Best Selling Books by Thomas Fleming

Joanna, Amy, and Honor believes their future is shining and bright when each marries a West Point graduate in 1950. But reality replaces romance, and boredom replaces excitement, as each seeks fulfillment as a military wife.

"Written with skill and suspense, it is an inspiring story that Americans can read with pride." - Chicago Tribune Here, from New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming, is the story of that June day in 1775 that made the American Revolution inevitable. Bunker Hill brings alive the stories of the men on both sides who fought on these steep slopes in the blazing heat of June and dispels the myths and distortions which have long clouded the battle. It shows how closely and tragically intertwined were the lives of these men who from this day would call themselves either British or American. The brother of General William Howe, the British commander, had died in Colonel Israel Putnam''s arms near Fort Ticonderoga. Colonel William Prescott had fought beside General William Howe at the siege of Louisburg and had been offered a commission in the Royal Army for his valor. Now, only fifteen years after their joint victories as comrades in arms, Prescott and Putnam steadied their raw American troops with harsh advice to withhold their fire on the advancing British ranks until "you can see their buttons," or "the whites of their eyes." After the British forces came ashore, the battle opened with a deftly launched flanking movement by the British right. John Stark arrived with his New Hampshire men in time to predict the point at which Howe would first attack and to seal that gap with British dead - "I never saw sheep lie as thick in the fold." Howe did not pause to maneuver but assaulted the American fortifications along the whole front. The young farmers did not give way, and the British reeled back. "There was a moment," Howe, a veteran and victor of many battles against the French in Europe and North America, recalled later, "that I never felt before." But the British doggedly advanced again up the murderous hill in the ninety-degree heat. The forces that impelled these men to that terrible moment of battle and the courage of both sides are the powerful substance of Bunker Hill.

Paradise Beach, New Jersey. The perfect place for Dick O''Gorman and Billy Kilroy to smuggle ashore Cuban missiles to be used in the Irish Republican Army''s war against England. Paradise Beach is an Irish American enclave, one that has no idea about the violent upheaval into which it will soon be thrown. It is 1984. Irish Americans, preoccupied with a loss of political power in the cities, have little sympathy for Ireland and the IRA. This is especially true of Mick O''Day, an ex-marine whose moral failure in Vietnam haunts him still. It is a combustible mix, as a British secret agent disguised as a priest sows suspicion between the Irish Americans and the IRA men that could ignite into a physical and spiritual explosion and could tear the community apart at its very seams. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Thomas Fleming Day''s ''Hints to Young Yacht Skippers'' is a comprehensive guide that serves as a valuable resource for novice sailors looking to navigate the waters with confidence. Written in a concise and practical manner, this book covers essential topics such as boat handling, navigation, weather patterns, and safety precautions, making it an indispensable tool for aspiring yacht skippers. Day''s clear and insightful writing style not only educates readers on the technical aspects of sailing but also instills a sense of passion for the sea and respect for the art of seamanship. Set against the backdrop of the early 20th century, this book captures the spirit of adventure and discovery that characterized the golden age of yachting, providing readers with a glimpse into a bygone era of maritime exploration and leisure. Thomas Fleming Day, a seasoned yachtsman and writer, draws upon his extensive experience at sea to offer practical advice and invaluable insights to readers pursuing their passion for sailing. His expertise in the field, coupled with his passion for yachting, shines through in every page of this well-crafted guide, making it a must-read for anyone with a love for the open water.

Seventy-year-old Benjamin Franklin charmed Paris and pulled off a diplomatic miracle that led to the British defeat in the American Revolution. Here, in this essay from New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming is the little-told story.

"Discusses socialism as a political system, and details the history of socialist governments throughout the world"--Provided by publisher.

A sweeping and insightful grand strategic overview of the American Revolution, highlighting Washington''s role in orchestrating victory and creating the US Army Led by the Continental Congress, the Americans almost lost the war for independence because their military thinking was badly muddled. Following the victory in 1775 at Bunker Hill, patriot leaders were convinced that the key to victory was the home-grown militia -- local men defending their families and homes. But the flush of early victory soon turned into a bitter reality as the British routed Americans fleeing New York. General George Washington knew that having and maintaining an army of professional soldiers was the only way to win independence. As he fought bitterly with the leaders in Congress over the creation of a regular army, he patiently waited until his new army was ready for pitched battle. His first opportunity came late in 1776, following his surprise crossing of the Delaware River. In New Jersey, the strategy of victory was about to unfold. In The Strategy of Victory, preeminent historian Thomas Fleming examines the battles that created American independence, revealing how the creation of a professional army worked on the battlefield to secure victory, independence, and a lasting peace for the young nation.

This vivid, deeply moving book begins in London in 1620 as Pilgrim representatives sign a contract to purchase the freighter Mayflower. We accompany them on their harrowing voyage across the Atlantic, through the rigors of the first New England winter and the threat of Indian attack as they desperately search for the home they eventually find at Plymouth. Once there, they must continue the struggle against brutal weather and disease. With masterly skill, New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming gives us life-size portraits of the Pilgrim leaders. The Pilgrims'' unique achievements - the Mayflower Compact, their tolerance of other faiths, the strict separation of church and state - are discussed in the context of the first year''s anxieties and crises. Fleming writes admiringly of the younger men who emerged in that year as the real leaders of the colony - William Bradford and Miles Standish. And he provides new insights into the humanity and tolerance of the Pilgrims'' spiritual shepherd, Elder William Brewster. On the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims are already aware that they are the forerunners of a great nation. It is implicit in William Bradford''s words, "As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light kindled here has shone unto many. . . ."

Catalyntie is a Dutch woman living in pre-Revolutionary America, struggling to come to terms with the conflicts created by growing up captive in a Seneca Indian village. She shared her captivity with Clara Flowers, an extraordinarily gifted black woman who remains deeply involved in her life. They also share a love for the same man, a brooding giant who, with their help, will slowly discover his American identity. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

When members of the colonial assembly warned Governor Philip Carteret in 1668 that he should abandon any expectations "that things must go according to your opinions," they struck a keynote for the New Jersey experience and suggested to author Thomas Fleming what perhaps should have been the state''s motto: "Divided We Stand." Ethnic diversity made New Jersey an early testing ground for the melting pot, as Yankees, Irish, Italians, and blacks strove for a chance at the good life. To many, that meant a job in the factories that made the state an industrial pioneer; to others, it meant life on the farms that made New Jersey truly the "Garden State."Mr. Fleming concludes that today New Jersey may be in the vanguard of a new American way of life, "the first metropolitan state with equally convenient access to cities and to countryside." He foresees an "equally-oriented New Jersey, honestly and efficiently governed," reminding the nation that divisiveness and acrimony can have more than one outcome. After all, New Jerseyites may have voted repeatedly for the "Boss of Bosses," Frank Hague, but they also once chose as their governor a Princeton professor named Woodrow Wilson.

Once the South was beaten, Eastern and Western troops of the Union army resented each other so violently that some feared for the survival of the victorious government. Then the tension disappeared in one happy stroke that gave the United States its grandest pageant - and General William Tecumseh Sherman the proudest moment of his life. Here, in this short-form book by New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, is the little-told story 1865''s Grand Review.

The most famous collision in American Navy history took place on a hot, starless, moonless night in 1943. PT109 was idling off the South Pacific island of Kolombangara. With virtually no warning, a Japanese destroyer smashed into the boat, slicing it in half and igniting its thousands of gallons of gasoline. PT109''s commander and surviving crew were flung or leaped into the blazing water, beginning an ordeal that writers, relatives, and friends would use to create a drama that propelled John F. Kennedy to the presidency of the United States. Here, in this essay from New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, is the story of what really happened that night.

A biography of the surveyor, militia major, and aide to the British General Braddock, who became leader of the American forces during the Revolution and first President of the new nation.

Portrays the history of Montenegro from the Middle Ages to the present. Predominantly Serbian since the ninth century, Montenegrins adopted clan organization for survival which fostered local loyalties but did not unify them against outside aggressors.

The effort to understand human nature in a political context is a daunting challenge that has been undertaken in a variety of ways and by a myriad of disciplines through the ages. From Plato to Hobbes and Burke, to Wallas and Oakeschott in our era, efforts have been made to provide some organic framework for the political study of mankind. What has added greatly to the complexity of the task is the increasing denial, even rejection, in the positivist and behaviorist traditions, of the very notion of a human nature. The work can be described as a series of interlocking propositions: the proverbial view of human nature can be explained by evolutionary theory. Biological differences between men and women are responsible for family, community and group life. Social evolution goes through stages which are recapitulated in the moral life of individuals. A well-defined federal system mirrors human development. And finally, for Fleming, most problems in social and political life stem from violations of this federalist system. Fleming''s volume takes up a variety of issues: sex and gender differences, democracy and dictatorship, individual and familial patterns of association. He does so in the context of showing how forms of legitimate authority such as families, communities and nations establish such authority by appeals to human nature, and that these appeals, while presumably resting on empirical evidence, also confirm the existence of normative structures. Fleming''s work is an effort of synthesis that is sure to arouse discussion and debate. It represents a serious addition to a literature retrieved from the historical dustbins to which it has been repeatedly consigned.

In the months after her husband''s death, Martha Washington told several friends that the two worst days of her life were the day George died -- and the day Thomas Jefferson came to Mount Vernon to offer his condolences. What could elicit such a strong reaction from the nation''s original first lady? Though history tends to cast the early years of America in a glow of camaraderie, there were, in fact, many conflicts among the Founding Fathers -- none more important than the one between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The chief disagreement between these former friends centered on the highest, most original public office created by the Constitutional Convention -- the presidency. They also argued violently about the nation''s foreign policy, the role of merchants and farmers in a republic, and the durability of the union itself. At the root of all these disagreements were two sharply different visions for the nation''s future. Acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming examines how the differing temperaments and leadership styles of Washington and Jefferson shaped two opposing views of the presidency -- and the nation. The clash between these two gifted men, both of whom cared deeply about the United States of America, profoundly influenced the next two centuries of America''s history and resonates in the present day.

Even fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, it is still hard to grasp that we no longer live under its immense specter. For nearly half a century, from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, all world events hung in the balance of a simmering dispute between two of the greatest military powers in history. Hundreds of millions of people held their collective breath as the United States and the Soviet Union, two national ideological entities, waged proxy wars to determine spheres of influence–and millions of others perished in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Angola, where this cold war flared hot. Such a consideration of the Cold War–as a military event with sociopolitical and economic overtones–is the crux of this stellar collection of twenty-six essays compiled and edited by Robert Cowley, the longtime editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. Befitting such a complex and far-ranging period, the volume’s contributing writers cover myriad angles. John Prados, in “The War Scare of 1983,” shows just how close we were to escalating a war of words into a nuclear holocaust. Victor Davis Hanson offers “The Right Man,” his pungent reassessment of the bellicose air-power zealot Curtis LeMay as a man whose words were judged more critically than his actions. The secret war also gets its due in George Feiffer’s “The Berlin Tunnel,” which details the charismatic C.I.A. operative “Big Bill” Harvey’s effort to tunnel under East Berlin and tap Soviet phone lines–and the Soviets’ equally audacious reaction to the plan; while “The Truth About Overflights,” by R. Cargill Hall, sheds light on some of the Cold War’s best-kept secrets. The often overlooked human cost of fighting the Cold War finds a clear voice in “MIA” by Marilyn Elkins, the widow of a Navy airman, who details the struggle to learn the truth about her husband, Lt. Frank C. Elkins, whose A-4 Skyhawk disappeared over Vietnam in 1966. In addition there are profiles of the war’s “front lines”–Dien Bien Phu, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs–as well as of prominent military and civil leaders from both sides, including Harry S. Truman, Nikita Khrushchev, Dean Acheson, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Richard M. Nixon, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, and others. Encompassing so many perspectives and events, The Cold War succeeds at an impossible task: illuminating and explaining the history of an undeclared shadow war that threatened the very existence of humankind.

In Verdicts of History, New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming highlights six courtroom dramas that changed the future of America. From unexpected verdicts, like the acquittal won by John Adams when he defended British soldiers charged with the Boston Massacre in 1770 to stirred passions when abolitionist John Brown was convicted of murder - a precedent to the Civil War - to the breakthrough in racial relations when Clarence Darrow won a stunning "not guilty" verdict for black physician Ossian Sweet - at a time when black Americans could hardly expect a fair trial. Fleming also includes the trials of Aaron Burr for treason and a well-known congressman for murder. In courtrooms throughout the nation''s history, vivid emotion and heated rhetoric have established consequential precedents and enlarged average men and women to historical dimensions.

1776 was a pivotal year for the American colonists, the British and for the whole world. This book explores the reality of the year 1776, a reality long shrouded in myth and misconceptions. 1776 was the one time in American life when idealism was truly in flower. Illustrated in B&W.

Steely determination enabled Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I ace pilot, to survive twenty-four days drifting across the Pacific in a life raft. Here, in this essay by New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming, is the dramatic story.

The greatest American general of the twentieth century wasn''t Dwight Eisenhower or George Patton or Douglas MacArthur. The honor, according to New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, belongs to Matthew Ridgway, who led America''s Eighth Army to victory in Korea. Here, in this essay, is his courageous story.

By the time John Brown hung from the gallows for his crimes at Harper''s Ferry, Northern abolitionists had made him a “holy martyr” in their campaign against Southern slave owners. This Northern hatred for Southerners long predated their objections to slavery. They were convinced that New England, whose spokesmen had begun the American Revolution, should have been the leader of the new nation. Instead, they had been displaced by Southern “slavocrats” like Thomas Jefferson. This malevolent envy exacerbated the South''s greatest fear: a race war. Jefferson''s cry, “We are truly to be pitied,” summed up their dread. For decades, extremists in both regions flung insults and threats, creating intractable enmities. By 1861, only a civil war that would kill a million men could save the Union.

The Ripple Effect: Memoirs from the Inside takes you on journey of one man''s choices and the consequences that resulted in years of living in a dark world. Only forgiveness from the most unlikely source would bring Thomas back into the light. The lessons of forgiveness, overcoming addiction, racism, low self-esteem, and violence are very powerful. It is a close look into the inside of a dark heart and mind and what it takes to survive over three decades in a bleak and dreary maximum-security prison. Thomas was dubbed one of the most dangerous inmates in the system''s history. How does he change the minds and hearts of those that never want to see him released or succeed within the prison system? He must first change his own mind and heart.

Here, in this short-form book by New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, is the gripping - and all too timely - account of the great stock market crash of 1929.

Choosing the most important moments in the long history of the American presidency is difficult. But here, New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming vividly recreates many of those hours of crisis - from George Washington''s fight for peace and the night Abraham Lincoln was almost shot to Ronald Reagan''s plea to "tear down this wall" and George W. Bush on September 11, 2001, "the day that changed everything."

The charge of treason pitted President Thomas Jefferson against his former vice president, Aaron Burr, and the chief justice of the United States, John Marshall. Here, in this essay by New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming, is the dramatic story of one of the most famous trials in American history.

Examines the growth of the conservative movement from a small band of dissidents after World War II to the dominant force in American politics in the 1980s. Clearly distinguishes between the old Right, the religious Right, the New Right, libertarians, and neoconservatives.