United States Military

The seeds of the Cold War were sown toward the end of World War II. During the war, the US and the Soviet Union were reluctant partners. But as is often the case in history, despite their differences, America and Soviet Russia had a common enemy that brought them together - Nazi Germany. But soon after Truman was elected president, American and Soviet relations began to go south. Before the war was over, disagreements arose over how the postwar world should be administered.

World War II stood apart in many ways from every earlier war. The responsibility for mounting an attack on American industry was given to the German military secret intelligence service, the Abwehr, which devised a plan to land saboteurs in America to attack factories, railroads, and perhaps conduct a random bombing campaign against American civilians. The Nazi plan was given the codename of Operation Pastorius, and it was launched in June 1942, just six months after Germany had declared war on America. What followed was one of World War II’s most bizarre spy stories.

Though it’s widely overlooked today, the U.S. has had a military presence in Asia for more than 200 years. The East Indies Squadron was formally established by President Andrew Jackson in 1835 to protect American property and trade in Asia, but U.S. warships were protecting American interests in Asia before then. In fact, American merchant vessels reached China as early as the 1780s.

Among the piles of obsolete farm and household implements, haystacks, dust, and debris abandoned in her historic barn, Katie Aldridge discovered a box containing the Civil War letters of Charles Freeman Biddlecom. Painstakingly transcribing and lightly editing more than 100 letters written by the soldier to his wife during his service, Ms. Aldridge resurrected the voice of the Civil War combat soldier. The tone and character of "Charlie's" detailed accounts of the war compelled Ms. Aldridge to find out more.

Occupied France, 1940. When the staff at a field hospital draw straws to find out who will join the evacuation from Dunkirk, Nurse Cate is left behind. But when the Nazis arrive to claim prisoners of war, she takes her chance and flees into the night, taking one patient with her. Fifty miles away, the surrendering soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are shot dead by the advancing Germans. Beneath the pile of bodies two men survive, crawling to the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where sisters Elise and Adelaide risk their lives to take them in.

The Battle of Saratoga in 1777 ended with British general John Burgoyne’s troops surrendering to the American rebel army commanded by General Horatio Gates. Historians have long seen Burgoyne’s defeat as a turning point in the American Revolution because it convinced France to join the war on the side of the colonies, thus ensuring American victory. But that traditional view of Saratoga overlooks the complexity of the situation on the ground.

In this gripping tale, Jerome A. Greene-renowned specialist on the Indian wars-explores why the bloody engagement happened and demonstrates how it became a brutal massacre. Epic in scope and poignant in its recounting of human suffering, American Carnage presents the reality-and denial-of our nation's last frontier massacre.

On July 16, 1945, just weeks before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought about the surrender of Japan and the end of WWII, the US unleashed the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity testing site located in the remote Tularosa Valley in New Mexico. In The First Atomic Bomb Janet Farrell Brodie explores the history of the Trinity test and those whose contributions have rarely been discussed—the men and women who constructed, served, and witnessed the first test—as well as the downwinders who suffered the consequences of radiation.

Today, it is known by many names, like the First Iraq War, Kuwait War, and, most commonly, the Gulf War or the First Gulf War. It was a rather short conflict, lasting just shy of seven months between late 1990 and early 1991. Yet, it was still rather impactful because it showcased several essential innovations and changes in political and technological aspects of warfare, some of which are still part of modern conflicts.

This is a story about a not-so-heroic military veteran facing a world where the government squanders the hard-earned gains of Middle East effort, virtue is simply virtue signaling, nobody seems to be reliable, honesty is ephemeral, and most civilians do not care. Garth Ericson is a Marine Corps infantry veteran with years of service. He’s recovering from the wounds of a friendly-fire accident in Iraq. His wife has left him for another man, and he is grappling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In January Moon, Jerome Greene draws from extensive research and fieldwork to explore a signal - and appallingly brutal - event in American history: The desperate flight of Chief Dull Knife’s Northern Cheyenne Indians from imprisonment at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. In the wake of the Great Sioux War of 1876 - 77, the U.S. government expelled most Northern Cheyennes from their northern plains homeland to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma. Following mounting hardships, many of those people, under Chiefs Dull Knife and Little Wolf, broke away, seeking to return north.

Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest.

Henry Lee III - whose nickname, "Light-Horse," came from his legendary exploits with mounted troops and skill in the saddle - was a dashing cavalry commander and hero of America's War for Independence. By now most Americans have forgotten about Light-Horse Harry Lee, the father of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, but this new biography reveals he may be one of the most fascinating figures in our nation's history. A daring military commander, Lee was also an early American statesman whose passionate argument in favor of national unity helped ratify the Constitution.

South Korea, 1970s: A rash of armed robberies at local Korean banks doesn't concern the American military - until a fatality occurs, and proof surfaces that US soldiers are behind the crimes. The case has been assigned to CID Agents Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem, but they certainly won't do anything that might make 8th United States Army look bad. So Sergeants George Sueno and Ernie Bascom have decided to step in and investigate the robberies - and murder - themselves.

"Hold On with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible": The Grand Offensive: (May–August 1864): The Spring Offensive is launched. A bogus presidential proclamation calling for volunteers and prayers causes panic throughout the North. Grant and Lee battle for six weeks until severe losses force them to a halt. Congressional Radicals pass a bill that will allow Southern States readmittance to the Union as long as they give an oath that they never supported the Confederacy. Southern leaders spread bogus peace overtures. Lincoln reaffirms his commitment to the Emancipation.

Ever wanted to learn more about Abraham Lincoln but never felt you had the time to read a comprehensive work? Here, author Cynthia A. Parker removes that pain by offering an opportunity to get to know the United States' 16th president - to learn of his youth and upbringing, his early career, his romantic life, and of course his pivotal role in holding the Union together during his terms as president amid civil war.

The British Legion was one of the most remarkable regiments, not only of the American Revolution, but of any war. A corps made up of American Loyalists, it saw its first action in New York and then engaged in almost every battle in the Southern colonies. Relying on firsthand accounts - letters, diaries, and journals - War at Saber Point: Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion is the enthralling story of those forgotten Americans and the young Englishman who led them.

Native American of the Blackfeet Nation, Lani Running Bear ends her service in the Army Military Police corps, and returns to the reservation to help her people as a law enforcement officer. When members of her tribe turn up dead, she doesn't know who she can trust, and calls on a man she’d busted while deployed. A man with the one qualification that would allow him to live on the reservation with her. Fresh out of the Army, and new to Brotherhood Protectors, Zachariah Jones is prime for his first assignment as the undercover fiancé of a tribal officer.

A heartfelt friendship comes to a startling conclusion during the Vietnam War. Hannah O'Brien thought she was at the very least going to marry Daniel MachIntyre someday. However his startling move forces her to come face to face with the war and its consequences. Will she have a second chance?

Surrounded by a ring of fire, the scorpion stings itself to death. The image, widespread among antislavery leaders before the Civil War, captures their long-standing strategy for peaceful abolition: They would surround the slave states with a cordon of freedom. They planned to use federal power wherever they could to establish freedom. For their part the southern states fully understood this antislavery strategy. They cited it repeatedly as they adopted secession ordinances in response to Lincoln's election.