In "Young Mr. Roosevelt" Stanley Weintraub evokes Franklin Delano Roosevelt's political and wartime beginnings. An unpromising patrician playboy appointed assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913, Roosevelt learned quickly and rose to national visibility in World War I. Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1920, he lost the election but not his ambitions. While his stature was rising, his testy marriage to his cousin Eleanor was fraying amid scandal quietly covered up. Ever indomitable, even polio a year later would not suppress his inevitable ascent.
Against the backdrop of a reluctant America's entry into a world war and FDR's hawkish build-up of a modern navy, Washington's gossip-ridden society, and the nation's surging economy, Weintraub summons up the early influences on the young and enterprising nephew of his predecessor, "Uncle Ted."

Long Day's Journey Into War recaptures the whirlwind events sweeping the globe on the calendar day that may be the most momentous of the twentieth century. In this riveting re-creation, the vast, worldwide scope of the major turning point of World War II comes to unforgettable life.In Washington, D.C., the U.S. and Japanese governments move toward irreversible confrontation. In Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito strains to hear, amid the crackling radio static, the first reports of war. Landings in Malaya and Thailand at midnight are timed to coincide across the thousands of miles of ocean with carrier-plane and suicide-sub attacks at daylight on Hawaii.In Russia, in the subzero snows, the German onslaught crests against the furious counterattacks of a Red Army rising from its ruins. In North Africa, in the torrid sands about besieged Tobruk, Rommel's Afrika Korps discovers its limits. In Nazi-occupied Europe, in a bleak Polish forest, Hitler's "final solution" is given its first grisly trial run.In the kaleidoscope of Stanley Weintraub's narrative, events reveal themselves in dramatic hour-by-hour simultaneous time as scenes shift from frontlines to home fronts. Meticulously researched, startling in its revelations and in its juxtaposition of events, Long Day's Journey Into War is gripping, riveting history. (6 X 9, 752 pages, b&w photos, maps)

Includes the following works: Novels—The Portrait of Dorian Gray; Plays—Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest; Writings—De Profundis, Critic as Artist, and Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Very Young; and selections from Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance.

In the tradition of his Silent Night and Pearl Harbor Christmas , historian Stanley Weintraub presents another gripping narrative of a wartime Christmas season- the epic story of the 1950 holiday season in Korea, when American troops faced extreme cold, a determined enemy, and long odds. A Military Book Club main selection

'You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the pursued ... Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey.'

John Tanner is horrified to discover that he is the object of Ann Whitefield's ambitions in her search for a satisfactory husband. For Tanner, political pamphleteer and independent mind, escape is the only option. But Ann is grimly resigned to society's expectations and ready for the chase.

In this caustic satire on romantic conventions, Shaw casts his net wide across European culture to draw on works by Mozart, Nietzsche and Conan Doyle for his re-telling of the Don Juan myth. As Stanley Weintraub comments, it was Shaw's ability to combine popular comedy with intellectual seriousness that made Man and Superman 'the first great twentieth-century English play', and one that remains a classic exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes.

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SILENT NIGHT brings to life one of the most unlikely and touching events in the annals of war. In the early months of WWI, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides left their trenches, laid down their arms, and joined in a spontaneous celebration with their new friends, the enemy. For a brief, blissful time, remembered since in song and story, a world war stopped. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible. Germans placed candle-lit Christmas trees on trench parapets and warring soldiers sang carols. In the spirit of the season they ventured out beyond their barbed wire to meet in No Man's Land, where they buried the dead in moving ceremonies, exchanged gifts, ate and drank together, and joyously played football, often with improvised balls. The truce spread as men defied orders and fired harmlessly into the air. But, reluctantly, they were forced to re-start history's most bloody war. SILENT NIGHT vividly recovers a dreamlike event, one of the most extraordinary of Christmas stories.

A startling new history of the Revolutionary War, told from the perspectives of both the colonists and the colonizers.
For generations, Americans have been taught to view the Revolutionary War as a heroic tale of resistance, exclusively from the perspective of the Continental army and the Founding Fathers. Now, in "Iron Tears, " master historian Stanley Weintraub offers the first account that examines the war from three divergent and distinct vantage points: the battlefields; the American leadership under George Washington; and--most originally--that of England, embroiled in controversy over the war.
"Iron Tears" renders an unprecedented account of the fight for American independence through British eyes, while dramatically narrating the battles that were waged across the Atlantic from Lexington to Yorktown and beyond. As the general, whom the British snobbishly and demeaningly referred to as "Mr. Washington," rallied to keep his ragged and overmatched Continentals together and create a nation, "iron tears" fell from redcoat muskets and cannons, as well as from the demoralized eyes of the defeated British. Weintraub's multifaceted analysis will forever change and expand our view of the American Revolution.

"Splendid. This book continually surprises and entertains with its revelations about Shaw's engagement with an impressive array of historical and contemporary figures, ranging from Jesus to Virginia Woolf. This is a virtuoso performance by a maestro of Shaw studies."--A. M. Gibbs, author of "Bernard Shaw: A Life" "Ur-Shavian Stanley Weintraub's great virtues as a writer are stunning erudition and a consistently high level of readability. Again and again, his scholarship is illuminating--alive with original findings that make his essays profitable and exciting to read."--Charles A. Carpenter, author of "Bernard Shaw as Artist-Fabian" People known to Bernard Shaw had every reason to fear becoming recognizable characters in his plays. He turned Beatrice Webb into a witchlike virago in "The Millionairess," Winston Churchill into an aspiring, blowhard politician in "John Bull's Other Island," and Lawrence of Arabia into the eccentric army private Napoleon Alexander Trotsky Meek in "Too True to Be Good." However, as eminent Shaw scholar Stanley Weintraub reveals in this exquisite collection, Shaw's relationships to real or imagined personalities could be both curiously unexpected and deliciously complex. Featuring figures as varied as Julius Caesar, Zulu king Cetewayo, Noel Coward, Edward Elgar, and Benjamin Disraeli, this volume brilliantly demonstrates how Shaw put something of himself into all of his "people." The result is a book that is consistently revealing, intriguing, and entertaining. Stanley Weintraub, Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, is the author of over fifty books, including "Private Shaw and Public Shaw, Journey to Heartbreak, Victoria: An Intimate Biography," and "Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce."

"15 Stars" presents the intertwined lives of three five-star generals?George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur?as America's greatest heroes against the background of six unforgettable decades, from two World Wars to the Cold War, revealing the personalities behind the public images and showing how much of a difference three men can make not only to a nation, but the world.

Douglas MacArthur towers over twentieth-century American history. His fame is based chiefly on his World War II service in the Philippines. Yet Korea, America's forgotten war, was far more "MacArthur's War" -- and it remains one of our most brutal and frightening. In just three years thirty-five thousand Americans lost their lives -- more than three times the rate of losses in Vietnam. Korea, like Vietnam, was a breeding ground for the crimes of war. To this day, six thousand Americans remain MIA. It was Korea where American troops faced a Communist foe for the first time, as both China and the Soviet Union contributed troops to the North Korean cause. The war that nearly triggered the use of nuclear weapons reveals MacArthur at his most flamboyant, flawed, yet still, at times, brilliant. Acclaimed historian Stanley Weintraub offers a thrilling blow-by-blow account of the key actions of the Korean War during the months of MacArthur's command. Our lack of preparedness for the invasion, our disastrous retreat to a corner of Korea, the daring landing at Inchon, the miscalculations in pursuing the enemy north, the headlong retreats from the Yalu River and Chosin Reservoir, and the clawing back to the 38th parallel, all can be blamed or credited to MacArthur. He was imperious, vain, blind to criticism, and so insubordinate that Truman was forced to fire him. Yet years later, the war would end where MacArthur had left it, at the border that still stands as one of history's last frontiers between communism and freedom. MacArthur's War draws on extensive archival research, memoirs, and the latest findings from archives in the formerly communist world, to weave a rich tale in the voices of its participants. From MacArthur and his upper cadre, to feisty combat correspondent Maggie Higgins and her fellow journalists, to the grunts who bore the brunt of MacArthur's decisions, for good and ill, this is a harrowing account of modern warfare at its bloodiest. MacArthur's War is the gripping story of the Korean War and its soldiers -- and of the one soldier who dominated the rest.

Charlotte was young and beautiful. Lionel, almost ten years older, was rich and her cousin. Theirs was an arranged betrothal joining two branches of Europe's most powerful banking firm. It seemed an unlikely love match, and even their wedding had to survive catastrophe. Yet their marriage lasted through tragedies and triumphs. Charlotte became one of the grand chatelaines of the Victorian era; Lionel, England's leading financier, persevered through years of bigotry to become the first of his faith to be seated in Parliament. In "Charlotte and Lionel, " acclaimed biographer Stanley Weintraub, using full access to the Rothschild family archives, tells the story of their stunning and surprising love for each other, opening a fascinating window into a memorable age.

Together, Charlotte and Lionel de Rothschild challenged and redefined their place in Victorian society. At her celebrated salons, England's leading politicians and policy makers met and shared opinions. Disraeli regularly argued politics with adversaries; Gladstone discussed religion with Charlotte; "Tom Thumb" (with P. T. Barnum) entertained; artists and writers and aristocrats mingled. Refusing to swear a Christian oath, Lionel was elected to Parliament half a dozen times before he could take his seat. After a decade-long battle, the House of Commons changed its rules, enabling Lionel and future Jewish or non-Christian members to serve.

Lionel (and, behind the scenes, Charlotte) influenced events worldwide, helping to fund relief to a starving Ireland, aiding persecuted Jews in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, brokering the purchase of the Suez Canal, and arranging for France's postwar reparations to Germany. Yet despite the distractions of their power, glamour, and wealth, and problems of health for which money could buy no solutions, they remained intensely devoted to each other and their family. Although Charlotte lost a daughter, then her beloved husband, and had to come back herself from severe illness, she remained unbroken.

"Charlotte and Lionel" presents the evocative tale of one of the least known yet most touching love stories from the glamorous decades of Victorian England.

It was truly a white Christmas in the Ardennes Forest in 1944, but that was cold comfort to the Allied soldiers trying to stop the Nazis from retaking Belgium in one of the most decisive battles of World War II. While a German loudspeaker taunted, ?How would you like to die for Christmas the Allied forces dug in, despite freezing conditions. They needed a miracle.
In a medieval chapel, General Patton, who needed clear skies to allow airborne reinforcements to reach his trapped men, uttered what would become a famous prayer: ?Sir, whose side are you on His soldiers wouldn't be home for Christmas, but as the skies cleared, they went on to win a battle? and a war.

One of America's greatest Christmas stories and also one of its very first -- from the period between the end of the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Constitution -- was a creation of none other than George Washington. The story isn't just about Washington coming home for Christmas for the first time since the war began, but about the character of our most important Founding Father and about the precedent he set for democratic leadership. It is the story of a loving husband, a beloved military leader, and above all, a humble and great man.

In late November 1783 when Washington finally received formal notice of the signing of a peace treaty with England he had little more than a month to accept the transfer of power from British troops in New York; to bid farewell to his troops; and to resign his commission to Congress if he hoped to make it to Mount Vernon for Christmas. He could have remained in charge of the army and become a virtual king to the Americans who loved him. Control of the newly forming government was his to take -- yet he chose to resign. It was that decision, coupled with his later decision to step down from the presidency after two terms, that rendered him "the greatest character of the age" (according to none other than King George III).

Washington's homeward journey is one of the most moving and inspiring stories from his great and eventful life. When he bade farewell to his troops at Fraunces Tavern in New York City there were no dry eyes. When he reached Congress and gave a retirement speech, it cemented his greatness more fully than had his victory over the British. When he made it to Mount Vernon, finally, on Christmas Eve, it could not have been a happier homecoming.

"General Washington's Christmas Farewell" is a deeply moving Christmas story as well as a great American story.

"Caesar and Cleopatra" satirizes Shakespeare's use of history and comments wryly on the politics of Shaw's own time, but the undertone of melancholy makes it one of his most affecting plays.

Christmas 1941 came little more than two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The shock--in some cases overseas, elation--was worldwide. While Americans attempted to go about celebrating as usual, the reality of the just-declared war was on everybody's mind. United States troops on Wake Island were battling a Japanese landing force and, in the Philippines, losing the fight to save Luzon. In Japan, the Pearl Harbor strike force returned to Hiroshima Bay and toasted its sweeping success. Across the Atlantic, much of Europe was frozen in grim Nazi occupation.

Just three days before Christmas, Churchill surprised Roosevelt with an unprecedented trip to Washington, where they jointly lit the White House Christmas tree. As the two Allied leaders met to map out a winning wartime strategy, the most remarkable Christmas of the century played out across the globe.

"Pearl Harbor Christmas" is a deeply moving and inspiring story about what it was like to live through a holiday season few would ever forget.

He was the most notorious and misunderstood American artist of his time, and also the most influential. To this day James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) is one of the most recognized names in painting because of his celebrated (and endlessly satirized) "Whistler's Mother," one of the treasures of the Louvre. He was, to say the least, a character. Born in Massachusetts, he claimed to be a Southerner and wound up living most of his life abroad--in Russia, France, and England (though he could not tolerate more than brief periods in France and thoroughly disliked the English). Whistler's sense of belligerent alienation erupted in ways that were endlessly fascinating to both Europeans and Americans: his insatiable urge to take his grievances to court (including literary and artistic grievances); his feuds and vendettas with such worthies as Ruskin, Wilde, and Beardsley; his acid wit and libelous invective; his ability to set fashions in art, dress, even lifestyle; his love affairs and relentless social climbing--his was a flamboyant life, told here "with clarity, judgment, and liveliness" (Leon Edel).

By mid-1917, with the world war going badly on all fronts, and casualties burgeoning, Prime Minister David Lloyd George met with General Edmund Allenby, fresh from France. Lloyd George wanted "Jerusalem for Christmas" as a holiday "present" for the increasingly disillusioned British people. Its seizure would also eliminate the Ottomans, who had inflicted the dismaying disaster at the Dardanelles, as a factor in the war. As Allenby departed, the PM handed him George Adam Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land, remarking that it was a better guide to reaching Jerusalem than anything "in the pigeon holes of the War Office".Having been raised on the Bible, Allenby, as this narrative illustrates, did indeed exploit it. He would also have unanticipated expertise from an unknown and unmilitary officer, T. E. Lawrence, who turned his Arabian "sideshow" into campaigns distracting the Turks and their German military leadership. The desert war would be hard-fought, but, that December, after centuries in Muslim hands and with its sacred sites intact, Jerusalem fell.