What was Europe like during the Renaissance? How did the people live? What drove the society that gave us lasting art, education, and religion? Discover all this and more in Renaissance Europe 1480-1520 by J.R. Hale.

In the 1790s, America was still floundering, economically, to find its footing after pulling away from Britain. It would take individual determination and political maneuverings to get American economically stable and strong.

What most miss is how the Holocaust was possible. What led to such atrocities? How could it even be imagined? Karl Schleunes goes into the path that brought Hitler and the Holocaust to the world in his book, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews 1933-1939.

Life within Auschwitz was extremely regulated. All, that were not ill, left for work in military marching style and returned twelve hours later in the same manner. Specific details were constructed based on the prisoners’ abilities.

There are history books that just give long narratives that make you yearn for a picture or map to break the monotony from the information overload. Then there are the books that have just as much information or more but in a manner that is invitingly educational.

Auschwitz was a place designed by the Nazis to bring about the Final Solution. Though it was a place to extract all the Nazis could from the prisoners, it was also a world of its own trying to survive.

The efforts of America to be politically, economically, and culturally independent from Britain was similar to that of a wildebeest born who has to quickly find its footing before the predators swoop down. This was the development of American independence.

Reading a piece of work from the intriguing Renaissance helps you get a better understanding of the era and the people in. This is especially true when the work is that of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince. It is a classical piece of literature that every student or leader should own.

A review of Anne Easter Smith's book on Margaret of Burgundy.