Modern War

Selected as one of the Best Books of 2016 by Bill Gates All too frequently, leadership is reduced to a simple dichotomy: the strong versus the weak. Yet, there are myriad ways to exercise effective political leadership-as well as different ways to fail. We blame our leaders for economic...

Find out how the people of this country fought against nature to cultivate land below sea level. Discover how they survived wars, invasions, and natural disasters and developed a trading nation that would become the envy of Europe. Uncover the truth behind bloody battles fought between medieval royalty, warlords, and rebellious guilds of Dutch workers, all of which shaped the country we know today.

In The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the 20th century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and surprising.

John Spencer was a new second lieutenant in 2003 when he parachuted into Iraq leading a platoon of infantry soldiers into battle. During that combat tour he learned how important unit cohesion was to surviving a war, both physically and mentally. He observed that this cohesion developed as the soldiers experienced the horrors of combat as a group. In Connected Soldiers, Spencer delivers lessons learned about effective methods for building teams in a way that overcomes the distractions of home and the outside world, without reducing the benefits gained from connections to family.

Harry Truman and Pablo Picasso were contemporaries and were both shaped by and shapers of the great events of the twentieth century—the man who painted Guernica and the man who authorized the use of atomic bombs against civilians. But in most ways, they couldn’t have been more different. Picasso was a communist, and probably the only thing Truman hated more than communists was modern art. Picasso was an indifferent father, a womanizer, and a millionaire. Truman was utterly devoted to his family. How did they come to be shaking hands in front of Picasso’s studio in the south of France?

A #1 national bestseller from the authors of Walk in My Combat Boots, celebrate the devotion and sacrifices of our nation’s bravest heroes with this collection of stories from those serving in the line of duty. U.S. soldiers who served in overseas conflicts—from World War II, Korea, and...

An award-winning journalist reveals the dramatic true story of the CIA's Team Alpha, the first Americans to be dropped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan after 9/11. America is reeling; Al-Qaeda has struck and thousands are dead. The country scrambles to respond, but the Pentagon has no plan for...

An award-winning sociologist unearths how a group of ordinary people debilitated by excruciating pain developed their own medicine from home-grown psilocybin mushrooms—crafting near-clinical grade dosing protocols--and fought for recognition in a broken medical system. Cluster headache, a...

Like See No Evil and At the Center of the Storm, this is a vivid and gripping account of the Central Intelligence Agency, a life of secrets, and a war in the shadows. Called the "Bob Gates of his generation" by Politico, Michael Morell was a top CIA officer who played a critical role in the most...

Kent Anderson's stunning debut novel is a modern classic, a harrowing, authentic picture of one American soldier's experience of the Vietnam War--"unlike anything else in war literature" (Los Angeles Review of Books). Hanson joins the Green Berets fresh out of college. Carrying a volume of...

The American Revolution signalled a great change in the course of world history and progress. From this colonial revolt sprouted ideals of liberty and democracy, and all the aspirations and ambitions of a new people. In this work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood discusses the character and consequences of the revolution, grounding the events and ideas that shaped the American consciousness.

On June 14, 1863, US Major General John Adams Dix received the following directive from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck: "All your available force should be concentrated to threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible." With General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marching toward Gettysburg and only a limited Confederate force guarding Richmond, Halleck sensed a rare opportunity for the Union cause.

Now in its second edition, The Virtues of Captain America is updated to include all the new developments in Captain America's saga. This edition also offers new material on Sam Wilson—formerly Captain America's partner the Falcon who recently became Captain America himself—and how his interpretation of the role compares to Steve Rogers's.

This genre-defying story of magic, war, and the struggle for freedom in the early modern history tells a sweeping tale of revolution and wonder in a world not quite like our own. The Concord has been broken, and a war of magic engulfs the world. In France, the brilliant young battle-mage...

The twentieth century is usually seen as "the century of total war." But as the historian David A. Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the era of muskets, cannons, and sailing ships—in the age of Napoleon. In a sweeping, evocative narrative, Bell takes us from campaigns of "extermination" in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European battlefields where tens of thousands died in a single day. Between 1792 and 1815, Europe plunged into an abyss of destruction.

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and The Salt Lake Tribune Just as she gave voice to the silent women of the Hebrew Bible in The Red Tent, Anita Diamant creates a cast of breathtakingly vivid characters—young women who escaped to Israel from Nazi Europe—in this intensely...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu has been a much-studied work of military strategy for hundreds of years, influencing great leaders in all walks of life. Here, business journalist Mark Smith applies the lessons to the role of the entrepreneur by showing how the axioms of General Sun Tzu apply to creating and expanding a business in a successful and meaningful way.

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.

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 Civil War represented a momentous change in the character of war. It combined the projection of military might across a continent on a scale never before seen with an unprecedented mass mobilization of peoples. Yet despite the revolutionizing aspects of the Civil War, its leaders faced the same uncertainties that have vexed combatants since the days of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War.