Showing results by author "William Manchester" in All Categories

Winston Churchill is perhaps the most important political figure of the twentieth century. His great oratory and leadership during the Second World War were only part of his huge breadth of experience and achievement. Studying his life is a fascinating way to imbibe the history of his era and...

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister—when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by...

This second volume in William Manchester’s three-volume biography of Winston Churchill challenges the assumption that Churchill’s finest hour was as a wartime leader. During the years 1932–1940, he was tested as few men are. Pursued by creditors (at one point he had to put up his home for...

This great time capsule of a book captures the abundant popular history of the United States from 1932 to 1972. It encompasses politics, military history, economics, the arts, science, fashion, fads, social change, sexual mores, communications, graffiti—everything and anything indigenous that...

"[Douglas MacArthur] was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime. No more baffling, exasperating soldier ever wore a uniform. Flamboyant...

No one knew it was going to be that bad. World War II killed some 60 million people—20 million of them soldiers—and inflicted wounds, bereavement, poverty, and suffering on countless others. But such destruction was impossible to imagine.

The preeminent popular history of civilization’s rebirth after the Dark Ages From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose and with the grace and authority of...

In this narrative of extraordinary richness, depth, and authority, America’s preeminent biographer/historian explored the German national character as no other writer has done. The Arms of Krupp brings to life Europe’s wealthiest, most powerful family, a four-hundred-year German dynasty that...

William Manchester was friends with John F. Kennedy for two decades before the President’s assassination. In this work, the bestselling author of Portrait of a President and The Death of a President puts aside the tragedy of JFK’s death to celebrate the brightness of his life. Manchester...

The writing of Death of a President, William Manchester’s award-winning account of President Kennedy’s assassination, is the topic of the title essay in this collection, as it was a controversy like few others, pitting one of the most prominent historians of the day against Jackie Kennedy...

The nightmares began for William Manchester twenty-three years after World War II. In his dreams he lived with the recurring image of himself as a battle-weary youth "angrily demanding to know what had happened to the three decades since he had laid down his arms." To find out, Manchester...

As the world still reeled from the tragic and historic events of November 22, 1963, William Manchester set out, at the request of the Kennedy family, to create a detailed, authoritative record of President John F. Kennedy's death, including the days immediately preceding and following the...

This fine biography of H. L. Mencken tells of how, for better or worse, he rose to his unique position as comic genius and preeminent critic of American culture. InDisturber of the Peace, one finds the facts of the stormy Mencken legend: his hectic and hilarious editorship with George Jean...

Selections from Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, George Pickett, Lt. Colonel W.W. Blackford, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Sarah Morgan Dawson, George T. Stevens, John McElroy, William T. Sherman, Adeline Grey; William Manchester, Paul Fussell, Cornelius Ryan, James J. Fahey, A.J. Liebling, Janet Flanner, David Kenyon Webster, Lewis H. Carlson.

An up-close look at John F. Kennedy by one of his closest confidants, a New York Times–bestselling biographer Written by a prize-winning historian and biographer of such giants as Winston S. Churchill and Douglas MacArthur, this intimately detailed account provides a rare personal glimpse into...