Early in the Civil War, 19-year-old Belle Boyd risks capture to spy for the South and her native state of Virginia. On the eve of battle, she races to the Confederate camp to deliver important information to General Stonewall Jackson. Thanks in part to Belle's courage, the Confederates drive the Federal forces from Front Royal, Virginia, and win a major victory on May 23, 1862.

On War (German: Vom Kriege) is a book on war and military strategy by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and published posthumously by his wife Marie von Brühl in 1832. It is one of the most important treatises on political-military analysis and strategy ever written, and remains both controversial and influential on strategic thinking. On War is an unfinished work. Clausewitz...

And so begins the HooDoo Western by Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo Jumbo and one of America's most innovative and celebrated writers. Reed demolishes white American history and folklore as well as Christian myth in this masterful satire of contemporary American life.

In addition to the black, satanic Loop Garoo Kid, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down features Drag Gibson (a rich, slovenly cattleman), Mustache Sal (his nymphomaniac

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Claiming he had discovered the "royal road to the unconscious," Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams at the turn of the twentieth century, and thus laid the foundation for his innovative technique of psychoanalysis. Largely ignored at first, the book would eventually be considered his most important work, one that revolutionized the way human beings view themselves. Spurred on by the death of his father, Freud began analyzing his own dreams,...

The Iliad: Join Achilles at the Gates of Troy as he slays Hector to Avenge the death of Patroclus. Here is a story of love and war, hope and despair, and honor and glory. The recent major motion picture Helen of Troy starring Brad Pitt proves that this epic is as relevant today as it was twenty five hundred years ago when it was first written. So journey back to the Trojan War with Homer and relive the grandest adventure of all times. The Odyssey:...

Presents essays that examine women's issues in "The Scarlet Letter," discussing such topics as feminism in the nineteenth century, forced marriage, and the subservience of women.

The eighteenth-century philosopher’s landmark treatise against monarchy that inspired the French and American Revolutions.
 “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
 
With these stirring words, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins The Social Contract—the first shot in a battle of ideas that would set the stage for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution....

In 1831, the then twenty-seven year old Alexis de Tocqueville, was sent with Gustave de Beaumont to America by the French Government to study and make a report on the American prison system. Over a period of nine months the two traveled all over America making notes not only on the prison systems but on all aspects of American society and government. From these notes, Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America", an exhaustive analysis of the successes...

Utopia (1516) is a work of political satire by Thomas More. Published in Latin while More was serving as Privy Counsellor under King Henry VIII, the text is stylized as a true account of a new civilization discovered in the New World by traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus. While there have been varying interpretations of Utopia over the centuries, it is most consistently regarded as a work of political philosophy in the tradition of Plato's Republic that...

Provides background on the life of american novelist s. e. hinton and her influences, features sixteen articles that explore teenager issues in her novel "the outsiders," and examines teenage issues in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.