The injustices of 1940s Jim Crow America are brought to life in this extraordinary blend of military and social history, an account that pays tribute to the valor of an all-black battalion whose crucial contributions at D-day have gone unrecognized to this day.

In the early hours of June 6, 1944, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, a unit of African American soldiers, landed on the beaches of France. Their orders were to man a curtain of armed balloons meant to deter enemy aircraft. One member of the 320th would be nominated for the Medal of Honor, an award he would never receive because the nation’s highest decoration was not given to black soldiers in World War II.

Drawing on newly uncovered military records and dozens of original interviews with surviving members of the 320th and their families, Linda Hervieux tells the story of these heroic men charged with an extraordinary mission, whose contributions to one of the most celebrated events in modern history have been overlooked.

Thousands of African Americans were sent abroad to fight for liberties denied them at home, including these members of the 320th: Wilson Monk, a jack-of-all-trades from Atlantic City; Henry Parham, the son of sharecroppers from rural Virginia; William Dabney, an eager seventeen-year-old from Roanoke, Virginia; and Samuel Mattison, a charming romantic from Columbus, Ohio. In Europe, these soldiers discovered freedom they had not known in a homeland that treated them as second-class citizens–experiences they carried back to America, fueling the budding civil-rights movement.

In telling the story of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, Hervieux offers a vivid account of the tension between racial politics and national service in wartime America and a moving narrative of human bravery and perseverance in the face of injustice.

For the centennial of his birth, the defining wunderkind of modern entertainment gets his due in a groundbreaking new biography of his early years–from his first forays in theater and radio to the inspiration and making of Citizen Kane.

No American artist or entertainer has enjoyed a more dramatic rise than Orson Welles. In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before. He chronicles Welles’ early life growing up in Wisconsin and Illinois, as the son of an alcoholic industrialist and a radical suffragist and classical musician, and the magical early years of his career, including his marriages and affairs, his influential friendships, and his artistic collaborations.

The tales of his youthful achievements were so colorful and improbable that Welles, with his air of mischief, was often thought to have made them up. Now after years of intensive research, McGilligan sorts out fact from fiction and reveals untold, fully documented anecdotes of Welles’ first exploits and triumphs, from starring as a teenager on the Gate Theatre stage in Dublin and bullfighting in Seville, to his time in the New York theater and his fraught partnership with John Houseman in the Mercury Theatre, and to his arrival in Hollywood and the making of Citizen Kane.

Filled with intriguing new insights and startling revelations–including the surprising true origin and meaning of “Rosebud”–Young Orson is a fascinating look at the creative development and influences that shaped this legendary artistic genius.