Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley, Ron Powers (Contributor)

The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground...

From Dawn to Decadence - 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to Present by Jacques Barzun

In the last half-millennium, as the noted cultural critic and historian Jacques Barzun observes, great revolutions have swept the Western world. Each has brought profound change.

In the Heart of the Sea : The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Nathaniel Philbrick's In The Heart of the Sea examines the 19th-century Pacific whaling industry through the arc of the sinking of the whaleship Essex by a boisterous sperm whale. The story that inspired Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick has a lot going for it--derring-do, cannibalism, rescue--and Philbrick proves an amiable and well-informed narrator, providing both context and detail. We learn about the importance and mechanics of blubber production--a vital source of oil--and we get the nuts and bolts of harpooning and life aboard whalers. Neither are we spared the nitty-gritty of open boats and sucking human bones dry.