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Ana Ruiz visits the monuments, architecture and archeological remains of early Madrid, tracing its evolution up until the Christian conquest in the late 11th century. This history gives special emphasis to Madrids Moorish origins, while savoring the piquant blend of Celtiberian, Roman and Visigoth elements that give it such a distinctive style. Now the capital of Spain, Madrid was originally founded as a modest fortress intended to protect nearby Toledo.

Reconstructing the early period of Greek history upon new chronological lines, the reader will get to the bottom of a prolonged and rancorous debate among classical scholars about how various archeological finds should be dated. Based on physical evidence, the majority of classicists and Hellenic scholars were convinced that Schliemanns discoveries at Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns belonged primarily in the eighth century BC. The Egyptologists, however, won out, and the Mycenaean period was placed firmly in the second millennium.

Philosopher, diplomat, politician, inventor, writer, architect, even gardener, from a historical perspective Thomas Jefferson emerges as an extraordinary individual one who was clearly many things to many people. But, too, precisely because of these same collective endeavors, he has become so much a part of America's ongoing search for itself, so deeply entwined in the tapestry of America's grand democratic experiment, that, in many instances, succeeding generations have been largely unable to picture him clearly and objectively in his own life and times.

Windows on Japan is a deeply insightful commentary that alternates chapters of physical travel with travel through perception about Japan, and challenges the logic of much Western thought about the country that perplexes as much as it pleases. The author walked a route that connects the ports of Niigata and Yokohama and from these windows on the world considers perceptions of people and place. He also assesses the effect of Japan on writers from Jonathan Swift to Oscar Wilde, Shirley MacLaine and Paul Theroux with surprising results.

Li Shi Min was a man of great political and military accomplishments, narrated here with the battle stratagems and clever counsel that carried him forward. This book tells how he helped his father Li Yuan to establish the Tang Dynasty and the contributions he made to unifying China. Author Hung Hing Ming draws on China's historical records and chronicles to recount the battles to conquer the warlords and local strongmen in different parts of China, the wise policies he adopted, and the means by which he inspired officials to put forward good suggestions.

The Ages in Alignment series argues for a complete reconstruction of ancient chronology. The histories of the Near Eastern civilizations are now believed to have commenced around 3300 BC, about 2,000 years before those of China and the New World. Yet Ages in Alignment demonstrates that the Near Eastern cultures had no 2,000-year head start. All the ancient civilizations arose simultaneously around 1100 BC, in the wake of a terrible natural catastrophe recalled in legend as the Flood or Deluge.

I have long believed that the most comprehensive portrait of historical figures might be seen in their personal correspondence and journal entries. Abraham Lincoln is certainly no exception, and those letters and telegrams he penned as commander-in-chief throughout one of the most critical episodes in American history are of singular importance.

In The Pyramid Age, Northern Irish historian Emmet Sweeney provides evidence suggesting the pyramids were not built around 2350 BC, as is currently thought, but only around 800 BC. Sweeney's book argues that the dating of ancient history is often much more tenuous than most people realize, and that many of the puzzles and mysteries which confuse historians and archaeologists are solved as soon as the chronology is adjusted.

Occupation and Insurgency details German policies toward civilians and captured military forces in the Soviet Union from 1941–1945 and examines them in the context of the laws of war. The results of these policies illustrate how an occupying force can establish a sense of legitimacy or spur a stronger resistance among the local citizens. While focused upon World War II, the book is very relevant to today's war on terror and the handling of current counterinsurgency scenarios.

Frank Fiske was a young boy in 1890 when he moved to Fort Yates on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, where Sitting Bull was being held in a form of house arrest. He observed the confrontation of two chosen people. The whites believed they had the right to take Indians land as their manifest destiny. Wovoka, the Indian Messiah, declared Indians were the chosen people and would be saved when all whites were eliminated from earth and Ghost Dancing followed. The story presents Sitting Bulls anger over the notion of American exceptionalism, experienced as profound condescension.