"The Way I Heard It presents thirty-five mysteries "for the curious mind with a short attention span." Every one is a trueish tale about someone you know, filled with facts that you don't. Movie stars, presidents, bloody do-gooders, and villains--they're all here, waiting to shake your hand, hoping you'll remember them. Delivered with Mike's signature blend of charm, wit, and ingenuity, their stories are part of a larger mosaic--a memoir full of surprising...

"Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our perspective narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features... In this illuminating history, Charles Emmerson liberates the world of 1913 from this "prelude to war" narrative, and explores it as it was, in all its...

India's princely states played a crucial role in maintaining British power. Examine the history of the princely kingdoms, and why they remained separate from British-controlled territory. Follow how the British cultivated ties of loyalty with Indian princes and exerted "indirect rule." Explore the contradiction of a modernizing British Raj that supported feudal princes.

The great nations of Europe are forced to re-evaluate their positions. Gradually, often reluctantly, and sometimes violently, they divest themselves of overseas colonies, accommodate themselves to a precarious existence between the superpowers, and concentrate on rebuilding their economies.

Examine the nature of the colonial economy, and trace economic decisions by the British that constrained the livelihoods of artisans and peasants. Assess the Raj's fiscal policy, which privileged British interests over public works. Observe how these policies affected the lives of millions who toiled to produce the wealth of the Raj.

Now examine the "second round" of Indian nationalist action against the British Raj. Witness the effects on India of the global economic depression after 1929, which triggered the Civil Disobedience Campaign, a massive boycotting of British goods, services, and institutions. Assess the Raj's countertactic of extending constitutional concessions to stem nationalist agitation.

The Industrial Revolution is primarily a northern and western European phenomenon. Elsewhere, the big issue is nationalism, and the failure of the Congress of Vienna to take nationalism and liberalism into account leads to revolutions across Europe throughout the next 30 years.

Investigate Gandhi's early life and how he became a nationalist leader. Study the elements of his political philosophy, the political tools of ahimsa (no harm) and satyagraha (force of truth), and the forces of modernity and British rule that Gandhi critiqued. Finally, examine the 1919 event that thrust him onto the national stage.

A revived interest in the literary and historical works of classical Greece and Rome unleashes new ideas about the qualifications of a gentleman, the role of women, and the expectations of a prince - with a resulting emphasis on textual accuracy, literacy, education, and the human and practical.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the nations of Europe form a European Union with an aim to reshape the politics and economics of the region and the world, even as it deals with many new challenges.