It took more than a revolution to win true independence: The story of the War of 1812, the United State's second war on England, by a New York Times bestselling historian.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the great powers of Western Europe treated the United States like a disobedient child. Great Britain blocked American trade, seized its vessels, and impressed its sailors to serve in the Royal Navy. America's complaints were ignored, and the humiliation continued until James Madison, the country's fourth president, declared a second war on Great Britain.
British forces would descend on the young United States, shattering its armies and burning its capital, but America rallied, and survived the conflict with its sovereignty intact. With stunning detail on land and naval battles, the role Native Americans played in the hostilities, and the larger backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, this is the story of the turning points of this strange conflict, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner" and led to the Era of Good Feelings that all but erased partisan politics in America for almost a decade. It was in 1812 that America found its identity and first assumed its place on the world stage.
On the morning of March 6, 1836, in an old abandoned mission called the Alamo, a small Texas garrison fought to the death rather than yield to an overwhelming army of Mexicans. Through the years the garrison's heroic stand has become so clothed in folklore and romance that the truth has nearly been lost. In A Time to Stand Walter Lord rediscovers and recreates the whole fascinating story. From contemporary documents, diaries, and letters, he has mined a wealth of fresh information that throws intriguing sidelights on the epic of the Alamo. What were the defenders like? Why did they take their stand? Did any escape? Did Davy Crockett surrender?
The cast of characters includes not only famous figures like Jim Bowie but unknown, unsung men: John Purdy Reynolds, the wandering Pennsylvania surgeon; George Kimball, the industrious New York hatter, Micajah Autry of Tennessee, who was a far better poet than a businessman. And then there are the Mexicans: the fabulous Santa Anna; the smooth Colonel Almonte; the forlorn private Juan Basquez, who only wanted to stay home and make shoes.
From the bestselling author of Day of Infamy: In the bloodiest island combat of WWII, one group of men kept watch from behind Japanese lines.
The Solomon Islands was where the Allied war machine finally broke the Japanese empire. As pilots, marines, and sailors fought for supremacy in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Slot, a lonely group of radio operators occupied the Solomon Islands' highest points. Sometimes encamped in comfort, sometimes exposed to the elements, these coastwatchers kept lookout for squadrons of Japanese bombers headed for Allied positions, holding their own positions even when enemy troops swarmed all around.
They were Australian-born but Solomon-raised, and adept at survival in the unforgiving jungle environment. Through daring and insight, they stayed one step ahead of the Japanese, often sacrificing themselves to give advance warning of an attack.
In Lonely Vigil, Walter Lord, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Night to Remember and The Miracle of Dunkirk, tells of the survivors of the campaign and what they risked to win the war in the Pacific.
New York Times Bestseller: Outgunned and outmanned on the Pacific Ocean, a small American fleet defied the odds and turned the tide of World War II.
On the morning of June 4, 1942, doom sailed on Midway. Hoping to put itself within striking distance of Hawaii and California, the Japanese navy planned an ambush that would obliterate the remnants of the American Pacific fleet. On paper, the Americans had no chance of winning. They had fewer ships, slower fighters, and almost no battle experience. But because their codebreakers knew what was coming, the American navy was able to prepare an ambush of its own.
Over two days of savage battle, American sailors and pilots broke the spine of the Japanese war machine. The United States prevailed against momentous odds; never again did Japan advance. In stunning detail, Walter Lord, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Day of Infamy and A Night to Remember, tells the story of one of the greatest upsets in naval history.
One hundred years ago, the mightiest "unsinkable" ship began her maiden voyage to cross the Atlantic. An engineering feat eleven stories high, the Titanic contained a list of passengers collectively worth $250 million when she left port on April 10, 1912, but she would never reach her destination. The Titanic collided with an iceberg on the night of April 14, and 1500 people died in the freezing waters as the ship met her watery grave. Spectacular in many ways, it's a story that has spurred legends and still sends shivers down the spine a century later. This minute-by-minute account of the sinking is based on over 20 years of research, and offers amazing detail of that fateful night. Read by Martin Jarvis, it's a riveting account of one of the world's biggest maritime disasters and the behavior of the passengers and crew. Some sacrificed their lives, while others fought like animals for their own survival. Wives beseeched husbands to join them in lifeboats; gentlemen went taut-lipped to their deaths in full evening dress; and hundreds of steerage passengers, trapped below decks, sought help in vain. From the initial distress flares to the struggles of those left adrift for hours in freezing waters, this audiobook brings that moonlit night in 1912 to life for a new generation of listeners.
Day of Infamy is Walter Lord's gripping, vivid re-creation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941. In brilliant detail Walter Lord traces the human drama of the great attack: the spies behind it; the Japanese pilots; the crews on the stricken warships; the men at the airfields and the bases; the Japanese pilot who captured an island single-handedly when he could not get back to his carrier; the generals, the sailors, the housewives, and the children who responded to the attack with anger, numbness, and magnificent courage.
In compiling his masterpiece, Lord traveled over fourteen thousand miles and spoke or corresponded with over five hundred individuals on both sides who were there, creating the best account we have of one of the epic events in American history.
"[Grover Gardner] gives an excellent reading of the text. His narration is paced to the rapid sequence of events, uncertainty, confusion, and suspense experienced by those caught in the great battle. The listener who is not a student of the battle will be carried along by both the astonishing acts of courage and the incredible instances of denial that persisted even while the attack was underway! Recommended for all history collections, wherein it can be enjoyed by folks of all ages."-Library Journal
Day of Infamy is Walter Lord’s gripping, vivid re-creation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941.
In brilliant detail, Walter Lord traces the human drama of the great attack: the spies behind it; the Japanese pilots; the crews on the stricken warships; the men at the airfields and the bases; the Japanese pilot who captured an island single-handedly when he could not get back to his carrier; the generals, the sailors, the housewives, and the children who responded to the attack with anger, numbness, and magnificent courage.
In compiling his masterpiece, Lord traveled over fourteen thousand miles and spoke or corresponded with over five hundred individuals on both sides who were there, creating the best account we have of one of the epic events in American history.
The "unsinkable" Titanic was four city blocks long, with a French "sidewalk café," private promenade decks, and the latest, most ingenious safety devices ... but only twenty lifeboats for the 2,207 passengers and crew on board.
Gliding through a calm sea, disdainful of all obstacles, the Titanic brushed an iceberg. Two hours and forty minutes later, she upended and sank. Only 705 survivors were picked up from the half-filled boats of "the ship that God Himself couldn't sink."
Walter Lord's classic minute-by-minute re-creation is as vivid now as it was upon first publication more than sixty years ago. From the initial distress flares to the struggles of those left adrift for hours in freezing waters, this audio presentation will bring that moonlit night in 1912 to life for a new generation of readers.
"Devotion, gallantry-Benjamin Guggenheim changing to evening clothes to meet death; Mrs. Isador Straus clinging to her husband, refusing to get in a lifeboat; Arthur Ryerson giving his life belt to his wife's maid-it is a book to remember."-Chicago Tribune
On May 24, 1940, Hitler's armies were on the brink of a shattering military victory. Only ten miles away, 400,000 Allied troops were pinned against the coast of Dunkirk. But just eleven days later, by June 4, 338,000 men had been successfully evacuated to England. How did it happen?
Walter Lord's remarkable account of how 'the miracle of Dunkirk' came about is based on hundreds of interviews with survivors of all nations who fought among the sand dunes of northern France.
She was called "the ship that God himself couldn't sink," yet on her maiden voyage, the ship Titanic brushed an iceberg and sank less than three hours later, carrying 1,503 men, women, and children to their death. In this dramatic and historic recreation of the bravery and agony that marked that fateful night, author and historian Walter Lord paints a portrait of the last hours of the Titanic's first and final voyage.
