From its beginnings, America has acted out much of its history on the battlefront. Yet for the average American, little is known of the Spanish-American War. The reasons for our entry never seemed compelling—at times, yellow fever seemed more the enemy than did Spanish troops—and the United States was ill prepared for the venture. Nevertheless, this conflict served to unify a country that only thirty years before had been hopelessly divided by civil strife.

This colorful account reveals how every aspect of American life was ultimately touched by the war. War heroes abounded in the Spanish-American War: George Dewey, Richmond Pearson Hobson, Joe Wheeler, William T. Sampson, and of course, Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. Rosenfeld strikes a balance between scholarly and popular writing, bringing to life a war that has often been overlooked.

In 1995, Cal Ripken, Jr. succeeded in toppling baseball’s most unbreakable streak of 2,130 consecutive games played. He has also won the 1982 Rookie of the Year Award, two American League MVP awards, an All-Star Game MVP award, two Gold Gloves, and a World Series title.

This is the story of Junior’s ascent to superstardom. What was it like playing baseball with a father as manager and a brother as a double-play combination? How did his father’s firing and his brother’s trade affect him? What made him choose the strike over the Streak? His story captures the grit and determination it took to become one of the greatest shortstops ever to play the game of baseball.

Rear Admiral Richmond Pearson Hobson was a charismatic American hero whose colorful life at the beginning of the twentieth century reflected the rapidly changing politics of his day. Highly honored in his lifetime, he is largely unknown today.

During the Spanish-American War, Hobson survived a “suicide mission,” sinking the Merrimac in an ironically failed attempt to block Santiago Harbor in Cuba. He was instantly hailed as a hero; but his personality proved more controversial. A Southerner, Hobson was involved with such touchy political issues as civil rights, women’s suffrage, and prohibition. To many he was a political genius, able to predict political changes well before they became reality. To others, he was an egoist who stepped on more than a few toes, including those of the two President Roosevelts, to further his own political career.

Now an international symbol of twentieth-century humanitarianism, Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, issued countless “false” visas and other documents which were virtual life certificates that saved approximately one hundred thousand Jews from the Nazis in wartime Hungary. Then in 1945, as the war drew to a close, he disappeared after being taken into custody by Soviet military police. Today Wallenberg’s fate remains unknown.

This authoritative biography discusses previously sealed prison records and archives, reports of sightings of Wallenberg, the Wallenberg family’s historic multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the former Soviet Union, and the worldwide activities in honor of this great man who refused to be a bystander.

This book recounts the slugger Roger Maris’ life before, during, and after his headline season of 1961, when the taciturn North Dakota native topped Babe Ruth’s all-time record by hitting sixty-one home runs. From his youth as a star high-school athlete and American Legion baseball player, Maris’s went on to play for the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Athletics, the New York Yankees, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Author Rosenfeld argues that Maris’s treatment by the press was both shabby and tragic, and that the famous player’s Mid-western modesty, need for privacy, and straightforward nature were often wrongly interpreted as arrogance and sullenness–a factor that led many to downplay his claim on the record books. Rosenfeld makes a forceful case for awarding Maris a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, three decades after his record-breaking 1961 season with the New York Yankees.

The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is the longest-standing rivalry in baseball history–a feud that began in the late nineteenth century when both clubs were based in New York City. Then, on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard around the world” ended their pennant race–one of the most dramatic ever. Interviews, contemporary newspaper articles, and memoirs of participants are used to describe the intense rivalry and provide a day-by-day look at the Giants’ pennant run, including a fascinating examination of the strategy of the final game.