The prizewinning historian and internationally bestselling author of D-Day reconstructs the devastating airborne battle of Arnhem in this gripping account. On September 17, 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the groaning roar of airplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders, carrying the legendary American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the British 1st Airborne Division. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leadi... View More...
The Father of All Things is a riveting, haunting, and often hilarious account of a veteran and his son's journey through Vietnam. As his father recounts his experiences as a soldier, including a near fatal injury, Tom Bissell weaves a larger history of the war and explores the controversies that still spark furious debate today. Blending history, memoir, and travelogue, The Father of All Things is a portrait of the war's personal, political, and cultural impact from the perspective of the generation that grew up in the wake of the conflict. It is also a wise and revelatory book about the bond ... View More...
A National Book Award Finalist and New York Times Bestseller The Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical... View More...
In The Finishing School, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch, author of the acclaimed Warrior Elite, follows SEALs on the ground and in the water as they undergo SEAL Tactical Training. In America's new war, the first guns in the fight are special operations forces, including the Navy SEALs, specially trained warriors who operate with precision, swiftness, and lethal force. In the constantly shifting war on terror, SEAL units--small in number, flexible, stealthy, and efficient--are more vital than ever to America's security as they take the battle to an elusive enemy around the globe. But how are Nav... View More...
"Fanning combines memoir, travelogue, political tract, and history lesson in this engaging account of his 3,000-mile solo walk from Virginia to California" (Publishers Weekly). Just days after the US military covered up the death by friendly fire of Pat Tillman, Rory Fanning--who served in the same unit as Tillman--left the Army Rangers as a conscientious objector. Disquieted by his tours in Afghanistan, Fanning sets out to honor Tillman's legacy by crossing the United States on foot. The generous, colorful people he meets and the history he discovers help him learn to live again."Fanning's de... View More...
Eagerly anticipated in the wake of their national best seller "Cobra II" ("The superb, must-read military history of the invasion of Iraq"--Thomas L. Friedman), "The Endgame" is Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor's most ambitious and news-breaking book to date. A peerless work of investigative journalism and historical recreation ranging from 2003 to 2012, it gives us the first comprehensive, inside account of arguably the most widely reported yet least understood war in American history--from the occupation of Iraq to the withdrawal of American troops. Prodigiously researched, "... View More...
Scipio Africanus (236-183 B.C.) was one of the most exciting and dynamic leaders in history. As commander he never lost a battle. Yet it is his adversary, Hannibal, who has lived on in the public memory, due mostly to his daring march through the Alps with his elephants. At the Battle of the Ticinus, Hannibal's initial encounter with Roman arms, young Scipio first tasted warfare, rescuing his dangerously wounded, encircled father, who was also the Roman commander. By nineteen Scipio was the equivalent of a staff colonel and in 210 B.C. he was placed in supreme command. In three years he destro... View More...
The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr's unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most b... View More...
In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created "a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat--the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. ... View More...
In the early morning hours of October 24, 1944, the legendary U.S. Navy submarine Tang was hit by one of its own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface, while the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges. As the air ran out, some of the crew made a daring ascent through the escape hatch. In the end, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived.But the survivors were beginning a far greater ordeal. After being picked up by the Japanese, they were sent to an interrogation camp known as the "Torture Farm." When they ... View More...
"From the training camps to the combat missions, this is war from the perspective of the young Americans who lived through it: the pilots, the bombardiers, the navigators, and the gunners of all the combat services in both Europe and in the Pacific. It is an engaging and vivid portrayal of war in the skies from 1941 to 1945."--Craig L. Symonds, Author of World War II at Sea John C. McManus, author of The Dead and Those About to Die and September Hope, reveals the terror and triumph that shared the fiery skies of World War II--from the first dogfights over Europe to the last Kamikaze attacks o... View More...
The Battle of Normandy was the greatest offensive campaign the world had ever seen. It was also the crucible of combat tactics and logistic techniques that would decide the outcome of World War II...The Battle of Normandy began on D-Day. June 6, 1944--the day that the Allied forces launched the great crusade to free Europe from the iron grip of Nazi Germany. Tightly constricted hedgerow country and bitter German resistance held the Allied advance to a crawl--until they broke through and trapped the Nazi armies. Yet within weeks of this stunning disaster, the Germans smashed the most dangerous ... View More...
From one of the most admired admirals of his generation--and the only admiral to serve as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO--comes a remarkable voyage through all of the world's most important bodies of water, providing the story of naval power as a driver of human history and a crucial element in our current geopolitical path. From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis take... View More...
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind takes you deep inside America's real battles with violent, unrelenting terrorists--a game of kill-or-be-killed, from the Oval Office to the streets of Karachi. Ron Suskind takes readers inside the defining conflict of our era: the war between the West and a growing, shadowy army of terrorists, armed with weapons of alarming power. Relying on unique access to former and current government officials, this book will reveal for the first time how the US government--from President Bush on down--is frantically improvising to fight... View More...
This inspiring true story of veteran Air Force bomber pilot Robert Trimble, who laid his life on the line to rescue World War II POWs on the Eastern Front. Near the end of World War II, thousands of Allied ex-prisoners of war were abandoned to wander the war-torn Eastern Front. With no food, shelter, or supplies, the POWs were an army of dying men. As the Red Army advanced across Poland, the Nazi prison camps were liberated. In defiance of humanity, the freed Allied prisoners were discarded without aid. The Soviets viewed POWs as cowards, and regarded all refugees as potential spies or partisa... View More...
"A fantastic book, one of the very finest accounts of wartime spookery" (The Wall Street Journal)--a spellbinding adventure story of four secret OSS agents who would all later lead the CIA and their daring espionage and sabotage in wartime Europe from the author of the bestselling Wild Bill Donavan. They are the most famous and controversial directors the CIA has ever had--Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Before each of these four men became their country's top spymaster, they fought in World War II as secret warriors for Wild Bill Donovan's Office of Strategic Se... View More...
With a passion that makes her memoir "nearly impossible to put down" (Buffalo News) Williams shares the powerful gamut of her experiences in Iraq, from caring for a wounded civilian to aiming a rifle at a child. Angry at the bureaucracy and the conflicting messages of today's military, Williams offers us "a raw, unadulterated look at war" (San Antonio Express News) and at the U.S. Army. And she gives us a woman's story of empowerment and self-discovery. View More...
