In 2015 Time magazine named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its Person of the Year, leaving little doubt that the woman who has held control of the European Union and successfully negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin is one of the most crucial and formidable fixtures in contemporary politics. This book is the story of the political titan's ascent from complete obscurity to become one of the most influential leaders in the world, responsible...

In a faraway land, a young warrior must protect an emperor from an uprising and train an inexperienced army, with assistance from his Ranger friends.

General Francisco Franco came to prominence during the days of David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson and was able to cling to absolute political power until his death in 1975. Over his fifty-year career, he became one of the four dictators who changed the face of Europe during the twentieth century. Franco joined the Spanish Army when he was barely fifteen years old. In 1926 he became the youngest general in Europe and, driven by an astonishing sense...

Fidel Castro is perhaps the most charismatic and controversial head of state in modern times. A dictatorial pariah to some, he has become a hero and inspiration for many of the world's poor, defiantly charting an independent and revolutionary path for Cuba over nearly half a century. Numerous attempts have been made to get Castro to tell his own story, but only now, in the twilight of his years, has he been prepared to set out the details for the...

"History's killer queens come in all colors, ages, and leadership styles. Elizabeth Tudor and Golda Meir played the roles of high-stakes gamblers who studied maps with an unblinking, calculating eye. Angola's Queen Njinga was willing to shed (and occasionally drink) blood to establish a stable kingdom in an Africa ravaged by the slave trade. Caterina Sforza defended her Italian holdings with cannon and scimitar, and Indira Gandhi launched a war to...

Adolf Hitler spent 1924 away from society and surrounded by co-conspirators of the failed Beer Hall Putsch. Behind bars in a prison near Munich, Hitler passed the year with deep reading and intensive writing, a year of slowly walking gravel paths while working feverishly on his book Mein Kampf. This was the year of Hitler's final transformation into the self-proclaimed savior and infallible leader who would appropriate Germany's historical traditions...

Betrayal and Honor-- Fearing that Caesar means to end the Roman republic and make himself the emperor, Brutus, Caesar's closest friend, allows himself to be caught up in a plot to kill Caesar. Once Caesar is killed Brutus realizes, too late, that there was far more to this than meets the eye. Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights; Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are...