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"Work smarter, not harder." Gerard Fonte presents the construction of the Great Pyramid as a wonder indeed, while challenging our cherished notions of the arduous labor and extreme human costs required for the project. Starting with his knowledge of project management, the properties of basic materials, and common sense, and giving the Egyptians credit as a sophisticated and well-run society, he shows step by step how they may have built great edifices and enhanced social cohesion at the same time.

Through its military policy and foreign policy, America attained superpower status in a remarkably short period of time. Nations survive based on their ability to provide internal order and external defense. Unfortunately, foreign policy goals are not always attained, and sometimes those goals are based on questionable concepts. Power and Policy examines the relationship of the U.S. military and naval power with its foreign policy objectives, exploring the policies and the use of force that propelled the United States into the first ranks of world power.

Contrary to what is often reported in history books, the Morgenthau Plan was a major element in postwar planning led by Washington, before the war was even over. This book traces the roles played by Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury to President Roosevelt, and his assistant Harry Dexter White, in the planning for the postwar world. Close attention is given to the discussions leading up to the Second Quebec Conference in 1944 where Winston Churchill's acceptance of the plan was obtained. It is clear that the effects of the policy were understood in advance.

Alexander Hamilton: Americas Forgotten Founder describes the character and achievements of a man who was instrumental in casting the form of our government and especially its strong financial structure. His financial innovations renewed the public credit when war debts threatened to swamp the fledgling economy, provided a stable currency system and established a federal revenue system. Hamilton s involvement in the foreign affairs of the new republic assured its unity, sovereignty and rapid economic growth.

Empress Wu was stunning in her beauty, in her ruthless elimination of rivals (including sons and daughters), and, most important, in her discernment. Wu Zetian was esteemed for appointing capable officials throughout the realm, and she implemented reforms that improved standards of higher education, gave some status to women, and democratized the recruitment of candidates for official posts by eliminating the requirement that they be nominated by someone within the establishment.

Presenting sketches of individuals like Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, Adam Smith and David Hume, Charles Baudelaire and Edouard Manet, David Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Vladimir Horowitz — even Al Capone and Johnny Torrio — the author shows how contrasting as well as comparable personalities, characters and temperaments can support and strengthen each other, and he explores the range of ties that may influence a person during one phase of life or may become the center of ones life altogether.

Boris Godunov governed from the shadows during the 13-year reign of the borderline-retarded Tsar Feodor Ivanovich, heir to Tsar Ivan IV, and then for almost seven years in his own name. But by then the brutal death of the 9-year-old Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich by Godunov's henchmen, and the effects of his Oprichniki security forces on Russian society, had taken their toll. In the absence of a clear line of succession, false princes were put forward by rivals, including the Poles, and proponents of these "False Dmitris" and other contenders only fanned the flames.

India's future will be determined not only by economic development, but also by a dynamic traditional culture that continues to develop along its own lines sometimes in concert, and sometimes in conflict with material enrichment. India develops not, as one writer has suggested, in spite of the gods. Rather, the seed for the creation and the fuel for the sustenance of India's economic boom lay in its traditions, and, I will argue, the animating spirit of its future lies there as well.

Slaves to Racism is a unique cross-racial, cross cultural approach to racism from an insider/outsider viewpoint.   Using numerous personal stories from the 1950s to today, from the American South and Midwest to Western Africa, the author displays the compulsive and repetitive nature of racism, its effect on both participant and victim, and how American prejudice and discrimination migrated to Africa with the creation of Liberia. The author is a marginal man who belongs to all of the groups involved. As an insider, he was privy to confidential racial and cultural viewpoints.

The term Dark Age was first introduced by historians during the 14th century, denoting that little was known of European history in the centuries between the fall of the Western Empire and the beginning of the 11th century. By the 19th century, however, it had become evident that Roman civilization did not come to an end in 476, not even in the West. The author confronts the conventional proposition that three centuries, roughly between 615 and 915, never existed. The material remains of the 7th century closely resemble those of the 10th, and lie directly beneath them.