Plunkett Lake Press

03/22/2026

Our newest eBook is The Great Getty: The Life and Loves of J. Paul Getty — Richest Man in the World by Robert Lenzner (https://plunkettlakepress.com/getty)

“Getty was every bit as miserly as he was usually depicted...[Lenzner] give[s] a full exposure of the other well-known aspect of Getty’s character, his voracious womanizing from puberty on... it is hard to decide which Getty enjoyed more, penny-pinching or bottom-pinching... If somebody sits down to write the history of the oil industry in the 20th Century, Lenzner’s book will be of... value to him or her... [Lenzner] address[es] the inevitable old question — did Getty’s money make him happy? (Patently, no.)” — The Los Angeles Times

“The Great Getty is thorough and serious. Mr. Lenzner, who is the chief New York correspondent for The Boston Globe, adequately translates the purely business history of the Getty empire... [a] useful reminder that being rich is not enough.” — The New York Times

03/07/2026

Stalin: The Man and His Era by Adam Ulam, who directed Harvard's Russian Research Center, is now available in eBook form (https://plunkettlakepress.com/stalin).

“The character of Stalin’s dictatorship is admirably described and analyzed in Ulam’s impressive book. It provides a richly detailed account of Stalin’s political development, of his purges in the thirties and forties, and of his role in World War II and in the cold war that followed. But it is much more than a biography of Stalin: it is also a history of the Bolshevik party, of the Russian Revolution and of the Soviet regime up to Stalin’s death in 1953... Ulam writes with vigor and with penetrating intelligence... Ulam has written a thoughtful book in a lively and provocative style that holds one’s undivided attention... It is the fullest and most up‐to‐date biography of Stalin now available, and will make instructive reading for specialist and layman alike.” — The New York Times

“Ulam’s Stalin is the familiar tyrant, but this massive biography explores and analyzes other dimensions... Ulam does not stress psychological interpretations, but his Stalin also emerges as a reflection of the movement and the society which produced him. The author does not dodge the obscure or controversial issues, always injecting his best judgment or educated guess.” — Foreign Affairs

“This is an excellent book. Stalin’s personal development and his leading role are carefully examined through all the complicated years of his political life. Professor Ulam writes eloquently, as always, basing his work upon profound scholarship and keen intuition. A splendid portrait emerges from his pages — terrible and fascinating — of Stalin as one of the truly evil and ‘great’ men of this century.” — The Russian Review

02/16/2026

Just out as an eBook is Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941-1946 by W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel (https://plunkettlakepress.com/sen)

“Mr. Harriman was Roosevelt’s personal envoy to Britain at the start of World War II. Roosevelt was already at war but the United States wasn’t, so the President needed an unofficial ambassador as well as the real one. Mr. Harriman had the title of ‘expediter,’ and he expedited himself into virtual membership in Churchill’s War Cabinet, actually attending some sessions and giving it advice. He went on to Moscow, this time with the title of ‘Ambassador.’ But few contemporary ambassadors have operated as he did, virtually as a government himself. As he writes in a foreword, with no self-belittlement but no inaccuracy either: ‘More than any other American, I had both a close personal association with Winston Churchill and intimate dealings with Josef Stalin. Of course, I had known Franklin Roosevelt since childhood.’ It would be impossible for anyone to add a great deal to the portrait of that most painted and self‐painted man, Churchill, but Mr. Harriman has a few brilliant touches.” — The New York Times

“As Roosevelt’s lend-lease representative in London from 1941 to 1943 and as ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1943 to 1946, W. Averell Harriman wielded extraordinary influence. A confidant of Roosevelt and Churchill, with unusual access to Stalin, he became an intermediary among the Big Three, a man entrusted to represent the views of one to the other. In the early days of the Truman administration he played a vital role in the formulation of policy toward the Soviet Union. Now in his mid-eighties, Harriman has at last offered a full account of his service in World War II. The fruit of close collaboration with the journalist Elie Abel, Special Envoy is neither memoir nor biography. Rather, drawing heavily on Harriman’s personal papers and recollections, Abel has written a history of Big Three diplomacy from the ambassador’s perspective and offered his judgments on men and events.” — The American Historical Review

“[A] significant memoir from the thinning ranks of senior participants [in World War II]... It is a story of noblesse oblige, of dedication to the commonweal... The book must stand as a basic reference on the period... should be of use and interest to all students of strategy and diplomacy.” — Naval War College Review

02/12/2026

How Plunkett Lake Press was created, what we do and why.

Join host Justin Fortier as he interviews Patrick Mehr, the publisher at Plunkett Lake Press, who has digitally transformed rare and old books into accessibl...

12/31/2025

Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism by Alexander Stille is out as an eBook (https://plunkettlakepress.com/bab)

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner, 1992

“Alexander Stille’s stunning achievement in Benevolence and Betrayal — the result of meticulous research and comprehensive understanding — is to give faces and personalities to people who might otherwise have been consigned to anonymity... ‘Frequently,’ Mr. Stille says, ‘the best and worst instincts resided within the same person.’ He puts this remark in parentheses; but it is this recognition that makes his book valuable, poignant and singular: Mr. Stille does not blunt the dense irony, whim, caprice, black comedy and braided motives implicit in every story — the paradoxes and ambiguities and contradictions; and he does not diminish the goodness of the good or exculpate villains of their villainy.” — The New York Times Book Review

“[A] highly readable and powerful new book of historical interpretation... the book delivers a lesson for anyone, of any religious background, who tries to make an accommodation with a flag-waving government: Dictators, benevolent or otherwise, cannot be trusted... an achievement that deserves to stand next to the most insightful fiction about life and death under Fascism.” — The New York Times

“[Stille’s] profoundly researched and beautifully written book concerns the plight of Italian Jewry, as revealed in the lives of five families during the time of Mussolini... He has a gift for the revealing incident and the apposite quote; he seems to have talked to everyone and overlooked nothing. Personal memoirs, private papers, half-forgotten meetings, all become part of this remarkable reconstruction... an essential document of this inhuman century, a monument to its victims and a warning to its heirs.” — The Los Angeles Times

12/15/2025

Our latest eBook is Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France, 1931-1945 by Geoffrey Warner (https://plunkettlakepress.com/laval)

“Pierre Laval is one of the most controversial figures in recent European history. Few authors have examined his career without passion, mainly hostile [...] What was long needed was a reasoned study of the man that threw on its subject the light of understanding, not the heat of partisan polemic, and this superb political biography by a perceptive British historian fills that need [...] Warner’s impartial and intelligent book, based upon exhaustive research, gives us the opportunity to see Laval’s career as a whole and to understand it for what it was.” — Current History

“Pierre Laval[‘s ...] political history is minutely recounted in Geoffrey Warner’s study... Mr. Warner seems to have read all the records and basic material... The book [... is] not dramatic history, but then Pierre Laval was not the stuff heroes are made up either.” — The New York Times

“[T]he first meticulously researched political biography of Pierre Laval. In particular, by mastering a daunting mass of contemporary documentation, German, Italian, and American, [Geoffrey Warner] has freed his subject from the self-serving perspectives of French postwar trials and memoirs. The result is an original assessment and the soundest work on Laval in any language.” — The Journal of Modern History

“Geoffrey Warner’s lengthy study of Laval is [...] scholarly, readable, far and away the best thing on the man, and one of the most interesting accounts of the last years of the Third Republic and of the French State which followed it for four years. The point of view is detached and critical, the proportions, particularly for foreign affairs, are generous [... a] very good book” — International Journal

“With remarkable diligence, Warner has scrutinized all the available evidence — the memoirs, the diaries, the testimony at the liberation trials, the depositions before the parliamentary investigations, and the available documents from the Foreign Office, and he has questioned as well a number of surviving participants. He uses his sources critically and applies extreme caution in his deductions [...] an extended, detailed account of the course of French affairs, principally diplomatic, in the 1930’s and 1940’s [...] everyone will be indebted to Warner for his painstaking examination of the record.” — The American Historical Review

09/02/2025

Our latest eBook is Isadora: A Sensational Life by Peter Kurth (https://plunkettlakepress.com/isadora)

“How to make sense of this immense, complicated, beautiful and grotesque life? Many have tried: the Isadora Duncan literature is a tidal wave of loving reminiscence, obfuscation, self-glorification, infighting and supposition by those who knew her... And now there is Peter Kurth, sardonic yet appreciative, neither adoring nor denigrating... He has stylishly synthesized the literature to give us the fullest and most coherent account of the life to date.” — Robert Gottlieb, New York Times Book Review

“Peter Kurth has done a heroic job recreating this charismatic, complicated and ultimately deeply tragic figure, born in the heyday of the railroads and dead before the Great Depression. Isadora: A Sensational Life will likely become the standard biography. Kurth seems to have read everything that has been written about her; and while he lets critics, scholars and (most valuably) those who saw her dance sum up the evanescent Duncan artistry, he gives us the woman herself.” — Tim Page, Washington Post Book World

“[A] luminous portrait, aglow with the details of Duncan’s life and times. Mining the rich lode of Duncan sources — her own writings, recollections of her contemporaries and press coverage of the day — Kurth presents as complete a picture of the dance pioneer and proto-feminist as is possible. Although only a few minutes of Duncan’s dancing have been preserved on film, the vivid descriptions found here will conjure up moving images of one of the most original figures in dance history.” — Library Journal

07/23/2025

Our newest eBook is the fascinating The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939: The Path to Ruin by Williamson Murray (https://plunkettlakepress.com/cebp), which documents how Western Europe was as unprepared for, and blind to the risks of, war by Hi**er in the 1930s as it is now vis-à-vis Putin. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

“A thoroughly documented study of the years of Hi**er's triumph — which the author sees as anything but inevitable. He emphasizes Germany's economic difficulties — lack of raw materials and foreign exchange — and sees an objectively weak but strong-willed Germany challenge a strong but weak-willed West, with the British always relying on a worst case analysis of their military strength and a best case analysis of Hi**er's intentions. An important study that in many ways returns to an earlier view that the West would have been in a better position to fight a war in 1938 than in 1939, that appeasement promoted what its proponents most feared: German aggression leading to protracted war. The author bolsters a familiar thesis with new evidence and great zeal.” — Foreign Affairs

“Professor Murray... [has] mastered an impressive range of archival and published sources (discussed in a trenchant bibliographical essay)... [and] advances a robust, revisionist thesis. By a careful correlation of the economics of German rearmament with Hi**er's foreign policy and strategy between 1933 and 1939, he makes a strong case that right up to the outbreak of war Germany was much less thoroughly prepared for a major war than most of her contemporary opponents imagined, or than most historians have realized since... Hi**er began a wholesale effort at rearmament from the moment he became Chancellor. Although this rearmament programme was immense, when compared to other European states, it was severely handicapped by Germany's heavy dependence on imported raw materials, insufficient foreign credit and shortage of skilled labour... The occupation of the Sudetenland brought few economic advantages, but the seizure of the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 yielded an enormous benefit in raw materials, industrial resources, and immediately available guns, ammunition, and tanks... this scholarly and powerfully argued study will not be easily brushed aside: in particular all future students of the subject will have to grapple with Professor Murray's analysis of Germany's economic problems and military deficiencies.” — The English Historical Review

07/09/2025

Pierre S. du Pont and the Making of the Modern Corporation by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. and Stephen Salsbury is now an eBook: https://plunkettlakepress.com/psdp

“[An] admirable biography... The book is well‐written, piques the reader’s curiosity to keep going, and is well‐documented.” — The New York Times

“[A] splendid piece of business history... Chandler and Salsbury’s history of du Pont represents a major contribution... as business history [the book] is superb. What is involved in transforming a small firm into a corporate giant? That is the central question and the authors have provided an excellent analytical answer.” — Antitrust Bulletin

“Alfred Chandler is the world master of institutional business history... a first-class company and entrepreneurial history.” — David S. Landes, Economic History Association’s EH.net

“[An] interesting book... fascinating reading as a study in business decision-making... definitely an important work... a major contribution to business and economic history, as well as required reading for all concerned with twentieth-century American history.” — The Journal of Economic History

“Pierre du Pont was the prime mover in the evolution of the DuPont and General Motors companies into two of the biggest of big businesses in early twentieth-century America. This painstakingly crafted study describes with commanding scholarship what du Pont did and how... he did it... This massive, at times microscopic, but always purposeful and controlled study is indispensable to an understanding of the coming of big business to modern America.” — The American Historical Review

07/09/2025

From the Danube to the Yalu by General Mark W. Clark is now an eBook (https://plunkettlakepress.com/dy)

“[A] frank, instructive and, on the whole, well-written account of the problems, both military and political, which faced General Mark Clark between May 1952, when he was appointed Commander of United Nations Forces in Korea, and the signing of the armistice in July 1953... the book is... a combination of military prowess, honesty of purpose, and considerable political sagacity.” — International Affairs

“General Clark firmly believes that ‘we could have obtained better truce terms quicker, shortened the war and saved lives if we had got tough sooner.’ His book explains why he thought so and gives as well detailed accounts of the prisoner of war controversy, truce negotiations, relations with President Syngman Rhee, and other matters of administration... the honest opinions of a good soldier who obeyed orders even when they were contrary to his deepest convictions.” — International Journal

07/07/2025

Hi**er’s Germany: The N**i Background to War written in 1939 by constitutional scholar Karl Loewenstein, who had fled Germany in 1933 and taught political theory, the history of government, and international and comparative law at Amherst College, is now an eBook: https://plunkettlakepress.com/hge

“So far, no book has been published which contains in so narrow a compass so many-indeed practically all-essential facts concerning the structure of N**i Germany and the organization of N**i activities in the various branches of public life. A great deal about the constitution and governmental institutions, the organization of national economy, labor, education, religion, the professions, and an especially brilliant chapter on the party, will be found in this outline, which is all the more impressive by its strict adherence to the sober and cool statement of facts.” — The American Political Science Review

“[A] highly reliable book on National-Socialist Germany... the most authoritative study written so far on the constitutional structure of the Third Reich and its operation. The author, a constitutional lawyer by training, is one of the few really qualified scholars whose words must be regarded irreproachable in a field of modern government where prejudice and predilections easily lead to immature presentation.” — California Law Review

“We can recommend this book as the most succinct and up-to-date analysis of the Third Reich and its structure. In 176 small pages are summarized not only the most important features of the political institutions and the methods of domination but also the results of their application.” — The Review of Politics

06/09/2025

Our latest eBook is Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran by Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (https://plunkettlakepress.com/cco)

“With the publication of this exciting story, told well and in detail, there is little mystery left about the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953. Not just the CIA but the Shah himself, key Iranians, and the support the Shah then had in the armed forces and the populace made success possible. At the center of planning (from 1951) and operations was Kermit Roosevelt, acting with the backing of the highest officials of the U.S. and the British governments. Although the Americans assumed that Mossadeq had become an ally or instrument of the Russians, the book provides no new evidence on the Soviet role.” — Foreign Affairs

“Roosevelt recounts his previous experiences in Iran with the OSS, and then runs through the details of the coup with a heavy concentration on individual personalities — consistently depicting Mossadegh and his allies as morally or physically weak, while pro-Shah types are invariably strong... Roosevelt and his operatives fanned the flames of the pro-Shah forces while coordinating the military-backed dismissal of Mossadegh. The moral is that if the CIA is going to overthrow a government, it should make sure of the support of the population and — oh yes, the military.” — Kirkus