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Written prior to the revolutionary war, "Common Sense" was a widely distributed phamphlet that argued for the complete independence of America from Britain. Its importance in terms of American history cannot by understated. The influence that this publication had on the American sentiment towards fighting the revolutionary war may have been more significant than any other single factor. Read for yourself the... (more)

Machiavelli's The Prince

by Niccolo Machiavelli

Rufus Goodwin has made a new translation into modern English of Machiavelli's masterpiece, The Prince. Machiavelli, father of Social Sciences, continues to have relevance in our modern world, and his observations on the nature of human being and the political systems are as new today as they were during the Renaissance. In the Introduction, the adjective "Machiavellian" is analyzed.

Caesar: The Gallic War

by Julius Caesar

Caesar (C. Iulius, 102–44 BCE ), statesman and soldier, defied the dictator Sulla; served in the Mithridatic wars and in Spain; pushed his way in Roman politics as a 'democrat' against the senatorial government; was the real leader of the coalition with Pompey and Crassus; conquered all Gaul for Rome; attacked Britain twice; was forced into civil war; became master of the Roman world; and achieved wide-reaching... (more)

Covered Wagon Women : Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849

Covered Wagon Women : Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849

by Kenneth L. Holmes, Anne M. Butler

The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840s speak through these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City; Rachel Fisher, who buried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon. Still others make... (more)

History. (English)

by Herodotus

The word "history" derives from the Greek word for "inquiry". Combining his encyclopaedic interests and curiosity about the customs and workings of humankind, the "Father of History" gives us an unforgettable account of the great clash between Greece and the Persian Empire. In his matchless study of persons, places, and events, Herodotus recounts the rise of Lydia, and the ascendancy of the kingdom of Persia under... (more)

The Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

David Wright's new translation of The Canterbury Tales into modern verse--the first to appear in over thirty years--makes one of the greatest works of English literature accessible to all readers while preserving the wit and vivacity of Chaucer's original text.

The Annals of Imperial Rome

by Cornelius Tacitus, Michael Grant

Tacitus' "Annals of Imperial Rome" recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus up to the death of Nero in AD 68. With clarity and vivid intensity he describes the reign of terror under the corrupt Tiberius, the great fire of Rome during the time of Nero, and the wars, poisonings, scandals, conspiracies and murders that were part of imperial life. Despite his claim that... (more)

A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America

A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America

This comprehensive anthology presents cogent, provocative articles from differing political perspectives on major issues in postwar America. In addition to articles by leading historians, the editors have assembled first-person accounts of various issues by those who have contributed to the shaping of America's rich history. The sixth edition has been extensively revised to incorporate new documents and the most... (more)

History of the Peloponnesian War

by Thucydides

Written four hundred years before the birth of Christ, this detailed contemporary account of the struggle between Athens and Sparta stands an excellent chance of fulfilling the author's ambitious claim that the work "was done to last forever." The conflicts between the two empires over shipping, trade, and colonial expansion came to a head in 431 b.c. in Northern Greece, and the entire Greek world was plunged into... (more)

The Histories (Oxford World's Classics)

by Cornelius Tacitus

AD 69, the year following Nero's suicide and marking the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome, was one of the most dramatic and dangerous in the city's history. In the surviving books of his Histories, the great barrister-historian Tacitus gives a gripping account of the long but single year' that saw the reigns of four emperors: disciplinarian Galba; conspirator and dandy Otho; unambitious hedonist... (more)

Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side (Documents in American Social History)

Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side (Documents in American Social History)

by Rose Cohen

The title here pretty much says it all. In this 1918 volume, Cohen recounts her own and her family's struggle to acclimate themselves to New York after emigrating from Russia at the turn of the century. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A Modest Proposal and Other ProseJonathan Swift

A Modest Proposal and Other Prose

by Jonathan Swift

The Rise and Fall of Athens

by Plutarch

Nine Greek biographies illustrate the rise and fall of Athens, from the legendary days of Theseus, the city's founder, through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander.

War in the Middle Ages

by Philippe Contamine

Covering the ten centuries following the fall of Rome, War in the Middle Ages engages all aspects of its subject, including the military customs and conditions of the various Western European states; armor and weaponry recruitment; and rules of combat developed to limit bloodshed. Philippe Contamine writes with awareness that, in both theory and fact, medieval warfare was constantly evolving. He opens with a... (more)

The commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg catechism

The commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg catechism

by Z. Ursinus

Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains

by Charles Alexander Eastman

IT is not easy to characterize Sitting Bull, of all Sioux chiefs most generally known to the American people. There are few to whom his name is not familiar, and still fewer who have learned to connect it with anything more than the conventional notion of a bloodthirsty savage. The man was an enigma at best. He was not impulsive, nor was he phlegmatic. He was most serious when he seemed to be jocose.

A Pioneer Woman's Memoir (In Their Own Words)Arabella Fulton, Helen Carey McKeever, Judith E. Greenberg

A Pioneer Woman's Memoir (In Their Own Words)

by Arabella Fulton

Grade 7 Up-During the 1800s, the promise of a new start in a new land lured thousands of Americans west. Arabella Clemens set out on her journey along the Oregon Trail in 1864 when she was 20 years old. After settling in the Boise Valley with her sister and brother-in-law, she met and married Frank Fulton. There they stayed until 1872 when they set out, again by wagon train, to settle in Texas. Eleven years later,... (more)

Poems of Catullus

by Peter Whigham

Catullus, best remembered for his tempestuous relationship with the notorious Clodia Metelli, was one of the most influential, original and enigmatic of all the Roman poets. This text presents a collection of his work.

The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke: June 1, 1878-June 22, 1880 (Diaries of John Gregory Bourke)

The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke: June 1, 1878-June 22, 1880 (Diaries of John Gregory Bourke)

John Gregory Bourke kept a monumental set of diaries as aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Crook. This third volume (of a projected set of eight) begins in 1878 with a discussion of the Bannock Uprising and a retrospective on Crazy Horse, whose death Bourke called "an event of such importance, and with its attendant circumstances pregnant with so much of good or evil for the settlement between the... (more)

The urine dance of the Zuni Indians of New Mexico,

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Common Sense

by Thomas Paine