History
Capturing on the renewed interest in World War II, Ballantine's; in conjunction with the British publishing house Purnell's, starting publishing the Illustrated History of World War II paperbacks in 1968. The series was divided into Weapons (43 books), Battles (31 books), Campaigns (29 books), and War Leaders (30 books) sub-series, and was an immediate success with a cost per book of only 1 US dollar at first. The books were well written by a who's who of Military Historians of the late 60's and early 70's. Some titles had several printings (Patton had five), while others were limited to one, and experienced poor sales. Starting in 1973, the series was retitled to The Illustrated History of the Violent Century, and added books on World War I, the war in IndoChina, and the Middle East conflict. Two additional sub-series were added (Human Conflict and Politics In Action) to address points of history that occurred outside of the wars. By the summer of 1975 interest in the series fell off with only a few further titles published. By 1976 all were out of print, but were being snatched up by collectors. The success of the series added significant funds to the corporate balance sheet, and lead to further books on history being published.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)