Military Nonfiction

As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the US Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau. As German forces closed in on the French capital, Bullitt wrote the president, "In case I should get blown up before I see you again, I want you to know that it has been marvelous to work for you."

In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground.

In this revealing insight into a little-known aspect of British wartime history, Helen Fry documents the stories of those who fought for king and adopted country. Based on interviews with veterans and drawing on a rich vein of source material, the author sets their personal stories against the bigger picture of the experience of enemy aliens in Britain during the Second World War.

On the day that Roswell K. Doughty graduated from Boston University, he also received a commission as a second lieutenant in the army of the United States of America. It was not until 1942 that he was called to active duty—to face some of the toughest fighting of the Second World War. He subsequently saw action in North Africa, then at the disastrous Salerno landings in Italy - where the Allied divisions involved suffered 4,000 casualties—about which the author reveals that suspected intelligence breaches led to the Allies' plans becoming known to the Germans.

At All Costs transports you to the battlefront for more than two centuries of astonishing military confrontations. From the Battle of Minden in 1795 to dramatic Second World War stories and the Battle for Goose Green in the Falklands, Bryan Perrett gives astoundingly vivid accounts of international forces in daring actions, achieving victory against the odds.

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year The dramatic story of a South Carolina heiress who joined the OSS and became the first American woman in uniform taken prisoner on the Western front—until her escape from Nazi Germany. Gertrude “Gertie” Legendre was a big-game hunter from a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A powerful selection of the letters Tom Brokaw received in response to his towering #1 bestseller The Greatest Generation. “When I wrote about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War...

The bestselling author of The Limits of Power critically examines the Washington consensus on national security and why it must change For the last half century, as administrations have come and gone, the fundamental assumptions about America's military policy have remained unchanged: American...

An inside look at today's special operations sniper and an in depth look at the career of Chris Kyle from those who knew him and fought alongside him. Most people think of snipers as shooters perched in urban hides, dealing out death unseen from a considerable distance. But this description...

The abolitionist legacies of Orville Brown and his son, Spencer, live on in this historic and daring 19th-century account. Journeying apart from each other, but with similar passion, Orville and Spencer's stories span virtually every major abolitionist event: from the battles of Bleeding Kansas and the establishment of the free-soil movement to the river wars of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Shiloh. Listeners will follow Orville west as he strikes out for Kansas Territory to help ensure its entry as a free state.

This riveting memoir follows a Lebanese-Muslim-American and thirty-year US Marine veteran who suffered a six-month ordeal at the hands of a brutal regime in Yemen—and remained loyal to his country through it all. As air strikes carpeted Yemen's capital, Sam Farran was one of only a few...

Now available in paperback, this fourth book in the action-packed Guts & Glory series takes readers through the exciting and fascinating history of the American Revolution. Perfect for history buffs, reluctant readers, and fans of Hamilton! From George Washington crossing the icy Delaware, to...

John S.D. Eisenhower modestly explains General Ike as “a son's view of a great military leader—highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us.” It is that, and more: a portrait of the greatest Allied military leader of the Second World War, by the man who knew...

From near-suicidal RAF attacks in 1940 through to the dawn of the jet age in 1945, Flames in the Sky captures the astonishing drama, intensity, heroism, and incomparable exhilaration of the World War Two air war like no other book. This epic global struggle between Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mustangs, Mosquitos, Messerschmitts, Zeros, Kamikazes, and more is brought vividly to life by a writer who was himself in the thick of the action.

The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) was Europe's most destructive conflict prior to the two world wars. Two of European history's greatest generals faced each other at Lutzen in November 1632, midway through this terrible war. This book is the first to combine analysis of the battle itself with an assessment of its cultural, political, and military legacy, and the first to incorporate recent archaeological research within a reappraisal of the events and their significance.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was most famous for her successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent White Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965. Despite her triumph in this high-profile case, Roundtree continued to represent the poor and the underserved. She was the first lawyer to bring a bus-desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, clinching the ruling that enabled Robert F. Kennedy to enforce bus integration. She was also among the first Black women to enter the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

The captivating account of how Clint Lorance, a soldier who became a scapegoat for a corrupt military hierarchy, was falsely charged with war crimes, imprisoned, and eventually pardoned by President Trump. While out on patrol in Afghanistan, Clint Lorance learned that two men, both suspected...

Citizen-soldier Strong Vincent was many things: Harvard graduate, lawyer, political speaker, descendant of pilgrims and religious refugees, husband, father, brother. But his greatest contribution to history is as the savior of the Federal left on the second day at Gettysburg, when he and his men held Little Round Top against overwhelming Confederate numbers. Forgotten by history in favor of his subordinate, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Vincent has faded into relative obscurity in the decades since his death.

An exciting history told with a novelist's eye and filled with intimate details of the longest and largest battle of WWII—the fight for the Atlantic Ocean. Of all the threats that faced his country in World War II, Winston Churchill said, just one really scared him—what he called the...

“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the...