FLEMING NEWS –2011

   Thomas Fleming has joined the e-book revolution. He has signed a contract with Donna Carpenter, president of New Word City, to publish a selection of his historical articles as well as several of his novels and nonfiction narratives.  Some of his best articles from American Heritage, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, New York, and other magazines are appearing on-line, expanded by illustrations and links. Among those already published,  perhaps the most startling is “Who Sank The Maine?” an exhaustively researched look at the explosion that sank the American battleship in Havana harbor in 1898. Fleming reveals the most likely perpetrators were NOT the Spanish, long condemned for the outrage that started the Spanish American War.

   Before the close of  2011, New Word City will publish an e-book edition of Fleming’s hugely successful novel, The Officers’ Wives. This exploration of how three West Pointers and their wives dealt with the agonies of Korea and Vietnam remains enormously relevant for contemporary readers. It sold two million copies world-wide.

       In June Publisher’s Weekly reported that Fleming has signed a contract with Da Capo Press for two books on topics of large national significance. The first will explore why America became the only nation in the world to fight a war to end slavery. Fleming will show how “diseases of the public mind” – distortions of reality that seized large numbers of Americans -- led to the horrendous Civil War. The second book will be a comparison of two opposing views of the American presidency, George Washington’s and Thomas Jefferson’s –and how they have influenced American history.

        Meanwhile, Fleming’s agent, Deborah Grosvenor, is reading a recently completed novel, The Counterfeit Heart, about a beautiful willful British actress who becomes trapped in America by the outbreak of the Revolution. The book chronicles her adventures as the star of British backed theaters in New York and Philadelphia, while her doubts about the royal cause – and her affection for the reckless Scotsman who is one of the King’s most ruthless soldiers -- slowly accumulate.

         Fleming has also signed a contract with American History Press for the republication of his first successful novel, Liberty Tavern. When it appeared in 1976, it was called “The Gone With the Wind of the American Revolution.”  It sold over three million copies in various editions. In 2010 American History Press published a very successful 50^th anniversary edition of Fleming’s first book, Now We Are Enemies, the story of Bunker Hill.  Liberty Tavern is scheduled for publication in January 2012.

        Fleming continues to produce important historical journalism. American Heritage recently featured his article on how often violence has erupted in Congress and elsewhere in the nation in the heat of political combat. The vivid anecdotes were all too relevant to readers troubled by the raw partisanship of the current political scene.  This fall MHQ will publish Fleming’s article on the forgotten 1972 battle of An Loc – in which the South Vietnamese army with the help of American air support achieved a stunning victory against the North Vietnamese communists. Compared to Verdun, Stalingrad and other  military turning points, this momentous triumph was destroyed by the Watergate scandal, which crippled Richard Nixon’s presidency and enabled an inflamed Congress to abandon South Vietnam.   

      Meanwhile, on HNN (History News Network) Fleming continues his popular series, Channeling George – startling conversations with the greatest Founding Father, as he views American history from Elysium.  It is the most popular feature on this much visited website.