Knowledge = Power

Of all our great presidents,  Theodore Roosevelt is the only one whose greatness increased out of  office. When he toured Europe in 1910 as plain “Colonel Roosevelt”, he  was hailed as the most famous man in the world. Crowned heads vied to  put him up in their palaces. “If I see another king,” he joked, “I think  I shall bite him.” Had TR won his historic “Bull Moose”  campaign in 1912 (when he outpolled the sitting president, William  Howard Taft), he might have averted World War I, so great was his  international influence. Had he not died in 1919, at the early age of  60, he would unquestionably have been reelected to a third term in the  White House and completed the work he began in 1901 of establishing the  United States as a model democracy, militarily strong and socially  just. This biography by Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex,  is itself the completion of a trilogy sure to stand as definitive.  Packed with more adventure, variety, drama, humor, and tragedy than a  big novel, yet documented down to the smallest fact, it recounts the  last decade of perhaps the most amazing life in American history. What  other president has written 40 books, hunted lions, founded a third  political party, survived an assassin’s bullet, and explored an unknown  river longer than the Rhine?

Misha Glenny's groundbreaking  study of global organized crime is now the inspiration for an eight-part  AMC crime drama starring James Norton (War and Peace), Juliet Rylance, and David Strathairn. With  the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the  deregulation of international financial markets in 1989, governments and  entrepreneurs alike became intoxicated by dreams of newly opened  markets. But no one could have foreseen that the greatest success story  to arise from these events would be the worldwide rise of organized  crime. Today, it is estimated that illegal trade accounts for one-fifth  of the global GDP. In this fearless and wholly authoritative  investigation of the seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares,  veteran reporter Misha Glenny travels across five continents to speak  with participants from every level of the global underworld - police,  victims, politicians, and even the criminals themselves. What follows is  a groundbreaking, propulsive look at an unprecedented phenomenon from a  savvy, street-wise guide.

At its height, Renaissance Florence was a center of enormous wealth,  power, and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and  banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich  mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. This  enthralling book charts the family's huge influence on the political,  economic, and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s  with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici,  it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most  remarkable artists and architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the  Medici Popes and Grand Dukes, Florence's slide into decay and  bankruptcy, and the end, in 1737, of the Medici line.

From the best-selling author of Islam: A Short History comes an important addition to the Eminent Lives book series. A former Roman Catholic nun and winner of a Muslim Public  Affairs Council Media Award, Karen Armstrong shows how Muhammad's life  can teach us a great deal about our world. More is known about Muhammad  than any other major religion founder, yet he remains mysterious. Born  in 570 CE, he spent six decades spreading his message of peace and  compassion. Yet for many people today, their knowledge of Muhammad is  rife with misconceptions and misinformation, often fueled by bigotry.  Armstrong sets the record straight, shattering the myth that Islam is a  religion of cruelty and violence. One of the world's leading religious  experts, Armstrong is a deeply respected voice in the continuous  struggle for interfaith understanding. Her cogent assessment of  Muhammad's genius and insightful summary of his authentic beliefs are  priceless in this modern world troubled by religious extremism and  intolerance.

Andrei Lankov has gone where few  outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived  as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it  for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts  to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea,  Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric  surrounding this opaque police state. After providing an accessible  history of the nation, he turns his focus to what North Korea is, what  its leadership thinks, and how its people cope with living in such an  oppressive and poor place. He argues that North Korea is not irrational,  and nothing shows this better than its continuing survival against all  odds. A living political fossil, it clings to existence in the face of  limited resources and a zombie economy, manipulating great powers  despite its weakness. Its leaders are not ideological zealots or madmen,  but perhaps the best practitioners of Machiavellian politics that can  be found in the modern world. Even though they preside over a failed  state, they have successfully used diplomacy - including nuclear threats  - to extract support from other nations. But while the people in charge  have been ruthless and successful in holding on to power, Lankov goes  on to argue that this cannot continue forever, since the old system is  slowly falling apart. In the long run, with or without reform, the  regime is unsustainable. Lankov contends that reforms, if attempted,  will trigger a dramatic implosion of the regime. They will not prolong  its existence. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive.

Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is  one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to  come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style  to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever  undertaken. When Cyrus, brother to the Great King of Persia, attempts to  overthrow his feckless sibling in 401 B.C., he employs a Greek  mercenary army of 10,000 hoplites as the core of his rebellious force.  Xenophon, who seeks the advice of Socrates before joining, is among the  common soldiers. Inexorably, Cyrus and his huge army march southward  1,500 miles from the coast of Ionia all the way to Babylon, and there  give battle to Artaxerxes, the Great King. Although the battle is soon  decided in favor of Cyrus, the would-be usurper is killed while in  pursuit of the king. Meanwhile, the Greeks are victorious on their part  of the battlefield and await the return of Cyrus and his instructions. By  the next morning, they realize that Cyrus is dead and that his allies  have melted away in the night, leaving them alone trapped behind enemy  lines within a few miles of the Persian capital. And only a few miles  distant lies an enormous Persian army with vengeance in mind. Despair  deepens when the Greek officer corps is treacherously murdered during  peace talks. Alone, leaderless and hopelessly outnumbered, the Greeks  nevertheless elect new officers. Xenophon steps into the pages of  history with his magnificent rallying speeches and selfless acts of  courage. Follow one of history's most spirited bands of soldiers as they  fight and maneuver their way through 1,500 miles of hostile territory  seething with adversaries. It is an epic of courage, faith and  democratic principle.

Widely recognized as the best biography of the Prophet (peace and  blessings of Allah be upon him) in English, Dr. Martin Lings'  award-winning book is now available in audio, read by well-known  narrator Sean Barrett. This excellent audiobook is the first of its kind  and has been selected by a number of organizations as a worthy  introduction to the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of  Allah be upon him), including Muslim Welfare House, London, and the  Muslim Council of Britain.

Until about 1800, the West and the Islamic realm were like two adjacent,  parallel universes, each assuming itself to be the center of the world  while ignoring the other. As Europeans colonized the globe, the two  world histories intersected and the Western narrative drove the other  one under. The West hardly noticed, but the Islamic world found the  encounter profoundly disrupting. This book reveals the parallel  "other" narrative of world history to help us make sense of today's  world conflicts. Ansary traces the history of the Muslim world from pre-Mohammedan days through 9/11, introducing people, events, empires,  legends, and religious disputes, both in terms of what happened and how  it was understood and interpreted.

In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's  leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the  vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and  insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our  lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from  the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the  opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the  strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military  innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the  grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the  insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred  Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on  strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author  notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment  rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control.  Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability  of this environment - subject to chance events, the efforts of  opponents, the missteps of friends - provides strategy with its  challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move  from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their  way through a series of states, each one not quite what was  anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including  its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in  this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting  point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent  strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against  Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful  volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.

Now in trade paperback, a gripping exploration of the fall of Constantinople and its connection to the world we live in today The fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history, and the  end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley's readable and comprehensive  account of the battle between Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire,  and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium, illuminates the  period in history that was a precursor to the current jihad between the  West and the Middle East.