Modern Military

In Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom, Peter Padfield presents a superb description and analysis of naval campaigns conducted between 1788 and 1851 that shaped the modern world. Winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Prize, this is the second of Padfield's masterful trilogy that traces the impact of naval power on modern history, and the means by which it has been enacted.

Scratch Sullivan just wanted to survive the apocalypse in peace...but when the undead bring their war right to his doorstep, it's time to ranger up and rain hell down on his enemies! It's been eight years since the bombs fell and the dead rose, and the world has become a very dangerous place. But unlike most folks, former Army Ranger Scratch Sullivan is getting by just fine. Sure, it's hell on earth, but Scratch seems to fit in. He makes his living by hunting the dead, vampires and zombies alike, with the odd revenant thrown in for good measure.

LA Times Book Award winner and expert on the past and present Japan, Ian Buruma examines the transformation of a country. Following Japan's history from its opening to the West in 1853 to its hosting of the 1964 Olympics, Buruma focuses on how figures such as Commodore Matthew Perry, Douglas MacArthur, and Emperor Mitsushito helped shape this complex country.

The New York Times bestselling author of Reaper’s Stand is back in her “uber-alpha rough world of MCs”* as one woman’s future is rocked by the man whose hardcore past could destroy her… He never meant to hurt her. Levi “Painter” Brooks was nothing before he joined the Reapers...

When a surprise nuclear attack forces Aidan from hiding, he finds the world to be a much different and more deadly place. Now, he'll traverse a post-apocalyptic landscape populated by violent redneck looters, rogue military factions, and an army of hungry undead.... After two combat tours in the Middle East, Aidan Sullivan just wants to be left alone on his family’s ranch in the Texas Hill Country. But when the bombs fall and the dead walk, Aidan risks life and limb to rescue his aging parents from the zombie horde.

Warrior Ways focuses on the lore produced by modern American warriors, illuminating the ways in which members of the armed services creatively express the complex experience of military life. In short, lively essays, contributors to the volume, all of whom have close personal or professional relationships to the military, examine battlefield talismans, personal narrative (storytelling), “Jody calls” (marching and running cadences), slang, homophobia and transgressive humor, music, and photography, among other cultural expressions.

A “can’t-miss for anyone interested in current military affairs,” On Killing Remotely reveals and explores the costs—to individual soldiers and to society—of the way we wage war today (Kirkus Reviews, starred). Throughout history society has determined specific rules of engagement...

When Dawg Mackay made his four half-sisters part of his family, he vowed that he would care for and protect them with everything he had. But what happens now that the girls are all grown up? The Mackay girls are on the loose, and Somerset County will never be the same… Lyrica Mackay has wanted...

This is the definitive story of one of the longest and most controversial conflicts in US history. Created in association with the Smithsonian Institution, this authoritative history of the Vietnam War examines its people, politics, events, and lasting effects from a global perspective. A Short...

What accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war from 1500 onward. Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans had no general military superiority in the early modern era. Sharman shows instead that European expansion is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default.

In this remarkable new novel, Belva Plain creates a brilliant portrayal of a man's descent from idealistic beginnings into a world of dishonesty and greed--and of the two women who love him. Robb MacDaniel, a schoolteacher with noble intentions, comes into a little money, enabling him to go to...

The First World War hardly ended with the formal Armistice in Europe on November 11, 1918, amid the continuing violence of blockades and epidemics, amid numerous forms of reconstruction and revolution. For many at the time, the outbreak of what would become the First World War was an inevitability, the result of rising tensions over decades, whether due to the dynamics and systems of international politics within Europe, or a result of the competitive logic of imperial politics as practiced by Europe outside its borders, rebounding back upon it.

In an era of global uncertainty, one forgotten strategy could shift the tides. Modern Privateering makes a bold case for the revival of a centuries-old tool: privateering. Once dismissed as a relic of the Age of Sail, it’s now reimagined as a cost-effective, legally sanctioned means to degrade enemy power, deter aggression, and defend freedom on the seas. Whether facing authoritarian regimes, pirates, or transnational criminals, this strategic handbook lays out how privateering could: *Impose steep economic costs on U.S. adversaries.

As the first decade of the 21st century has made brutally clear, the very definitions of war and the enemy have changed almost beyond recognition. Threats to security are now as likely to come from armed propagandists, popular militias, or mercenary organizations as they are from conventional armies backed by nation-states. In this timely book, national security expert Max G. Manwaring explores a little-understood actor on the stage of irregular warfare - the gang.

For nearly 2,500 years, students, politicians, political thinkers, and military leaders have read the eloquent and shrewd speeches in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War for profound insights into military conflict, diplomacy, and the behavior of people and countries in times of crisis. How to Think about War presents the most influential and compelling of these speeches in an elegant new translation by classicist Johanna Hanink, accompanied by an enlightening introduction.

The Middle Ages have long sparked people's imaginations thanks to imagery of armored knights battling on horseback and armies of men trying to breach the walls of formidable castles. But medieval warfare was constantly adapting to the times with new techniques and technology. By the middle of the 15th century, artillery was knocking down castle walls that had stood for generations, while infantry were also proving their worth with powerful longbows and tight formations of polearms that upset the long dominance of mounted, heavily armored knights.

For fans of 300, a riveting retelling of The March of the Ten Thousand, when Greek mercenary Xenophon led a stranded band of soldiers on a treacherous escape from the Persians. 400 BC. The Persian prince Cyrus the Younger hires a mercenary army of ten-thousand Greek soldiers to oust his brother...

In Kremlin Winter, Robert Service, acclaimed biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky and one of the finest historians of modern Russia, brings his deep understanding of that country to bear on the man who leads it. 'One of our most accomplished, erudite and prolific historians of modern Russia'...

The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb.

World War I wasn't just a war between empires. It was a turning point for humanity. It reshaped borders, destroyed monarchies, introduced weapons the world had never seen, and left millions dead. But beyond the trenches, treaties, and tanks, it was fought by people and entire nations struggling to survive. This isn’t just a timeline of dates and battles. This is the human story of the Great War—told with compassion, clarity, and historical depth.