"Fast is always a wonderful storyteller, and the story is a good one. ... Entertaining and memorable". -- Library Journal

Between 1776 and 1783, Britain hired an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the Americans. Collectively known as Hessians, they actually came from six German territories within the Holy Roman Empire. Over the course of the war, members of the German corps, including women and children, spent extended periods of time in locations as dispersed and varied as Canada in the North to West Florida and Cuba in the South. They shared in every significant British military triumph and defeat. Thousands died of disease, were killed in battle, were captured by the enemy, or deserted. Collectively, they recorded their experiences and observations of the war they fought in, the land they traversed, and the people they encountered in a large body of letters, diaries, and similar private and official records. Friederike Baer presents a study of Britain's war against the American rebels from the perspective of the German soldiers, a people uniquely positioned both in the midst of the war and at its margins. The book offers a ground-breaking reimagining of this watershed event in world history.

In analyzing the origins, course, and effectiveness of domestic policymaking in Hesse-Cassel, Charles Ingrao finds that Frederick was neither as evil as we might think nor as enlightened as we might like to believe.

Its picturesque fields of Queen Anne's lace, bachelor buttons, and even an occasional rusting disc harrow thrown in for good measure, were deemed superb examples of pastoral serenity by virtually every motorist who had passed through Gossett Mills. The residents of this small town, nestled among the orchards and rolling hillsides of central Massachusetts, relished their unaffected if bland lifestyle, and harbored no desires to change it. However, being unaware that change is the only true constant in anyone's life, they were at a loss as to what to do when confronted with the prospect that a pernicious criminal element may have surreptitiously infiltrated their community. It all starts with a photo in The Dobson's Creek Dispatch showing Jethro Clayton, the town manager, and Molly Simms, a retiring elderly resident, lying face down in a leaching field adjacent to the waste treatment plant. The murder scene, cordoned off by yellow and black crime scene tape, is most unnerving for the townsfolk to behold, and is made all the more so by Police Chief Mathew Harvey's puzzled expression as he stands eyeing the two corpses with his hat in one hand and scratching his baldpate with the other.