Military Politics

So many thousands of books deifying Abraham Lincoln have been published that it is nearly impossible for the average citizen to learn much of anything that is truthful about Lincoln’s presidency. You’ll learn that the real reason why Lincoln launched an invasion of his own country (he never admitted that secession was legal or legitimate) was to destroy the voluntary union of the founders and replace it with a coerced union held together by violence and threats of violence, much more like the old Soviet Union than the original American union.

Former FARC revolutionary Sofia Lozano has become the world’s most cunning assassin, and now she’s selling her services to the highest bidder. But when the CIA learns that Sofia’s newest client is an international terrorist syndicate with plans to kill countless civilians, her name is placed on David Rivers’ kill list. As David and his team track the elusive operative from Colombia’s triple canopy jungles to its Pacific mangrove swamps, his team stumbles onto a larger conspiracy: a narco-sub loaded with cocaine and evidence of a terrorist attack-in-progress.

When China launches the first successful test of its anti-ship ballistic missile, the future looks bleak for America. Fearing the U.S. will lose its naval supremacy in the Pacific, President Kenneth Phoenix finds himself in a compromised position. New technology requires money, but the country is recovering from a massive recession. Without the funds to compete with China's advancing technology, are the country's days of naval preeminence in the Pacific running out?

The “gripping” (The Washington Post) story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century. Both a portrait of these men, few of whom were traditional soldiers, and of the Spanish-American War itself, The Crowded Hour dives deep into the daily lives and struggles of Roosevelt and his regiment. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, Risen illuminates an influential moment in American history.

Even the most incorruptible juror can be unwittingly influenced by others' opinions in the digital age, but more sinister forces are at work: Jury tampering has reached all-time highs. Unexpected verdicts are coming down more and more often, indicating that shadowy groups may be blackmailing jurors - and leaving the American justice system in shambles. Is impartiality even possible anymore?

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a ‘New Roman Empire’, and make Italy a great power again.

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520).

He was called the Hangman of the Gestapo, the "butcher of Prague", with a reputation as a ruthlessly efficient killer. He was the head of the SS, and the Gestapo, second-in-command to Heinrich Himmler. His orders set in motion the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938 and, as the lead planner of Hitler's Final Solution, he chaired the Wannsee Conference, at which details of the murder of millions of Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe were toasted with cognac.

Surprising as it sounds, war has made humanity safer and richer. In War! What Is It Good For?, the renowned historian and archaeologist Ian Morris tells the gruesome, gripping story of 15,000 years of war, going beyond the battles and brutality to reveal what war has really done to and for the world. War, and war alone, has created bigger, more complex societies, ruled by governments that have stamped out internal violence.

Elizabeth of York would have ruled England, but for the fact that she was a woman. One of the key figures of the Wars of the Roses, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, she married Henry Tudor to bring peace to a war-torn England. In Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen, Alison Weir builds a portrait of this beloved queen, placing her in the context of the magnificent, ceremonious, often brutal world she inhabited.

A biological agent is stolen from a biocontainment lab. Weaponized, it could kill millions, and a desperate national hunt ensues to catch the terrorists before it is too late. Luke Stone, head of an elite FBI department, with his own family still in jeopardy, has vowed to walk away - but when the new president, barely sworn in, calls him, he can't turn his back on her. Shocking devastation follows, winding its way all the way to the president, who finds her own family in jeopardy.

Wars come to an end. But then new ones begin. Just weeks after Hitler's suicide, Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS find themselves up to their necks in battles every bit as fierce as the ones just ended. The first is political-the very survival of the OSS, with every department from Treasury to War to the FBI grabbing for its covert agents and assets. The second is on a much grander scale-the possible next world war, against Joe Stalin and his voracious ambitions.

When veteran operator Pike Logan and partner Jennifer Cahill receive a letter from Blaisdell Consulting - the umbrella cover company for their real employer, a top secret counterterrorist unit called the Taskforce - they expect orders for their next mission-impossible tasking. Instead, they learn that their latest actions have gotten them fired, despite having saved thousands of innocent lives. Pike's shock and fury is redirected when their commander Colonel Kurt Hale asks him and Jennifer for help with a personal matter.

It is The Campus. Secretly created under the administration of President Jack Ryan, its sole purpose is to eliminate terrorists and those who protect them. Officially, it has no connection to the American government - a necessity in a time when those in power consider themselves above such arcane ideals as loyalty, justice, and right or wrong.

Even now, after more than 15 years, it is hard to see the invasion of Iraq through the cool, considered gaze of history. For too many people, the damage is still too palpable, and still unfolding. Most of the major players in that decision are still with us, and few of them are not haunted by it, in one way or another. Perhaps it's that combination, the passage of the years and the still unresolved trauma, that explains why so many protagonists opened up so fully for the first time to Robert Draper.

Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower was arguably the single most important military figure of World War II. Crusade in Europe tells the complete story of the war as he planned and executed it. Through Eisenhower's eyes the enormous scope and drama of the war—strategy, battles, moments of great decision—become fully illuminated in all their fateful glory. Penned before his Presidency, this account is deeply human and helped propel him to the highest office.

Michael Gallatin is a British spy with a peculiar talent: the ability to transform himself into a wolf. Although his work in North Africa helped the Allies win the continent in the early days of World War II, he quit the service when a German spy shot his lover in her bed. Now, three years later, the army asks him to end his retirement and parachute into occupied Paris. A mysterious German plan called the Iron Fist threatens the D-Day invasion, and the Nazi in charge is the spy who betrayed Michael’s lover. The werewolf goes to France for king and country, hoping for a chance at bloody vengeance.

A revelatory examination of the most significant demographic shift since the baby boom—the sharp increase in the number of people who live alone—that offers surprising insights on the benefits of this epochal change. With eye-opening statistics, original data, and vivid portraits of people who go solo, Klinenberg upends the conventional wisdom to deliver the definitive take on how the rise of living alone is transforming the American experience.

Life is good for Rafael de Bourbon. The 40-year-old Spaniard recently married to a wealthy English beauty, and is days away from opening a luxury boutique hotel off the southern coast of Thailand. But when the Royal Thai Police storm the hotel and arrest him for blackmail and extortion, "Rafa" is thrown into Bangkok's most notorious jail. In desperation, he reaches out to the one man who can prove his innocence.

Op-Center chief Paul Hood was going to retire. But that's about as likely as a gun shooting flowers. A bunch of rogue U.N. peacekeepers, or "Keepers," has decided to cross over to the wrong side of the law. Armed with stolen U.N. weapons and ammo, they devise a shocking plan to gain the world's attention. Demanding one hundred million dollars in ransom, the assassins take over the U.N. - where ambassadors from ten nations have gathered for a gala function at which Hood's daughter is going to perform. Hood is back in the saddle in a flash, with the full force of Op-Center at his command....