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J.H. "Billy" Williams always had an affinity for animals. So, when he responded to a job offer with the East India Company to work with logging elephants his family wasn't surprised, though they were worried. He had already come back from World War I in one piece; would he be so lucky with India' Not only did he find his calling with the elephants in India, Billy and his elephants became war heroes.

A poetic and inspiring tribute to the beauty and wonder of America's history, landscape, and symbols, illustrated by acclaimed artist Kadir Nelson. With wonderfully spare, deceptively simple verses Sarvinder Naberhaus has composed a lyrical celebration of the iconic imagery of our nation, beginning with the American flag. Each spread, sumptuously illustrated by award-winning artist Kadir Nelson, depicts a richly evocative tableau, from the view of the Statue of Library at Ellis Island to civil rights marchers banded together, to a spacecraft at Cape Canaveral blasting off.

A sweeping new history of how climate change and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power--a story of nature's triumph over human ambition.

The definitive history of Jews in New York and how they transformed the city Based on the acclaimed multi-volume series, "City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York," Jewish New York reveals the multifaceted world of one of the city's most important ethnic and religious groups. Spanning three centuries, Jewish New York traces the earliest arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam to the recent immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union. Jewish immigrants transformed New York. They built its clothing industry and constructed huge swaths of apartment buildings.

A story of faith and fraud in post-Civil War America, told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America's imagination. A "spirit photographer," William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject.

In his best-selling study, syndicated columnist and talk show personality Christopher Matthews combines newly-uncovered information and acute political analysis to portray two stunning, ultimately tragic figures who defined a generation. In language that is always accessible, Matthews vividly traces the lasting impacts John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon had on each other's political campaigns-and their presidencies. Despite their differences in upbringing and party affiliation, Kennedy and Nixon shared a warm friendship when they arrived in Washington in 1946.

Walter Stahr, award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Seward, tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's indispensable Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, the man the president entrusted with raising the army that preserved the Union. Of the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814-1869) was the most powerful and controversial. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil War. He organized the war effort. He directed military movements from his telegraph office, where Lincoln literally hung out with him.

A behind-the-scenes, revelatory account of John F. Kennedy's wily campaign to the White House, beginning with his bold, failed attempt to win the vice presidential nomination in 1956. A young and undistinguished junior plots his way to the presidency and changes the way we nominate and elect presidents. John F. Kennedy and his young warriors invented modern presidential politics. They turned over accepted wisdom that his Catholicism was a barrier to winning an election and plotted a successful course to that constituency.

Code is the "how" of human productive activity. The creation, implementation, and refinement of code have been the infrastructure of human progress from Neolithic simplicity to modern complexity. In a sweeping narrative that takes readers from the production of Stone Age axes, to the invention of chocolate chip cookies, to the experience of Burning Man, Philip Auerswald argues that the key driver of human history is the advance of code.

History is chock full of characters and events that could turn your hair white. From rampaging pirates to raunchy monarchs, Oh Yikes! has thrilling stories to spare about history's wildest, scariest moments. Did you know the Aztecs performed many human sacrifices' And that's not all-did you know that Christopher Columbus didn't just discover the New World so that your local car dealer could have a major sale' He was actually looking for spices. Instead he ended up enslaving and killing the natives he met.