At midnight on August 15, 1947, 400 million people were liberated from the British Empire. With the loss of India, its greatest colony, Britain ceased to be a superpower. This defining moment was brought about by a handful of people: Jawaharlal Nehru, the fiery Indian prime minister; Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan; Mohandas Gandhi, the mystical figure who enthralled a nation; and Louis and Edwina Mountbatten,...

An easy-to-read biography of General Colin Powell who, in 2001, became the first African American to be appointed Secretary of State.

A deeply personal and candid remembrance of the late Senator John McCain from one of his closest and most trusted confidants, friends, and political advisors. Salter cowrote seven books with John McCain, and acted as a valued confidant. Now Salter draws on the storied facets of McCain's early biography as well as the later-in-life political philosophy for which the nation knew and loved him, delivering an intimate and comprehensive account of McCain's...

The Internationally Acclaimed Biography of One of History's Monumental Figures Gandhi: A Life The first biography of this important figure in over twenty years, Gandhi: A Life rescues the man from the myth, revealing the transformation of an ordinary, timid young man into a leader whose stand against a mighty empire brought millions together.

Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than the "thorough" deist who emerges in his autobiography. As Thomas Kidd reveals, deist writers...

The prizewinning author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx now gives us the unexpected story--brilliantly told--of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. The triumph of the American Revolution was neither an ideological nor political guarantee that the colonies would relinquish their independence and accept the creation of a federal...