Biography & Autobiography : Political

One of the world's leading historians of Renaissance Italy brings to life here the vibrant--and violent--society of fifteenth-century Florence. His disturbing narrative opens up an entire culture, revealing the dark side of Renaissance man and politician Lorenzo de' Medici. On a Sunday in April 1478, assassins attacked Lorenzo and his brother as they attended Mass in the cathedral of Florence. Lorenzo scrambled to safety as Giuliano bled to death on the cathedral floor. April Blood moves outward in time and space from that murderous event, unfolding a story of tangled passions, ambition, treachery, and revenge. The conspiracy was led by one of the city's most noble clans, the Pazzi, financiers who feared and resented the Medici's swaggering new role as political bosses--but the web of intrigue spread through all of Italy. Bankers, mercenaries, the Duke of Urbino, the King of Naples, and Pope Sixtus IV entered secretly into the plot. Florence was plunged into a peninsular war, and Lorenzo was soon fighting for his own and his family's survival. The failed assassination doomed the Pazzi. Medici revenge was swift and brutal--plotters were hanged or beheaded, innocents were hacked to pieces, and bodies were put out to dangle from the windows of the government palace. All remaining members of the larger Pazzi clan were forced to change their surname, and every public sign or symbol of the family was expunged or destroyed. April Blood offers us a fresh portrait of Renaissance Florence, where dazzling artistic achievements went side by side with violence, craft, and bare-knuckle politics. At the center of the canvas is the figure of Lorenzo the Magnificent--poet, statesman, connoisseur, patron of the arts, and ruthless "boss of bosses." This extraordinarily vivid account of a turning point in the Italian Renaissance is bound to become a lasting work of history. more...

Price: $15.00

Frederick Douglass, (1817-1895), was the leading spokesman for African Americans in the 1800's. Born a slave, Douglass became a noted reformer, author, and speaker. He devoted his life to the abolition of slavery and the fight for black rights. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in Tuckahoe, MD. He changed his name to Douglass to avoid capture after he fled from his master in 1838. He arrived in New Bedford, Massachusetts and because he was a black man, could only find work as an unskilled laborer. His life changed from that of an unskilled laborer to sought-after speaker when the Massachusetts Antislavery Society hired him as a lecturer. Douglass was an outspoken pioneer in the anti-slavery movement. He protested the discriminatory practices of segregated employment, education, worship and public transportation. His house was a station on the Underground Railroad. He conferred with Abraham Lincoln on several occasions and helped recruit African Americans for the Union Army during the Civil War. The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass is the expanded version of the autobiography he published in England. more...

Price: $4.95

Power . . . Personality . . . Paradox When Alan Greenspan talks, Wall Street listens – as do bankers, investors, politicians, and economists throughout the world. He is the number one arbiter of U.S. monetary policy – credited, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, with having simultaneously held inflation down and kept the economy growing throughout the longest and largest economic expansion in U.S. history. more...

Price: $27.95

In this magnificent biography, celebrated historian David Nasaw brings to life the fascinating rags- to-riches story of one of our most iconic business legends—Andrew Carnegie, America’s first modern titan. From his first job as a bobbin boy at age thirteen to his status as the richest man in the world upon retirement, Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream and the prototype of today’s billionaire. Drawing on a trove of new material, Nasaw brilliantly plumbs the core of this fascinating and complex man, at last fixing him in his rightful place as one of the most compelling, elusive, and multifaceted personalities of the twentieth century. more...

Price: $20.00

He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome’s first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. more...

Price: $16.95