The Best History Book Deals of the Month

In Hitler’s Commanders, military historian James Lucas examines the careers of fourteen senior German officers who served under Adolf Hitler during World War II. Drawing on their varied backgrounds, ranks, and military achievements, Lucas explores the men responsible for carrying out Hitler’s often difficult and disastrous strategic decisions. From Panzer commanders to generals overseeing German forces across Europe, these portraits offer insight into the structure and conduct of the German Army. A compelling study of military leadership, Hitler’s Commanders provides a closer look at the officers who helped shape Germany’s wartime campaigns.

In December 1944, the U.S. Third Fleet sailed into one of the most devastating storms in naval history. Bruce Henderson’s Down to the Sea reconstructs the disaster, which left three ships sunk, dozens damaged, and 756 men dead. Drawing on survivor interviews, naval records, court transcripts, letters, and diaries, Henderson chronicles both the catastrophe and the desperate rescue efforts that followed. At its heart is a story of extraordinary courage, as sailors risked their own lives to save others amid some of the Pacific War’s most dangerous seas.

In The Right Way to Lose a War, award-winning scholar Dominic Tierney examines why the United States has struggled to achieve decisive victories in modern conflicts. From Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, Tierney explores America’s difficulty adapting to prolonged guerrilla warfare and its tendency to remain trapped in unsuccessful campaigns. Drawing on interviews with generals and policymakers, he identifies three steps for navigating battlefield setbacks: surge, talk, and leave. Combining military history, political analysis, and stories of courage, Tierney offers a provocative look at America’s changing approach to war.

Millions of families were separated during World War II, leaving displaced children and their loved ones scattered across a devastated Europe. Historian Tara Zahra traces the enormous postwar effort to reunite these families and rebuild European society. Drawing on archives from Germany, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the United States, Zahra brings together the experiences of Holocaust survivors, refugees, social workers, and government officials. She reveals how the aftermath of the war transformed ideas about family, childhood, national identity, and humanitarianism for generations to come.

When the California Gold Rush ended, many miners who had failed to strike it rich turned to farming instead. In After the Gold Rush, historian David Vaught follows the Pierces, Greenes, Montgomerys, Careys, and other families who built new lives along Putah Creek in the Sacramento Valley. Facing floods, drought, uncertain land policies, and unpredictable markets, they struggled to make agriculture succeed where mining had failed. Their story offers a dramatic look at the underside of the American dream and the enduring consequences of pursuing the promise of sudden wealth.

From a childhood of poverty to the heights of Argentine political power, Eva Perón became one of the most famous and controversial women of the twentieth century. John Barnes’s Evita, First Lady traces her remarkable rise as a performer, political figure, and champion of Argentina’s working poor. Revered as a savior by millions and condemned by her opponents as a ruthless authoritarian, Evita embodied a striking paradox: she fought for the poor while amassing extraordinary wealth and influence. Barnes explores the woman behind the legend and the enduring fascination with her life.

Before his presidency, John F. Kennedy spent more than a decade building his national reputation as a Massachusetts senator. John T. Shaw’s JFK in the Senate examines the pivotal years when Kennedy developed the public profile, political relationships, and ambitions that would eventually carry him to the White House. Drawing on primary documents, memoirs, oral histories, and interviews with Kennedy’s aides, Shaw explores his approach to congressional influence, his work on a Senate committee studying the nation’s greatest senators, and the publication of Profiles in Courage, which brought him a Pulitzer Prize and national attention.