Eminent lives

One of the first two volumes in Harper's Eminent Lives series, Korda brings his acclaimed storytelling talents to the life of Ulysses S. Grant – a man who managed to end the Civil War on a note of grace, serve two terms as president, write one of the most successful military memoirs in American literature, and is today remembered as a brilliant general but a failed president. Ulysses S. Grant was the first officer since George Washington to become...

Washington is the most important figure in the history of the United States. Against all military odds, he liberated the colonies from the superior forces of the British and presided over the process to produce a Constitution. In two terms as president, he set that Constitution to work. Despite his importance, Washington remains today a distant figure to many Americans. Previous books about him are immensely long and complicated. Paul Johnson has...

Alexis de Tocqueville was among the first foreigners to recognize the potential of a new land called the United States. His classic work Democracy in America, first published in 1835, was not only a vivid portrait of the new nation, but also a startlingly accurate forecast of its future. From the influence of evangelical Christianity to the advent of our "consumer society," many of de Tocqueville's predictions have come true. Bestselling author...

Referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis," Sigmund Freud is credited with championing the "talking cure" and charting the human unconscious. Both revered and reviled, he was a brilliant innovator but also a man of troubling contradictions-sometimes tyrannical, often misrepresenting the course and outcome of his treatments to make the "facts" match his theories. Peter D. Kramer-acclaimed author, practicing psychiatrist, and a leading national authority...