Books » Historical Biographies & Memoirs

This book examines the three dimensions of European warfare, based on the campaigns of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558). Charles's role as commander-in-chief is evaluated by measuring his strategic aims. The process by which bankers took control of the finances of the Habsburg lands becomes clear from an examination of the source of the money to pay for Charles's campaigns. Finally, a comparison of the realms that provided most of Charles's revenues shows how some parliamentary bodies successfully pursued long-term local interests by exploiting the dynasty's need for money.

Born in La Paz in 1792, Andrs de Santa Cruz lived through the turbulent times that led to independence across Latin America. He fought to shape the newly established republics, and between 1836 and 1839 he created the Peru-Bolivia Confederation. The epitome of an Andean caudillo, with armed forces at the center of his ideas of governance, he was a state builder whose ambition ensured a strong and well-administered country. But the ultimate failure of the Confederation had long-reaching consequences that still have an impact today. The story of his life introduces students to broader questions of nationality and identity during this turbulent transition from Spanish colonial rule to the founding of Peru and Bolivia.

The story of Claudius has been often told before. Ancient writers saw the emperor as the dupe of his wives and palace insiders; Robert Graves tried to rehabilitate him as a far shrewder, if still frustrated, politician. Josiah Osgood shifts the focus off the personality of Claudius and on to what his tumultuous years in power reveal about the developing political culture of the early Roman Empire. What precedents set by Augustus were followed What had to be abandoned How could a new emperor win the support of key elements of Roman society This richly illustrated discussion draws on a range of newly discovered documents, exploring events that move far beyond the city of Rome and Italy to Egypt and Judea, Morocco and Britain. Claudius Caesar opens up a new perspective not just on Claudius himself, but all Roman emperors, the Roman Empire, and the nature of empires more generally.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in India in 1869. He was educated in London. In 1915 he returned to British-controlled India, bringing to a country in the throes of independence his commitment to non-violent change. Written in the 1920s, this autobiography tells of his struggles and his inspirations; a statement of an extraordinary life.

He is the most infamous and influential political writer of all time. His name has become synonymous with cynical scheming and the selfish pursuit of power. Niccol Machiavelli, Florentine diplomat and civil servant, is the father of political science. His most notorious work, The Prince, is a primer on how to acquire and retain power without regard to scruple or conscience. His other masterpiece, The Discourses, offers a profound analysis of the workings of the civil state and a hardheaded assessment of human nature. Machiavellis philosophy was shaped by the tumultuous age in which he lived, an age of towering geniuses and brutal tyrants. He was on intimate terms with Leonardo and Michelangelo. His first political mission was to spy on the fire-and-brimstone preacher Savonarola. As a diplomat, he matched wits with the corrupt and carnal Pope Alexander VI and his son, the notorious Cesare Borgia, whose violent career served as a model for The Prince. His insights were gleaned by closely studying men like Julius II, the Warrior Pope, and his successor, the vacillating Clement VII, as well as two kings of France and the Holy Roman Emperor. Analyzing their successes and failures, Machiavelli developed his revolutionary approach to power politics. Machiavelli was, above all, a student of human nature. In The Prince he wrote a practical guide to the aspiring politician that is based on the world as it is, not as it should be. He has been called cold and calculating, cynical and immoral. In reality, argues biographer Miles Unger, he was a deeply humane writer whose controversial theories were a response to the violence and corruption he saw around him. He was a psychologist with acute insight into human nature centuries before Freud. A brilliant and witty writer, he was not only a political theorist but also a poet and the author of La Mandragola, the finest comedy of the Italian Renaissance. He has been called the first modern man, unafraid to contemplate a world without God. Rising from modest beginnings on the strength of his own talents, he was able to see through the pious hypocrisy of the age in which he lived. Miles Unger has relied on original Italian sources as well as his own deep knowledge of Florence in writing this fascinating and authoritative account of a genius whose work remains as relevant today as when he wrote it.

James Grants enthralling biography of Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House during one of the most turbulent times in American historythe Gilded Age, the decades before the ascension of reformer President Theodore Rooseveltbrings to life one of the brightest, wittiest, and most consequential political stars in our history. The last decades of the nineteenth century were a volatile era of rampantly corrupt politics. It was a time of both stupendous growth and financial panic, of land bubbles and passionate and sometimes violent populist protests. Votes were openly bought and sold in a Congress paralyzed by the abuse of the House filibuster by members who refused to respond to roll call even when present, depriving the body of a quorum. Reed put an end to this stalemate, empowered the Republicans, and changed the House of Representatives for all time. The Speakers beliefs in majority rule were put to the test in 1898, when the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor set up a popular clamor for war against Spain. Reed resigned from Congress in protest. A larger-than-life character, Reed checks every box of the ideal biographical subject. He is an important and significant figure. He changed forever the way the House of Representatives does its business. He was funny and irreverent. He is, in short, great company. What I most admire about you, Theodore, Reed once remarked to his earnest young protg, Teddy Roosevelt, is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments. After he resigned his seat, Reed practiced law in New York. He was successful. He also found a soul mate in the legendary Mark Twain. They admired one anothers mordant wit. Grants lively and erudite narrative of this tumultuous erathe raucous late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesis a gripping portrait of a United States poised to burst its bounds and of the men who were defining it.

Cuauhtemoc Cardenas is, undoubtedly, the top exponent of the democratic transformation in Mexico. In his political memoirs, Cardenas recounts his path from governor of Michoacan and founder of his party's democratic school, to his position as Head of Government of Mexico City. This revealing work also focuses on the events surrounding the much covered fraud allegations during the 1988 and 1994 Presidential Elections, where mechanisms were set in motion by the PRI to impose their presidential candidates. Spanish Description: Distinguido politico del Mexico contemporaneo, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas es sin duda el maximo exponente de la transformacion democratica de nuestro pais. Su trayectoria como gobernador de Michoacan; como fundador de la Corriente democratica de su partido y su llegada a la jefatura de gobierno de la Ciudad de Mexico se relatan en este libro de reflexion e historia contemporanea, sin descuidar el legado de su padre, el ex presidente Lazaro Cardenas, su relacion con politicos a nivel internacional y, sobre todo, sucesos en los que fue victima de fraude electoral, en las elecciones presidenciales de 1988, las mas conocidas y la de 1994 en las que las truculencias del PRI instrumentaron los mecanismos mas siniestros para imponer a su presidente. Nadie podra negar que estas memorias politicas representan un libro revelador, terrible por sus verdades y apasionante.

Pages: 304, Paperback, Aguilar

Pages: 208, Edition: 2, Paperback, McGraw-Hill

Wedged between the hustle of New York and the grandeur of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia is America's smallest big city, America's biggest small city, and America's most American city. It is also a city in flux. Bruce Buschel is a native Philadelphian who revisits his hometown and, in doing so, revisits his personal history and the city's complex identity. Buschel was born on Broad Street, his father died on Broad Street; he flunked out of college, sold cameras, and purchased drugs on Broad Street; he wrote for a newspaper on Broad Street, touched JFK's left hand on Broad Street, and met his second wife when she worked on Broad Street. On his thirteen-mile walk down the boulevard, Buschel talks to everyone from the old Italian tailor down the corner from the Chinese Mennonite pastor to the Jewish funeral home director across the street from Bilal, the Muslim restaurateur. On Broad Street, he finds livestock just a few steps from Joe Frazier's gym. The newly dubbed "Gayborhood" is just a stone's throw from the home of the heartbreaking Eagles. A world-class ballet rehearses at the Rock School while outcast rockers practice at the Paul Green School. The gas station attendant on Broad Street may be a recent immigrant, but he has already adopted the brusque manners and terse responses of a fourth-generation Philadelphian. Naturally, William Penn oversees the whole insecure, glorious mess from his perch atop City Hall. After 9/11, Americans were drawn to Philly's authenticity and history. After decades of decay, something positive is happening, and dyspeptic Philadelphians are trying to adjust. A lot has changed since Buschel grew up there, but he hasn't managed to shake the attitudes instilled in childhood -- mere mention of the '64 Phillies (and one of the greatest collapses in baseball history) still stings. He has retained his irreverent sense of humor, his distrust of authority, his ambivalence about New York, his disdain for New Jersey, and, above all, his sense of loyalty -- if not outright love -- for his native city.