"Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Ron Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency."--Book jacket....

On August 16, 1824, an elderly French gentlemen sailed into New York Harbor and giddy Americans were there to welcome him. Or, rather, to welcome him back. It had been 30 years since the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette had last set foot in the United States, and he was so beloved that 80,000 people showed up to cheer for him. The entire population of New York at the time was 120,000. Lafayette's arrival in 1824 coincided with one of...

"As editor of the award-winning Library of America collection of George Washington's writings and a curator of the great man's original papers, John Rhodehamel has established himself as an authority of our nation's preeminent founding father. Rhodehamel examines George Washington as a public figure, arguing that the man--who first achieved fame in his early twenties--is inextricably bound to his mythic status. Solidly grounded in Washington's papers...

Groom tells the intertwined and uniquely American tales of George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall. These three remarkable men-of-arms who rose from the gruesome hell of the First World War to become the finest generals of their generation during World War II redefined America's ideas of military leadership and brought forth a new generation of American soldier. Against the backdrop of the most dramatic moments of the twentieth century,...

Describes how Leslie Richard Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers enlisted the help of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer on a three-year collaboration that resulted in the U.S. beating the Nazis to the invention of the atomic bomb.

A history of life of Gilbert Lafayette, and his crucial role in the establishment of American democracy.

Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now historian John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics, but a canny infighter--a master of persuasion, manipulation, and deniability. In the War of Independence, Washington...

The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars who changed the way the Pentagon does business and the American military fights wars, against fierce resistance from within their own ranks.