Today, America has nearly eighteen million living military veterans, from the Greatest Generation to men and women coming home from recent tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. They join the now-silent ranks of American veterans reaching back to our earliest conflict, the Revolutionary War.

"A profound new rendering of the struggle by African Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring stain on the American mind. The story of the abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar one, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century...

★"Required reading for teens of every gender."—Booklist, starred review

Abortion is one of the most common of all medical procedures. But it is still stigmatized, and all too often people do not feel they can talk about their experiences.

Making abortion illegal or hard to access doesn't make it any less common; it just makes it dangerous. Around the world, tens of thousands of women die from unsafe abortions

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On October 21, 1805, as Britain's Royal Navy under the command of Horatio Nelson clashed with Napoleon's forces in an epic sea battle off the coast of Spain, the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Though the cost was high--and Nelson himself was killed--the British victory prevented Napoleon from invading Britain and paved the way for the eventual defeat of the French emperor. Without Trafalgar there would have been no Waterloo. The Battle of Trafalgar...