Charles River Editors
1) The Most Controversial Cases of the Early 20th Century: The Murder of Stanford White, Sacco & Vanzet
Author
Language
English
Description
It reads like a modern day Lifetime movie: two talented, popular and wealthy men both fall in love with the same beautiful but somewhat tarnished girl. One had a long history of mental illness, the other was considered an architectural genius. The inevitable showdown, complete with a very public murder, took place in one of the most fashionable restaurants in the world. Although it reads like a movie or soap opera, it was an all too true story that...
2) Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion: The History and Legacy of Early America's Domestic In
Author
Language
English
Description
Even as the young United States successfully secured its independence, the new nation was beset by problems. The drafters of the Articles of Confederation had deliberately avoided giving the national legislature the power to tax, because Parliament had so abused that authority against the colonies, but this proved to be a severe limitation on the national government. Besides hampering the Continental Army, the inability of the national government...
3) Native American Resistance in the Midwest: The History and Legacy of the Wars that Pushed Indigenous
Author
Language
English
Description
Throughout history, there have been men of war and men of peace, but few have actually had a war named after them. One of them was Pontiac, also known as Obwandiyag, an Odawa chief who left his mark on history by continuing the battle against the British after their official triumph during the French and Indian War. While modern historians question how important Pontiac’s role was in shaping America’s destiny, his leadership during Pontiac’s...
Author
Language
English
Description
Spanish accounts and Mesoamerican ruins have ensured that 500 years later, people remain fascinated by civilizations like the Maya and Aztec, as well as sites such as Chichen Itza and Tikal. What is often overlooked is that the Maya and Aztec established kingdoms on lands that had been inhabited for millennia before them, and ancient cultures had not only left ruins but also influenced the civilizations that came after them. Thus, while sites like...
Author
Language
English
Description
The Third Reich's Luftwaffe began World War II with significant advantages over other European air forces, playing a critical role in the German war machine's swift, powerful advance. By war's end, however, the Luftwaffe had been decimated by combat losses and crippled by poor decisions at the highest levels of military decision-making, and it proved unable to challenge Allied air superiority despite a last-minute upsurge in German aircraft production.
When...
6) The Diadochi: The History of Alexander the Great's Successors and the Wars that Divided His Empire
Author
Language
English
Description
On his deathbed, some historians claim that when he was pressed to name a successor, Alexander muttered that his empire should go "to the strongest". Other sources claim that he passed his signet ring to his general Perdiccas, thereby naming him successor, but whatever his choices were or may have been, they were ignored. Alexander's generals, all of them with the loyalty of their own corps at their backs, would tear each other apart in a vicious...
Author
Language
English
Description
Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history nearly as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately 4 billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely...
10) The Gutians: The History and Legacy of the Asian Nomads Who Spread across the Near East in Antiq
Author
Language
English
Description
The ancient Gutians are probably not one of the groups that come to most people's minds when they think of barbarian hordes, but they were among the most important in the Bronze Age Near East. Little is known about the Gutians before they entered the historical record around 2200 BCE. in Mesopotamia, and even after that point, the contemporary records are open to interpretation because they are “obviously” biased against the outsiders.
Since...
11) Alfred Hitchcock's Legendary Leading Ladies: The Lives of Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine
Author
Language
English
Description
Considering that her film career lasted just six years, it would seem as though the reputation of Grace Kelly far outweighs her actual output. Indeed, from the time of her arrival in Hollywood in 1951 through her final film, High Society, in 1956, Kelly acted in just 11 films, leaving viewers to wonder whether Kelly was still in the beginning of her career or whether High Society was a proper culmination to an extraordinarily brief stay in the film...
12) The Avars: The History and Legacy of the Eurasian Nomads in Central Europe during the Middle Ages
Author
Language
English
Description
During the period after the collapse of the Roman Empire and the establishment of medieval Europe, which was once commonly referred to as the Dark Ages, many different tribes migrated across Europe, feeding on what was left of Rome and attempting to establish new kingdoms in the vacuum. Most of these tribes were Germanic in ethnicity and language and shared the same goals of either entering Roman territory to become Roman citizens or tearing down...
Author
Language
English
Description
The most famous man of the Middle Ages was probably Charlemagne, and few would argue that he was also the most important man during those centuries. Upon the death of his father, Pepin the Short, in 768, Charlemagne became King of the Franks, and he proceeded to create one of the largest European empires since the collapse of Rome. Through his conquests across Western Europe and Italy, Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor after a famous...
Author
Language
English
Description
In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity's greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire...
Author
Language
English
Description
In 1515, a Portuguese missionary explorer by the name of Father Francisco Álvares entered Ethiopia and took note in the interior of the remnants of a civilization of obviously Christian origin, with living adherents conforming to a branch of the faith clearly founded in antiquity. Could this be the kingdom of Prester John? Father Álvares was intrigued, but he was wary of too fanciful a construction, and he speculated more practically on the legend...
Author
Language
English
Description
Overall, Tulsa in 1921 was considered a modern, vibrant city. What had fueled this remarkable growth was oil, specifically the discovery of the Glenn Pool oil field in 1905. Within five years, Tulsa had grown from a rural crossroads town in the former Indian Territory into a boomtown with more than 10,000 citizens, and as word spread of the fortunes that could be made in Tulsa, people of all races poured into the city. By 1920, the greater Tulsa area...
Author
Language
English
Description
Despite the gargantuan scale and the importance of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily has since taken a backseat to the landings on D-Day. During the first half of 1944, the Americans and British commenced a massive buildup of men and resources in the United Kingdom, while Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower and military brass planned the details of an enormous and complex amphibious invasion of Europe. Though the Allies used misinformation...
Author
Language
English
Description
Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz died almost 200 years ago, yet he remains one of the most important and influential of all military thinkers. His teachings combined strategy with military knowledge to produce a dialectic approach to the philosophy of warfare, and his work is still widely taught in military academies around the world. There are few senior military leaders anywhere who are not familiar with his seminal book, On War.
In fact,...
Author
Language
English
Description
Though history is usually written by the victors, the lack of a particularly strong writing tradition from the Mongols ensured that history was largely written by those who they vanquished. Because of this, their portrayal in the West and the Middle East has been extraordinarily (and in many ways unfairly) negative for centuries, at least until recent revisions to the historical record. The Mongols have long been depicted as wild horse-archers galloping...
Author
Language
English
Description
The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together, to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event-known...