In 1908 at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for thirteen years in Peking's Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi's life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor. "The Last Manchu" is a unique, enthralling record of China's most turbulent, dramatic years.

"Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly's story is a reminder "of the power of true grit, the patience needed to navigate unimaginable obstacles, and the transcendence of love. Their arrival in the world spotlight came under the worst of circumstances. On January 8, 2011, while meeting with her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, Gabby was the victim of an assassination attempt that left six people dead and thirteen wounded. Gabby was shot in the head; doctors called her survival "miraculous."
As the nation grieved and sought to understand the attack, Gabby remained in private, focused on her againstall- odds recovery. Intimate, inspiring, and unforgettably moving, "Gabby "provides an unflinching look at the overwhelming challenges of brain injury, the painstaking process of learning to communicate again, and the responsibilities that fall to a loving spouse who wants the best possible treatment for his wife. Told in Mark's voice and from Gabby's heart, the book also chronicles the lives that brought these two extraordinary people together--their humor, their ambitions, their sense of duty, their longdistance marriage, and their desire for family.
A new, moving final chapter brings Gabby's story up to date, including the state of her health and her announcement that she would leave the House of Representatives.

"I lived the same life as everyone else, the life of ordinary people, the masses." Sitting in a prison cell in the autumn of 1944, Hans Fallada sums up his life under the National Socialist dictatorship, the time of "inward emigration." Under conditions of close confinement, in constant fear of discovery, he writes himself free from the nightmare of the Nazi years. His frank and sometimes provocative memoirs were thought for many years to have been lost. They are published here for the first time.

The confessional mode did not come naturally to Fallada the writer of fiction, but in the mental and emotional distress of 1944, self-reflection became a survival strategy. In the "house of the dead" he exacts his political revenge on paper. "I know that I am crazy. I'm risking not only my own life, I'm also risking the lives of many of the people I am writing about," he notes, driven by the compulsion to write. And write he does: about spying and denunciation, about the threat to his livelihood and his literary work, about the fate of many friends and contemporaries such as Ernst Rowohlt and Emil Jannings. To conceal his intentions and to save paper, he uses abbreviations. His notes, constantly exposed to the gaze of the prison warders, become a kind of secret code. He finally succeeds in smuggling the manuscript out of the prison, although it remained unpublished for half a century.

These revealing memoirs by one of the best-known German writers of the 20th century will be of great interest to all readers of modern literature.

This book offers a first-person perspective on the institution of slavery in America, providing powerful, engaging interviews from the WPA slave narrative collection that enable readers to gain a true sense of the experience of enslavement. Today's students understandably have a hard time imagining what life for slaves more than 150 years ago was like. The best way to communicate what slaves experienced is to hear their words directly. The material in this concise single-volume work illuminates the lives of the last living generation of enslaved people in the United States-former slaves who were interviewed about their experiences in the 1930s. Based on more than 2,000 interviews, the transcriptions of these priceless interviews offer primary sources that tell a diverse and powerful picture of life under slavery. The book explores seven key topics-childhood, marriage, women, work, emancipation, runaways, and family. Through the examination of these subject areas, the interviews reveal the harsh realities of being a slave, such as how slave women were at the complete mercy of the men who operated the places where they lived, how nearly every enslaved person suffered a beating at some point in their lives, how enslaved families commonly lost relatives through sale, and how enslaved children were taken from their parents to care for the children of slaveholders. The thematic organizational format allows readers to easily access numerous excerpts about a specific topic quickly and enables comparisons between individuals in different locations or with different slaveholders to identify the commonalities and unique characteristics within the system of slavery. Provides a historical overview of the scholarship on slavery via first-person perspectives into the institution of slavery Supplies an introductory essay for each theme as well as brief contextual explanations for each excerpt with the text of the oral narrative Supplies primary source documents in the form of interviews with actual slaves from the WPA slave narratives that allow readers to better understand the experiences of those who lived in slavery Presents a history of the slave narratives project under the New Deal Gives eye-opening insights into the plight of women within the institution of slavery

The mutiny as seen by a Lancer's wife
This account, which briefly covers life in India immediately preceding the Indian Mutiny, was originally titled A Lady's Life Before and During the Indian Mutiny. The 'red' year of 1857 was an apocalyptic one for many of the British in India and Mrs. Ouvry's account as she gives us the perspective of a wife of a senior regimental officer in a British Army cavalry regiment is, of course, harrowing. Henry Ouvry was an officer of the 3rd Light Dragoons before transferring to the 9th Lancers who saw much action and earned themselves a fearsome reputation during the Mutiny. Although Mrs. Ouvry was spared the experiences of the wives of officers of native regiments whose men rose up to slaughter them, this was still a time of anguish, terror and uncertainty for her, and this memoir brings her experiences vividly to life for anyone interested in the period. Her husband's book, Cavalry Experiences is also available from Leonaur and is an excellent companion work touching on the same events.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

This book deals with the remarkable life of a powerful and fiery woman at the heart of the turbulent Barons' Wars. As sister of Henry III and aunt of the future Edward I, Eleanor de Montfort was at the heart of the bloody conflict between the Crown and the English barons. At Lewes in 1264 Simon de Montfort captured the king and secured control of royal government. A woman of fiery nature, Eleanor worked tirelessly in supporting her husband's cause. She assumed responsibility for the care of the royal prisoners and she regularly dispatched luxurious gifts to Henry III and the Lord Edward. But the family's political fortunes were shattered at the battle of Evesham in August 1265 where Simon de Montfort was killed. The newly-widowed Eleanor rose to her role as matriarch of her family, sending her surviving sons - and the family treasure - overseas to France, negotiating the surrender of Dover Castle and securing her own safe departure from the realm. The last ten years of her life were spent in the Dominican convent at Montargis. Drawing on chronicles, letters and public records this book reconstructs the narrative of Eleanor's remarkable life.

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.

Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online – a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.

History books and novels are filled with stories of young men and women going off to war. In each, the experiences and challenges are as varied as the people themselves. The stories tell of leaders and followers, cowards and he-roes. In "Where's Charlie?" author Tim Soyars narrates his own story of how he came of age while serving in the US Army during the Vietnam War.

In this memoir, Soyars tells how his personality, background, and attitude contributed to his will to succeed and his desire to be involved in the Vietnam War. As a boy, he always knew he'd serve his country. With both humor and sincerity, Soyars narrates his story-his birth in Virginia in 1945, his induction into the army in 1965, his marriage in 1966, and his one-year service in Vietnam with the First Calvary from March of 1967 to 1968.

Including photos of the period, "Where's Charlie?" conveys not only the sadness and heroics often associated with war, but also shares stories of warmth, compassion, and romance. It provides a glimpse into the horror of battle and offers insight into one soldier's actions and thoughts during this unique time in history.

Abraham Lincoln remains one of the greatest political figures in American history. Although his portrait and achievements as a statesman are well recorded, little is known about his personal life. This light and enjoyable biography, published at the beginning of the 20th century, fills this gap by portraying a more human and accessible Lincoln.

Since 1983, Sudan has been the epicenter of a horrific conflict. Battles between northern Sudan's government forces and the southern Sudanese People's Liberation Army have left scars and ethnic divisions too numerous for world media to cover. Each day, thousands of refugees escape to neighboring regions. Mass killings, torture, and rape are common practice within and around the borders. Survival of the Fittest is not only the story of Mator Adol-Mawien's survival but his relentless drive to find freedom from his captors and justice for his people. Malek Tor, a wise man known for his predictions in my Dinka village, predicted my birth. He said my parents' fourth born would be a boy, and they were to name him Mator. It means dust storm, wind storm, and tornado in the Dinka language. It would not be long before he was proven correct. I was the throne-holder for my family, a future king, and I was treated very well. All who entered my kingdom knew that I had a big heart and followed in my father's greatness. But when the northern army entered my village with the intent to kill and destroy, escaping Sudan became the only option for my survival. I was only nine years old when SPLA soldiers rescued me from my village, telling me that they wanted to make sure my village was safe before they would reunite me with my family. Thousands of miles later, I realized they lied. The civil war killed many in my village, including my father and other family members. Many of my friends either died or found themselves torn from their families, as I had been.

In a masterful narrative, historian and biographer Charles Bracelen Flood brings to life the drama of Lincoln's final year, in which he oversaw the last campaigns of the Civil War, was reelected as president, and laid out his majestic vision for the nation's future in a reunified South and in the expanding West.

In "1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History," the reader is plunged into the heart of that crucial year as Lincoln faced enormous challenges. The Civil War was far from being won: as the year began, Lincoln had yet to appoint Ulysses S. Grant as the general-in-chief who would finally implement the bloody strategy and dramatic campaigns that would bring victory.

At the same time, with the North sick of the war, Lincoln was facing a reelection battle in which hundreds of thousands of "Peace Democrats" were ready to start negotiations that could leave the Confederacy as a separate American nation, free to continue the practice of slavery. In his personal life, he had to deal with the erratic behavior of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and both Lincolns were haunted by the sudden death, two years before, of their beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie.

"1864" is the story of Lincoln's struggle with all this -- the war on the battlefields and a political scene in which his own secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, was working against him in an effort to become the Republican candidate himself. The North was shocked by such events as Grant's attack at Cold Harbor, during which seven thousand Union soldiers were killed in twenty minutes, and the Battle of the Crater, where three thousand Union men died in a bungled attempt to blow up Confederate trenches. The year became so bleak that on August 23, Lincoln wrote in a memorandum, "This morning, as for several days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected." But, with the increasing success of his generals, and a majority of the American public ready to place its faith in him, Lincoln and the nation ended 1864 with the close of the war in sight and slavery on the verge of extinction.

"1864" presents the man who not only saved the nation, but also, despite the turmoil of the war and political infighting, set the stage for westward expansion through the Homestead Act, the railroads, and the Act to Encourage Immigration.

As 1864 ends and Lincoln, reelected, is planning to heal the nation, John Wilkes Booth, whose stalking of Lincoln through 1864 is one of this book's suspenseful subplots, is a few weeks away from killing him.

What are you willing to do to survive? What are you willing to endure if it means you might live? 'Achingly moving, gives much-needed hope . . . Deserves the status both as a valuable historical source and as a stand-out memoir' Daily Express 'A story that needs to be heard' 5***** Reader Review Entering Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp, Franci was expected to die. She refused. In the summer of 1942, twenty-two-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labour camps in Hamburg, and finally to Bergen Belsen. Franci, a spirited and glamorous young woman, was known among her fellow inmates as the Prague dress designer. Having endured the transportation of her parents, she never forgot her mother's parting words: 'Your only duty to us is to stay alive'. During an Auschwitz selection, Franci would spontaneously lie to Nazi officer Dr Josef Mengele, and claim to be an electrician. A split-second decision that would go on to endanger - and save - her life. Unpublished for 50 years, Franci's War is an astonishing account of one woman's attempt to survive. Heartbreaking and candid, Franci finds the light in her darkest years and the horrors she faces instill in her, strength and resilience to survive and to live again. She gives a voice to the women prisoners in her tight-knit circle of friends. Her testimony sheds new light on the alliances, love affairs, and sexual barter that took place during the Holocaust, offering a compelling insight into the resilience and courage of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. Above all, Franci's War asks us to explore what it takes to survive, and what it means to truly live. 'A candid account of shocking events. Franci is someone many women today will be able to identify with' 5***** Reader Review 'First-hand accounts of life in Nazi death camps never lose their terrible power but few are as extraordinary as Franci's War' Mail on Sunday 'Fascinating and traumatic. Well worth a read' 5***** Reader Review

As the Andros Odyssey refugees in Eastern Macedonia managed to survive a series of catastrophes, a much bigger threat appears. Greece enters into World War II. Anthony leaves his wife and joins other poorly equipped Greeks at the front. Greece had to fight four enemies at once: Albania, Italy, Bulgaria and Germany.

After the Greek capitulation, Eastern Macedonia was occupied by Bulgarians, who wanted to make sure that no Greek claim on that land persisted after the war. This brought about genocidal massacres of all Greek population in the area. The Bulgarian ambitions were also paralleled by Hitler's Final Solution, regarding the Jewish presence in Greece. As the couple and the people around them struggle to survive this murderous environment, they face starvation, greed, language problems, misinformation, illness, treason, and a variety of other factors. Worse yet, following the capitulation of Germany, Greece is plagued by a new catastrophe, a civil war between communist and nationalist factions that lead to the Cold War. As a result, the Greeks sacrifice proportionally the highest part (almost 10%) of their population during this period of War II. It was the earlier part of this noted sacrifice that gave crucial time to the Russians to muster their strength for a decisive WWII victory against the Germans.

The end of the civil war finds Anthony and Elisabeth with two sons, barely able to feed themselves. The oldest son, after reaching adulthood leaves for Germany in search of work. The younger one, after finishing high school, and not being able to afford advanced schooling in Greece leaves for the United States, to help his great uncle, Pandel Mayo in exchange for college tuition. He happens to be the author of this book.

Providing both an analysis of the Mexican Revolution and a compelling story of the notorious Pancho Villa, this book describes this historical period from the perspective of its most iconic figure. Doroteo Arango-much better known as "Pancho Villa"-was one of the revolutionary generals during Mexico's turbulent times in the early 1900s. Villa was a train robber, a cattle thief, and a murderer, yet today he is revered by Mexicans and Americans for his accomplishments, and roads and neighborhoods in Mexico bear his name. Pancho Villa: A Biography provides a compelling life story full of adventure, the events of which helped define the course of modern Mexico. Through the lens of Villa's personal experience, author Alejandro Quintana offers an appealing, accessible interpretation of the complex turn of events that define the violence, confusion, chaos, and transformation in Mexico between 1910 and 1923. Organized chronologically, the book details the social tensions under the ruthless rule of dictator Porfirio Diaz; documents Villa's rise into becoming the most powerful military leader of the revolution; analyzes the civil war that resulted from Villa's differences with the revolutionary political leadership; and describes the reasons for his decline and eventual assassination. Provides a chronology of Villa's life linked to important revolutionary events Includes photos of Pancho Villa in different stages of his life, some of which depict other important revolutionary leaders as well Logically organized and clearly written to facilitate reading comprehension and research on specific topics