 1949
The classic bestselling war memoir by the most decorated American soldier in World War II. Originally published in 1949, To…
Hell and Back was a smash bestseller for fourteen weeks and later became a major motion picture starring Audie Murphy as himself. Many decades later, this classic wartime memoir is just as gripping as it was then. Desperate to see action but rejected by both the marines and paratroopers because he was too short, Murphy eventually found a home with the infantry. He fought through campaigns in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Although still under twenty-one years old on V-E Day, he was credited with having killed, captured, or wounded 240 Germans. He emerged from the war as America's most decorated soldier, having received twenty-one medals, including our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Hell and Back is a powerfully real portrayal of American GI's at war.In a narrative both panoramic and intimate, Tom Chaffin captures the four-decade friendship of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de…
Lafayette.Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette shared a singularly extraordinary friendship, one involved in the making of two revolutions—and two nations. Jefferson first met Lafayette in 1781, when the young French-born general was dispatched to Virginia to assist Jefferson, then the state’s governor, in fighting off the British. The charismatic Lafayette, hungry for glory, could not have seemed more different from Jefferson, the reserved statesman. But when Jefferson, a newly-appointed diplomat, moved to Paris three years later, speaking little French and in need of a partner, their friendship began in earnest. As Lafayette opened doors in Paris and Versailles for Jefferson, so too did the Virginian stand by Lafayette as the Frenchman became inexorably drawn into the maelstrom of his country's revolution. Jefferson counseled Lafayette as he drafted TheDeclaration of the Rights of Man and remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution, even after he returned to America in 1789. By 1792, however, the upheaval had rendered Lafayette a man without a country, locked away in a succession of Austrian and Prussian prisons. The burden fell on Jefferson, along with Lafayette's other friends, to win his release. The two would not see each other again until 1824, in a powerful and emotional reunion at Jefferson’s Monticello. Steeped in primary sources, Revolutionary Brothers casts fresh light on this remarkable, often complicated, friendship of two extraordinary men.Royalty, revolution, and scientific mystery---the dramatic true account of the fate of Louis XVII, son of Marie Antoinette, and an…
extraordinary detective story that spans more than two hundred years.Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated and their fate thrust into the hands of the revolutionaries who wished to destroy the monarchy.In 1793, when Marie Antoinette was beheaded at the guillotine, she left her adored eight-year-old son imprisoned in the Temple Tower. Far from inheriting a throne, the orphaned boy-king had to endure the hostility and abuse of a nation. Two years later, the revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing.Immediately, rumors spread that the prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. As with the tragedies of England's princes in the Tower and the Romanov archduchess Anastasia, countless "brothers" soon approached Louis-Charles's older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the revolution. They claimed not only the dauphin's name, but also his inheritance. Several "princes" were plausible, but which, if any, was the real heir to the French throne?The Lost King of France is a moving and dramatic tale that interweaves a pivotal moment in France's history with a compelling detective story that involves pretenders to the crown, royalist plots and palace intrigue, bizarre legal battles, and modern science. The quest for the truth continued into the twenty-first century, when, thanks to DNA testing, the strange odyssey of a stolen heart found within the royal tombs brought an exciting conclusion to the two-hundred-year-old mystery of the lost king of France.Abigail Adams: A Biography
By Phyllis Lee Levin. 2001
Wife of one president and mother of another, Abigail Adams was an extraordinary woman living at an extraordinary time in…
American history. A tireless letter writer and diarist, her penetrating and often caustic impressions of most of the major persons of her day--including Ben Franklin, George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and King George III, among others--provide one of the best first-hand accounts of the American Revolution. This biography, researched and written over a fourteen-year period, is a fascinating portrait of a brilliant woman at the center of the founding of the American republic.The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science
By Philip Ball. 2006
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, who called himself Paracelsus, stands at the cusp of medieval and modern times. A…
contemporary of Luther, an enemy of the medical establishment, a scourge of the universities, an alchemist, an army surgeon, and a radical theologian, he attracted myths even before he died. His fantastic journeys across Europe and beyond were said to be made on a magical white horse, and he was rumored to carry the elixir of life in the pommel of his great broadsword. His name was linked with Faust, who bargained with the devil.Who was the man behind these stories? Some have accused him of being a charlatan, a windbag who filled his books with wild speculations and invented words. Others claim him as the father of modern medicine. Philip Ball exposes a more complex truth in The Devil's Doctor—one that emerges only by entering into Paracelsus's time. He explores the intellectual, political, and religious undercurrents of the sixteenth century and looks at how doctors really practiced, at how people traveled, and at how wars were fought. For Paracelsus was a product of an age of change and strife, of renaissance and reformation. And yet by uniting the diverse disciplines of medicine, biology, and alchemy, he assisted, almost in spite of himself, in the birth of science and the emergence of the age of rationalism. "Ball produces a vibrant, original portrait of a man of contradictions:" - Publishers WeeklyMad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond
By Jane Maas. 2012
"Breezy and salty." -The New York Times"Hilarious! Honest, intimate, this book tells it as it was." -Mary Wells Lawrence, author…
of A Big Life (In Advertising) and founding president of Wells Rich Greene "Breezy and engaging [though] ...The chief value of Mad Women is the witness it bears for younger women about the snobbery and sexism their mothers and grandmothers endured as the price of entry into mid-century American professional life." -The Boston Globe"A real-life Peggy Olson, right out of Mad Men." -Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & MatherWhat was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s - that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world by Jane Maas, a copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male jungle depicted in the hit show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally "yes." Her book, based on her own experiences and countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he'd used to find "a date" for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather's annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe
By Paula Fox. 2005
In this elegant and affecting companion to her "extraordinary" memoir, Borrowed Finery, a young writer flings herself into a Europe…
ravaged by the Second World War (The Boston Globe) In 1946, Paula Fox walked up the gangplank of a partly reconverted Liberty with the classic American hope of finding experience—or perhaps salvation—in Europe. She was twenty-two years old, and would spend the next year moving among the ruins of London, Warsaw, Paris, Prague, Madrid, and other cities as a stringer for a small British news service. In this lucid, affecting memoir, Fox describes her movements across Europe's scrambled borders: unplanned trips to empty castles and ruined cathedrals, a stint in bombed-out Warsaw in the midst of the Communist election takeovers, and nights spent in apartments here and there with distant relatives, friends of friends, and in shabby pensions with little heat, each place echoing with the horrors of the war. A young woman alone, with neither a plan nor a reliable paycheck, Fox made her way with the rest of Europe as the continent rebuilt and rediscovered itself among the ruins. Long revered as a novelist, Fox won over a new generation of readers with her previous memoir, Borrowed Finery. Now, with The Coldest Winter, she recounts another chapter of a life seemingly filled with stories—a rare, unsentimental glimpse of the world as seen by a writer at the beginning of an illustrious career.Betsy Ross and the Making of America
By Marla R. Miller. 2010
A richly woven biography of the beloved patriot Betsy Ross, and an enthralling portrait of everyday life in Revolutionary War-era…
PhiladelphiaBetsy Ross and the Making of America is the first comprehensively researched and elegantly written biography of one of America's most captivating figures of the Revolutionary War. Drawing on new sources and bringing a fresh, keen eye to the fabled creation of "the first flag," Marla R. Miller thoroughly reconstructs the life behind the legend. This authoritative work provides a close look at the famous seamstress while shedding new light on the lives of the artisan families who peopled the young nation and crafted its tools, ships, and homes.Betsy Ross occupies a sacred place in the American consciousness, and Miller's winning narrative finally does her justice. This history of the ordinary craftspeople of the Revolutionary War and their most famous representative will be the definitive volume for years to come.