Category: history
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Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer talks about the brutal killing of an innocent woman and her baby daughter in the mid-1980s by two brothers whom one of them believed that doing so was doing God’s work. It’s the story about how Mormonism and equally important, how the different sects were created, especially…
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Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures by Lizzie Wade goes over some of our world’s history’s most devastating apocalyptic events, showing us that regardless of what gets thrown at us, humans eventually will find a way to survive and move forward. If you’re feeling depressed about today’s world and how…
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Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church by Philip Shenon is an appropriately named investigative novel that delves into the lives of the previous six or seven popes and how their winning the conclave election to become supreme rulers of the Roman Catholic Church have created an uproar,…
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The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is a refreshing new twist on the popular tale of Vlad Tepes, aka Dracula. It’s hard to believe that The Historian is the author’s debut novel, published in 2005. Right at around 700 pages, we can clearly see that she had huge ambitions for this project. Fortunately for us readers,…
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Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard goes over the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s. I’ve always been fascinated by the witch trials, even going back to when I was a kid. Even though we were obviously taught that the accused were actually innocent, it still…
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The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World by Ben Macintyre tells the story of how six Arab gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 while the U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran was happening simultaneously. Not only did it change London forever afterwards because of…
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Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham details the tragic accident of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in February of 1986. I was excited to learn about this incident and knew the book and story were in good hands with Adam. Having read and absolutely loved…
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With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge is a memoir and recounting of the World War II battles at Peleliu and Okinawa Island. Private First Class E.B. Sledge, aka “Sledgehammer,” initially wanted to write the memoir to recount his hellish days of war for his family members only. He was then urged to publish the…
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Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang goes over the last few decades of China’s last dynasty, The Great Qing. Focusing squarely on the Empress Dowager Cixi, it covers the early days of her life to how she became the de facto ruler of China despite all odds. All roads…
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The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll helps readers understand, as the title implies, the war against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and how the continuous search for weapons of mass destruction ultimately led to their invasion by the United States. The Achilles Trap presents us…
The Mindless Catalog 