Military Government

The author of Easternization, an award-winning journalist, offers an intimate look at the rise of strongman leaders around the globe, charting the most urgent political story of our era. We are in a new era: authoritarian leaders have become a central feature of global politics. Since 2000...

The author of the classic best seller Lincoln on Leadership answers the question: How would President Lincoln handle the pressing crises of our modern world? Abraham Lincoln is recognized as one of history's finest leaders, a great president when the United States was under tremendous strain. But suppose he were alive today. How would Lincoln deal with today's high-pressure issues, from politics to business?

Proud and talented, history now remembers this conflicted man solely through the lens of his last desperate act of treason. Yet the fall of Benedict Arnold remains one of the Revolutionary period's great puzzles. Why did a brilliant military commander, who repeatedly risked his life fighting the British, who was grievously injured in the line of duty, and fell into debt personally funding his own troops, ultimately became a traitor to the patriot cause?

No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine in the world. The Nazis plotted to kill the city's Jews and to sabotage the nation's military installations: plans existed for hanging 20 prominent Hollywood figures such as Al Jolson, Charlie Chaplin, and Samuel Goldwyn; for driving through Boyle Heights and machine-gunning as many Jews as possible; and for blowing up defense installations and seizing munitions from National Guard armories along the Pacific Coast.

The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.

A half-century after its original publication, Edward Abbey's classic 1962 novel, Fire on the Mountain, still retains its beauty, power, and relevance. This extraordinary tale by the legendary icon of the environmentalism movement and author of The Monkey Wrench Gang proudly celebrates rugged American individualism, as it tells the story of one tough old loner's stand against the combined, well-armed forces of government that are determined to clear him from his land.

From acclaimed historian and author of the “marvelous” (The New York Times Book Review) The Last American Aristocrat comes a captivating new biography of Teddy Roosevelt, exploring the life of America’s 26th president and his pivotal role in shaping the dawn of the American Century...

In No Mission Is Impossible, Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal return with the intensely absorbing, fast-paced story of 30 of the boldest missions of the Israeli special forces. Bar-Zohar and Mishal depict in electrifying detail major battles, raids in enemy territory, and death-defying commando missions while also sharing the personal stories of both soldiers and top commanders, revealing their hopes and fears. The stories are often of victories, but sometimes they're of immense failures.

Born in the two decades prior to World War I, George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel became among the most recognized and successful military leaders of the twentieth century. However, as acclaimed military historian Lloyd Clark reveals in his penetrating and insightful braided chronicle of their lives, they charted very different, often interrupted, paths to their ultimate leadership positions commanding hundreds of thousands of troops during World War II and celebrated as heroes in the United States, Britain, and Germany.

Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War examines how intoxicants have been put to the service of states, empires, and their armies throughout history. Since the beginning of organized combat, armed forces have prescribed drugs to their members for two general purposes: to enhance performance during combat and to counter the trauma of killing and witnessing violence after it is over.

Stalin exchanged more than 600 messages with Allied leaders Churchill and Roosevelt during the Second World War. In this riveting volume - the fruit of a unique British-Russian scholarly collaboration - the messages are published and also analyzed within their historical context. Ranging from intimate personal greetings to weighty salvos about diplomacy and strategy, this book offers fascinating new revelations of the political machinations and human stories behind the Allied triumvirate.

Secret agent Jason Bourne faces off against his loyal friend who has proven to be his ultimate betrayer, from a New York Times bestselling author. Jason Bourne is searching for an elusive cadre of terrorists planning to destroy America's most strategic natural resources—and needs the help of...

Pisces Moon: The Dark Arts of Empire is a sweeping critical analysis of Western colonialism, its foundational beliefs in militarism, patriarchy, Christianity, and white supremacy; and its destructive impact on the nations of Southeast Asia and, ultimately, America. Valentine focuses on the “dark arts” of empire: the black bag of CIA covert operations, including bribery, right-wing coups, assassinations, disinformation, and intimate relationships with drug, sex, and artifact traffickers.

Noam Chomsky’s backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control begins by asserting two models of democracy—one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky, "propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon...

The Lost Cause ideology that emerged after the Civil War and flourished in the early 20th century in essence sought to recast a struggle to perpetuate slavery as a heroic defense of the South. As Adam Domby reveals here, this was not only an insidious goal, but it was founded on falsehoods. The False Cause focuses on North Carolina to examine the role of lies and exaggeration in the creation of the Lost Cause narrative. In the process the book shows how these lies have long obscured the past and have been used to buttress white supremacy in ways that resonate to this day.

In January 2003, 28-year-old GCHQ translator Katharine Gun received an email from the US National Security Agency that would turn her world upside down. The message requested Katharine’s assistance in co-ordinating an illegal US-UK spy operation which would secure UN authorisation for the Iraq invasion. Horrified, she decided to leak the information to the British press. Katharine’s decision would change her life forever, as she was arrested under the Official Secrets Act whilst becoming a cause célèbre for political activists.

This document was issued by the department of Strategic Services and published in 1945. It offers guidance and advice to the citizen saboteur. It also covers how to encourage a citizen to sabotage. The advice is such that anyone can implement the methods suggested without specialised training or instruction, and no need for weapons training.

From Stephen E. Ambrose, bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the inspiring story of the ordinary men of the U.S. army in northwest Europe from the day after D-Day until the end of the bitterest days of World War II. In this riveting account, historian Stephen E. Ambrose continues...

Sam Dryden lives quietly in a small coastal town in southern California, buying and fixing up old houses. It's good physical work that he's come to love. But his peaceful life is shattered when he gets a phone call from an old friend in trouble. A phone call that pulls Dryden into the middle of...

These are the combat experiences of the first Marine to command a special operations task force, recounted against a backdrop of his journey from raw Second Lieutenant to seasoned Colonel and Task Force Commander; from leading Marines through the streets of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul to directing multi-national special operations forces in a dauntingly complex fight against a formidable foe.