Walter Lord

Lord's stunning account of the War of 1812, when a young nation won its independence once and for all At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the great powers of Western Europe treated the United States like a disobedient child. Great Britain blocked American trade, seized its vessels, and impressed its sailors to serve in the Royal Navy. America's complaints were ignored, and the humiliation continued until James Madison, the country's fourth president,...

Besieged by General Santa Anna's five thousand troops, a handful of Texans fought for liberty in the face of overwhelming odds Looking out over the walls of the whitewashed Alamo, sweltering in the intense sun of a February heat wave, Colonel William Travis knew his small garrison had little chance of holding back the Mexican army. Even after a call for reinforcements brought dozens of Texans determined to fight for their fledgling republic, the cause...

The bestselling accounts of three decisive events of WWII: the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, and the miraculous evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. In May 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler's blitzkrieg, retreated to the beach at Dunkirk. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds...

For most of his life, an explorer fought to conquer the North Pole On March 1, 1909, only 413 miles of treacherous ice separated Robert E. Peary from realizing his lifelong dream of becoming the first man to set foot on the North Pole. On that dark morning on Canada's Ellesmere Island, it was cold enough to freeze a bottle of brandy. Though appearing solid, the ice sat atop seawater, and shifted violently according to the whims of the ocean below....

Lord's history of the 1962 Ole Miss riots, sparked by one man's heroic stance against segregation in the American South   On September 30, 1962, James H. Meredith matriculated at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. An air force veteran with sixty hours of transfer credits, Meredith would have been welcomed were it not for the color of his skin. As the first African-American student to register at a previously segregated school, however, he risked...

Three New York Times–bestselling World War II histories, including the true story of the miraculous evacuation portrayed in the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk. The monumental scope and breathtaking heroism of World War II are brought to vivid life in three riveting accounts that span the conflict's Western Front, Eastern Front, and Pacific Theater. The Miracle of Dunkirk: The definitive account of the evacuation of 338,000 British and French soldiers...

Includes more than 25 illustrations WALTER LORD NEVER STARTS FROM SCRATCH. For months before a word of this book was written, he could be found roaming the country, ferreting out the fascinating people who helped shape these years. One week it might be Elijah Baum, who piloted Wilbur Wright to his first lodgings at Kitty Hawk…the next, and old fireman who fought the flames at San Francisco…the next, some militant suffragette. Even in his raids...

In the bloodiest island combat of World War II, one group of men risked it all to fight from behind Japanese lines The Solomon Islands was where the Allied war machine finally broke the Japanese empire. As pilots, marines, and sailors fought for supremacy in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Slot, a lonely group of radio operators occupied the Solomon Islands' highest points. Sometimes encamped in comfort, sometimes exposed to the elements, these...

The fascinating diary of English colonel James Fremantle, who spent three months behind Confederate lines at the height of the American Civil War Three hours after stepping onto American soil, James Fremantle saw his first corpse: that of a bandit lynched for taunting Confederate officers. But Fremantle was not shocked by this grisly introduction to the Civil War. On leave from Her Majesty's army, the Colonel had come to tour the fight, and see firsthand...