Disaster Wars

A minor seismic disturbance in a remote section of the Pacific causes barely a ripple of concern for Kai Tanaka, acting director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu. But when an airliner en route from LA to Sydney vanishes in the same location, Kai is the first to realize that a mysterious explosion has unleashed a series of massive waves destined to obliterate Hawaii. In just one hour, Kai will lose all he has ever known - including his wife and daughter - unless he can save them from nature's most destructive force.

Americans have been shocked in the past few years to discover how vulnerable our nation is to disaster, be it terrorist attack or act of God. But what's truly shocking, argues leading security expert Stephen Flynn, is how little we have learned from the cataclysms of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to catastrophe, America is living on borrowed time and squandering it. But it doesn't have to be this way.

In December 1944, while supporting General MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey neglected the Law of Storms, placing the mighty US Third Fleet in harm's way. Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly every living survivor and rescuer, as well as many families of lost sailors, transcripts and other records from naval courts of inquiry, ships' logs, personal letters, and diaries, Bruce Henderson finds some of the story's truest heroes exhibiting selflessness, courage, and even defiance.

A “balanced, engrossing account” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of the Bay of Pigs crisis drawing on long-hidden CIA documents and delivering the vivid truth of five pivotal days in April 1961. At the heart of the Bay of Pigs crisis stood President John F. Kennedy, and journalist Jim...

On February 6, 1981, at his first National Security Council meeting, Ronald Reagan told his advisers: “I will make the decisions.” As Reagan’s Secret War reveals, these words provide the touchstone for understanding the extraordinary accomplishments of the Reagan administration, including...

Tall tales, all true, about guns, bombs, car chases, spiders, exotic locales, men in uniform, and dancing girls - with deadpan delivery and a social conscience. "I remember the advertisement to join the Army. It asked for guys who were fit, committed, tough, volunteer parachutists, comfortable in the ocean, and mature. As a surfer, that sounded like me - except for the mature bit."

In World War II, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were killed across the world, whether in Japanese jungles, North African deserts, or European beaches. Given that backdrop and the sheer magnitude of the war, people understandably became desensitized to incidents and tragedies that cost hundreds of lives. This was undoubtedly the case with the notorious Port Chicago disaster, a munitions explosion in July 1944 that killed over 300 people and injured over 300 more, many of them navy sailors.

The Grid is Down. A VIP upriver needs to be rescued. Modern Engines can’t be trusted. To win, the battle must turn unconventional.... And a little Historical. A modern minuteman militia is operating out of Steubenville Ohio with a VIP to deliver. Their Huey helicopter is grounded so travel is the old-fashioned way on the Ohio River. Then it gets even more old-fashioned. Another militia in Evansville Indiana has the World War 2 LST-325 in their command. Seven hundred miles of river is between them, but the historic battleship is pushing upstream to help.

From a New Yorker staff writer and PEN award winner, a blend of memoir, history, and reportage on one of the most complex and least understood states in America. “In Alabama, we exist at the border of blessing and disaster….” Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery—the former seat of the...

In Americans at Risk, Dr. Irwin Redlener draws on his broad experience as a pediatrician working with mobile emergency units both for children and adults, his time making recommendations to legislators about the vulnerabilities of children to biological and chemical agents and his regular meetings with Tom Ridge of the office of Homeland Security over a period of four years to write this urging a plan for a coordinated plan between government and the private sector.

Blackout Wars is about the historically unprecedented threat to our electronic civilization from its dependence on the electric power grid. In a nationwide blackout lasting months or years, the entire population of the US could be at risk. There would be no food. No water. Communications, transportation, industry, business, and finance - all of the critical infrastructures that support modern civilization would be paralyzed. Threats to the electric power grid are posed by cyber-attack, sabotage, a geomagnetic super-storm, and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from the high-altitude detonation of a nuclear weapon.

Luego de la Guerra de Indochina a comienzos de los años 50, Vietnam quedó dividida en dos: La del Norte, apoyada por comunistas, y la del sur, por los capitalistas. El empuje ideológico de la primera, y las difíciles relaciones con la URSS a causa de la Guerra Fría, llevaron a Estados Unidos a invadir Vietnam del Sur para enfrentar al Vietcong, la guerrilla comunista financiada por Ho Chi Minh.

When the terrorist attacks struck New York City on September 11, 2001, boat operators and waterfront workers quickly realized that they had the skills, the equipment, and the opportunity to take definite, immediate action in responding to the most significant destructive event in the United States in decades. For many of them, they were “doing what needed to be done”. American Dunkirk shows how people, many of whom were volunteers, mobilized rescue efforts in various improvised and spontaneous ways on that fateful date.

Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details of Clausen's investigation and is a damning account of massive intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful day.

Sailing across the Pacific, the battle-scarred heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis had just delivered a secret cargo that would trigger the end of World War II. Heading westward, she was sunk by a Japanese submarine. In 12 minutes, some 300 men went down with her. More than 900 other spent four horrific days and five nights in the ocean with no water to drink, savaged by a pitiless sun and swarms of sharks. Incredibly, no one knew they were there until a navy patrol plane accidentally discovered them. In the end, only 316 crewmen survived. How could this have happened - and why?

Esta Primavera de 1940. Louise Belmont, de treinta años, corre desnuda y recubierta de sangre por el bulevar de Montparnasse. Para entender la macabra situación que acaba de vivir, esta joven maestra deberá sumergirse en la locura de un momento histórico sin parangón: mientras las tropas alemanas avanzan de forma implacable hacia París y el ejército francés está en plena desbandada, cientos de miles de personas aterrorizadas huyen en busca de un lugar más seguro.

Engine 40, Ladder 35 was one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse, located on the West Side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center; 12 of the men would never return. The story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day, it is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

The United States is more vulnerable than ever to an EMP attack that could shut down the country overnight, resulting in tens of millions of deaths and a 19th-century lifestyle for Americans for the foreseeable future, says a new book, A Nation Forsaken, written by a long-time national security expert. Even worse, the threat doesn't just come from terrorists, but from unpreventable solar activity - and a new peak period is on the way,

Ohne Vorwarnung kam die Flut über das Ahrtal. In der Nacht vom 14. auf den 15. Juli 2021 brach eine Katastrophe über die beschauliche Weinregion herein. Zurück blieben Schlamm, unfassbares Leid und viele Jahre harter Arbeit, die den Bewohnern nun bevorstehen. Andy Neumann nimmt die Leser mit in diese Situation und macht auf sehr persönliche Weise deutlich, welche Kämpfe die Bewohner des Ahrtals durchstehen mussten. Feinsinnig und mit einer Prise Humor, insbesondere aber von einem klaren Willen geprägt: weitermachen.

Para finales del siglo XIX, el momento de la rebelión para Cuba había llegado. Luego de tres siglos de dominación española, y dos décadas de influencia norteamericana, el pueblo de la isla unía sus fuerzas en secreto, previendo la forma de alcanzar la libertad. A comienzos del siglo XX, esta historia llegaría a su final.