"In Greater Gotham Mike Wallace, co-author of GOTHAM, picks up the story of New York at the critical juncture of 1898 and carries it forward during the period when it became not just the country's greatest urban center but a megapolis on an international scale, and with global reach. Between consolidation and the end of World War One, New York was transformed and transforming, mirroring the juggernauting dynamism of the country at large--and largely...

During the French Revolution a young English lawyer goes to the guillotine to save a French aristocrat, husband of the woman he loves. "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ..." With these famous words, Charles Dickens plunges the reader into the French Revolution. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. At the center is the...

Criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks, and suggests a fresh and more accurate approach to teaching American history.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.
The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous...

"A harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. Born a free man in New York, Solomon Northup was abducted in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, he published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life--perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives. It became an immediate bestseller and today...

Crossing the boundaries of genre with its unrivalled storytelling, Diana Gabaldon's new novel is a gift both to her millions of loyal fans and to the lucky readers who have yet to discover her. In the ten years since her extraordinary debut novel, Outlander, was published, beloved author Diana Gabaldon has entertained scores of readers with her heart-stirring stories and remarkable characters. The four volumes of her bestselling saga, featuring eighteenth-century...

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a powerful and groundbreaking novel that played a pivotal role in shaping American history. Published in 1852, the book provides a stark depiction of the brutal realities of slavery in the United States. The story revolves around the life of Uncle Tom, an enduring and compassionate African American slave, and the various characters he encounters through his life of servitude. Stowe's narrative vividly...

Scottish soldier Jamie Fraser and his wife, Claire Randall, a twentieth century doctor who has traveled two centuries back in time, find themselves in South Carolina on the eve of the American Revolution, where they must fight to save a young girl. Now Claire has gone to find Jamie, the man she loved more than life, and has left half her heart behind with their daughter, Brianna. Claire gave up Jamie to save Brianna, and now Bree has sent her mother...

"When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house with nearly one hundred rooms, she finds it full of secrets. Her uncle keeps himself locked up, and at night Mary hears the sound of crying echoing down one of the long corridors. The gardens surrounding the large property are her only escape. Then one day Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and a locked gate. With the help of two unexpected companions, Mary discovers...

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro...