Politics War

Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away. Through the weaponization of social media, the Internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the Internet. Terrorists livestream their attacks, “Twitter wars” produce real world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations. The result is that war, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battlespace that plays out on our smartphones.

Both a history and an examination of human thought and behavior spanning three thousand years, On Politics thrillingly traces the origins of political philosophy from the ancient Greeks to Machiavelli in Book I and from Hobbes to the present age in Book II. Whether examining Lord Acton's dictum that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or explicating John Stuart Mill's contention that it is "better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," Alan Ryan evokes the lives and minds of our greatest thinkers in a way that makes hearing about them a transcendent experience.

After being bombed and shipwrecked repeatedly while serving for several wild and war-torn years as a mascot of the World War II Royal Navy Yangtze river gunboats the Gnat and the Grasshopper, Judy ended up in Japanese prisoner of war camps in North Sumatra. Along with locals as slave labor, the American, Australian, and British POWs were forced to build a 1,200-mile single-track railroad through the most horrifying jungles and treacherous mountain passes.

In German-occupied East Africa during World War I, British forces have arrived. In defiance of his orders, German military commander Paul von Lettow enlists soldiers, civilians, and African rebels to fight against the British, forming the first modern guerrilla uprising of the time. Amid his political battles, Lettow is embroiled in a romantic relationship with an American woman who loves him, but who objects to his war.

A desperate Kremlin takes advantage of a military crisis in Asia to simultaneously strike into Western Europe and invade east Africa in a bid to occupy three rare Earth mineral mines that will give Russia unprecedented control over the world's hi-tech sector for generations to come. Pitted against the Russians are a Marine lieutenant colonel pulled out of a cushy Pentagon job, a French Special Forces captain and his intelligence operative father, a young Polish partisan fighter, an A-10 Warthog pilot, and the commander of an American tank platoon....

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.

There is a great debate among historians about Franklin Delano Roosevelt's actions during the Holocaust. Was FDR the hero that defeated the Germans, or did he turn a blind eye to the plight of the Jews as long as he possibly could? In Roosevelt and the Holocaust, Robert Beir analyzes specific actions and legislation to get at the truth behind Roosevelt's role in the Holocaust. Beir has a unique perspective. He is a Jew who was raised during the extreme anti-Semitism of the Great Depression. Having witnessed the fruits of the New Deal firsthand, Beir became a Roosevelt scholar.

Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian Empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India.

In January 2007 two young stoners from Miami Beach - one a ninth-grade dropout, the other a licensed masseur - won a $300 million Department of Defense contract to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. Incredibly, instead of fulfilling the order with high-quality arms, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz - the dudes - bought cheap Communist-style surplus ammunition from Balkan gunrunners.

Sara Daniel, a star European correspondent and one of the few women reporters covering Iraq, dares to venture where few have gone, in this gripping and fascinating memoir. In June of 2002, war looms and Saddam Hussein still has a brutal grip on a nation in disarray. Sara Daniel travels the length and breadth of Iraq, following the fast-evolving events and interviewing people from all walks of life and all religious and political affiliations: from the Kurds in the north to the rising new politicians in Baghdad and beyond....

In this comprehensive history, Stanley Karnow demystifies the tragic ordeal of America's war in Vietnam. The book's central theme is that America's leaders, prompted as much by domestic politics as by global ambitions, carried the United States into Southeast Asia with little regard for the realities of the region. Karnow elucidates the decision-making process in Washington and Asia and recounts the political and military events that occurred after the Americans arrived in Vietnam.

In 1983, the world stands at the brink of nuclear annihilation, and only a few people are aware of it. A riveting story of how two men’s lives intersect in the midst of an existential crisis, The Able Archers is told through the eyes of two key participants: a young American intelligence officer, Captain Kevin Cattani, and his more experienced Soviet counterpart, Colonel Ivan Levchenko. Only by working together will Cattani and Levchenko find a way to prevent a global nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Someone is murdering high-ranking Vietnamese government officials, so the head of Saigon's homicide division, Captain Chyang Fang, a troubled Chinese Vietnamese man, is given the task of finding the killer. Hated by almost everyone in Saigon and an outcast in both Chinese and Vietnamese circles, Fang has to rely on his wit, biting sarcasm, and not-so-capable assistant, Sergeant Phan - a man who would rather play on his smartphone than work - to find the killer who leaves toy cobras on the bodies of his victims.

Presumed dead after a staged terrorist attack, FBI Agent Odysseus Carr is running for his life with the doctor who rescued him. Meanwhile, the same power players who sent Odi to his death are now manipulating an FBI profiler into blindly tracking him down. She's not just their best - she's also his sister. As Odi unravels a devious plot of profound political manipulation and global consequence, the hunted becomes the hunter, and the real terror begins.

How did a once faceless bureaucrat, a man whose own wife said he was born under the sign of the vampire, become the idealized face of Russian manhood and its authoritarian leader? Deputy Mayor Putin examines the man behind the myth. We will explore how Putin’s formative years shaped and drove him and how the supporting cast of characters he gathered along the way helped him get to the Kremlin’s inner sanctum.

Perhaps the most important book in philosophy after the Allegory of the Cave. Incomparable logic and findings about the things that matter in life with a clear succinct prose touch.

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, renowned historian Margaret MacMillan's best-selling Paris 1919 is the story of six remarkable months that changed the world. At the close of WWI, between January and July of 1919, delegates from around the world converged on Paris under the auspices of peace. New countries were created, old empires were dissolved, and for six months, Paris was the center of the world.

While Israel Slept tells the gripping inside story of how Hamas, Israel’s weakest enemy, succeeded in launching a surprise attack on one of the world’s most powerful militaries. Through a detailed examination of the events leading up to October 7, 2023, the book exposes the intelligence and strategic failures that enabled this devastating invasion.

Long before the waterboarding controversy exploded in the media, one CIA agent had already gone public. In a groundbreaking 2007 interview with ABC News, John Kiriakou called waterboarding torture - but admitted that it probably worked. This book, at once a confessional, an adventure story, and a chronicle of Kiriakou's life in the CIA, stands as an important, eloquent piece of testimony from a committed American patriot.

War never claimed he was perfect at either role, but he knows that he's a helluva lot better parent than his junkie ex-wife. Nova McQueen doesn't like being the bad guy who rips kids from their homes. She's only trying to protect them from neglect and abuse. And while the big, dirty-talking biker may have once given Nova a wild weekend that she'll never forget, War is as far from father of the year as you can get. His participation in a motorcycle gang makes Nova certain that his son is in danger.