Most Popular Books by Thomas Fleming

When Sir William Howe, commander-in-chief of the British Army in America, and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, cornered General George Washington’s army on Manhattan Island, they politely asked the Americans if they wanted to surrender. The British gave the Americans two weeks to think it over, time Washington used to strengthen his troops for another round of fighting. Here, in this short-form book by New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, is the surprising story of how William and Richard Howe guaranteed British defeat and American independence by choosing peacemaking over bloodletting.

The Heart of Liberty, a New York Times bestselling novel by Thomas Fleming, has been hailed as "The Gone with the Wind of the American Revolution." Told from the perspective of James, "Jemmy" Kemble, writing for his grandchildren, the opening of the book reads, "Let me caution in strictest terms against publishing what I write. The nation is not ready to face the truth about itself that an honest story of the Revolution must mirror." Kemble thus recalls the great event of his life - the upheaval that created the United States of America. His honest story unflinchingly depicts the panic and cowardice, the greed and brutality that were part of the war for independence. It also celebrates the Americans who struggled to cope with the chaos of a war most of them never wanted. Fleming expertly blends his fictional characters with the great men of the Revolution - George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Sir William Howe - as well as a host of other vivid characters. With a historian''s insight and a novelist''s skill, Fleming has produced a panorama that vividly recreates and matches the complexity and drama of America''s first war.

The political history of the American experience in World War I is a story of conflict and bungled intentions that begins in an era dedicated to progressive social reform and ends in the Red Scare and Prohibition. Thomas Fleming tells this story through the complex figure of Woodrow Wilson, the contradictory president who wept after declaring war, devastated because he knew it would destroy the tolerance of the American people, but who then suppressed freedom of speech and used propaganda to excite America into a Hun-hating mob. This is tragic history: inexperienced American military leaders drove their troops into gruesome slaughters; progressive politics were put on hold in America; an idealistic president''s dreams were crushed because of his own negligence. Wilson''s inability to convince Congress to ratify U.S. membership in the League of Nations was one of the most poignant failures in the history of the American presidency, but even more heartrending were Wilson''s concessions to his bitter allies in the Treaty of Versailles. In exchange for Allied support of the League of Nations, he allowed an unfair peace treaty to be signed, a treaty that played no small role in the rise of National Socialism and the outbreak of World War II. Thomas Fleming has once again created a masterpiece of narrative American history. This incomparable portrait shows how Wilson sacrificed his noble vision to megalomania and single-mindedness, while paying homage to him as a visionary whose honorable spirit continues to influence Western politics.

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.

It is a curious historical anomaly that the United States, for generations the greatest steel producer on the planet, the nation that invented the airplane and a staggering array of other technological marvels, never managed to design and build a good tank before the MIA1 Abrams of the 1991 Gulf War. The history of tanks has seldom attracted the attention it deserves, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming argues in this essay. Here is the overlooked and fascinating story of America''s tanks.

Sally Fairfax stole George Washington''s heart long before he met Martha. Here, in this essay by New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, is their love story.

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.

Here in this essay from New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming is the harrowing account of a true hero of the Korean War, Commander Gene Clark. Without Clark, General Douglas MacArthur''s daring plan to invade South Korea from the sea would almost surely have failed.

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 1970, Margaret Truman and bestselling author Thomas Fleming spent eight days with her father, President Harry Truman, as part of their research for a biography of the thirty-third president of the United States. Truman had personally chosen Fleming as Margaret''s collaborator. He had read and admired Fleming''s biography of Thomas Jefferson. In this essay, Fleming recounts that amazing time, during which the elder statesman sets the record straight on Douglas MacArthur, Charles de Gaulle, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Joseph Stalin, the atomic bomb, and, most important, the American presidency.

With the eye of a novelist and the rigor of a historian, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming delivers a fascinating and vivid account of the Siege of Yorktown. Along with French General Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, George Washington made an astonishing march through New Jersey and trapped British General Charles Cornwallis and his forces in Yorktown, Virginia, where they unleashed a tremendous artillery assault, with the support of the French navy. But victory was never certain - both sides made a series of dramatic attacks and counterattacks. Using the diaries and letters of participants in the siege, Fleming creates a moving and exciting depiction of the days in October 1781 that ended the American Revolution and changed the world.

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.

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. . . ."

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln often learned the results and tolls of battles from reporters, not generals. The newsmen of the time were courageous and dedicated, but the best of them was Henry Wing - at least that was Lincoln''s opinion. Wing never used his position as the president''s favorite reporter to gain access to confidential information. Instead, he became Lincoln''s junior partner in the struggle to win America''s bloodiest war. Here, in this essay by New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming, is his surprising story.

For many Americans, George Washington is just the face on a dollar bill. This book changes that perception. George Washington, Revolutionary War general, Founding Father, and first president of the United States was a warm and fascinating man. He suffered the agony of adolescent passion, fell in love with his best friend''s wife, and married the wealthy widow Martha Custis. He poured out his political and military woes to his brother Jack in the dark days of 1776, and in the midst of a miserable winter camped with his troops in Valley Forge, he wrote a chatty letter to a friend in England. All these incidents are here in Washington''s own words. Only through what Washington called his "letters of friendship" can we fully understand this complex man. They show him joking with his favorite Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette, advising his younger relatives on love and marriage, writing with emotion to the unobtainable woman he loved, and reconnecting with her in his old age. Selected and edited by New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming from the thirty-seven volumes of Washington''s collected writings, this book will be a revelation to all.

The "New York Times" bestselling author presents a classic novel of Irish American history and the Fenian invasion of the English colony of Canada.