Caroline Alexander

"In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army steamrolled through Burma, capturing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies to this critical zone would now have to come from India by air-meaning across the Himalayas, on the most hazardous air route in the world. SKIES OF THUNDER is a story of an epic human endeavor, in which Allied troops faced the monumental challenge of operating from airfields hacked from the jungle, and took on "the Hump,"...

In July 2009 an amateur metal-detecting enthusiast made an astonishing find: 1500 pieces of bejeweled gold and silver almost 1500 years old, buried, lost, then forgotten. The treasure trove promises to shed unprecedented light on the most mysterious period of British history-the so-called "Dark Ages"-when the Saxons, Anglos, Celts, Picts, Jutes, and Vikings battled for control of the British Isles and a "mish mash of peoples evolved into a homogenous...

"Ranked first in National Geographic's list of the one hundred greatest adventure books of all time, The Worst Journey in the World recounts Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott's team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious winter journey, draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of other compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account...

"When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017--revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)--critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer's other...

In August, 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton, renowned explorer set sail with 27 men on his ship The Endurance. His plan was to be the first expedition to cross the Antarctic continent. Marooned on four feet of ice, in over 8,000 feet deep water, Shackleton and his crew survived some 635 days and nights, without proper shelter or rations, enduring the harshest conditions imaginable.