Five women who shared one of the most extraordinary and privileged sisterhoods of all time...

Vicky, Alice, Helena, Louise, and Beatrice were historically unique sisters, born to a sovereign who ruled over a quarter of the earth's people and who gave her name to an era: Queen Victoria. Two of these princesses would themselves produce children of immense consequence. All five would face the social restrictions and familial machinations borne by ninetheenth-century women of far less exalted class.

Researched at the houses and palaces of its five subjects-- in London, Scotland,...

For a hundred years after the end of the Civil War, a quarter of all Americans lived under a system of legalized segregation called Jim Crow. Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial "etiquette," these rules governed nearly every aspect of life--and outlined draconian punishments for infractions.

The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa's notorious apartheid in the humiliation, degradation, and suffering it brought, Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche...

"Readable, well organized, well researched, and smoothly written. . . . Even those who know Lincoln well may learn something they did not know before."

--- The Washington Post Book World

From the day of his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln was confronted with a nation divided by a savage conflict but within the White House walls, Lincoln's family was as divided as the nation he led.

Criticized by the American public for her extravagance, and distrusted because of her Southern roots, First Lady Mary Lincoln's increasing...