biography & autobiography / presidents & heads of state

"Joshua Rubenstein's riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952 when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin's murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower with armed force, and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin's sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the twentieth century. The Last Days of Stalin is an engaging, briskly told account of the dictator's final active months, the vigil at his deathbed, and the unfolding of Soviet and international events in the months after his death. Rubenstein throws fresh light on: the devious plotting of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other 'comrades in arms' who well understood the significance of the dictator's impending death; the witness-documented events of his death as compared to official published versions; Stalin's rumored plans to forcibly exile Soviet Jews; the responses of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles to the Kremlin's conciliatory gestures after Stalin's death; and the momentous repercussions when Stalin's regime of terror was cut short"--.

Tells the story of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from her life growing up in East Germany to her political rise and success as the Chancellor.

Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency--a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

The story of Andrew Jackson's improbable ascent to the White House, centered on the handlers and propagandists who made it possible.

"...a narrative exploring two harrowing attempts to rescue East Germans by tunneling beneath the Berlin Wall, the U.S. television networks who financed and filmed them, and the Kennedy administration's unprecedented attempt to suppress both films."--Provided by publisher.

A biography of United States president, governor, and actor Ronald Reagan.

"Revered as a general and trusted as America's first elected leader, George Washington is considered a great many things in the contemporary imagination, but an intellectual is not one of them. In correcting this longstanding misconception, ... offers a stimulating literary biography that traces the effects of a life spent in self-improvement"--Provided by publisher.

"... examines Adolf Hitler's time in Munich between 1918 and 1926, the years when Hitler shed his awkward, feckless persona and transformed himself into a savvy opportunistic political operator who saw himself as Germany's messiah. The story of Hitler's transformation is one of a fateful match between man and city. After opportunistically fluctuating between the ideas of the left and the right, Hitler emerged as an astonishingly flexible leader of Munich's right-wing movement. The tragedy for Germany and the world was that Hitler found himself in Munich; had he not been in Bavaria in the wake of the war and the revolution, his transformation into a National Socialist may never have occurred."--Provided by publisher.

Collects twenty-seven speeches of Barack Obama, including his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq War and his farewell speech in Chicago January 2017.

Looks at the life of military leader and America's eighteenth president Ulysses S. Grant.