War History America

No Ordinary Time describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become the preeminent economic and military power in the world.

A magnificent history of the opening years of the Civil War by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bruce Catton. The first book in Bruce Catton's Pulitzer Prize-winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln's Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps under the command of the controversial general George McClellan.

Her Korean name was Ah-Chim-Hai, meaning Flame-of-the-Morning. Af our-year-old chestnut-colored Mongolian racehorse with a white blaze down her face and three white stockings, she once amazed the crowds in Seoul with her remarkable speed. But the star racer was soon sold to an American marine and trained to carry heavy loads of artillery shells up and down steep hills under a barrage of bullets and bombs. The marines renamed her Reckless. Reckless soon proved fearless under fire, boldly trekking alone through the fiery gauntlet, exposed to explosions and shrapnel.

Dead Men Risen, winner of the prestigious Orwell Prize for books, is the epic story of a beleaguered British battle group fighting desperately to prevent the Taliban from seizing Afghanistan's Helmand province just as the US Marines arrive to take over. Best-selling author Toby Harnden describes how men from the coal mining valleys and slate quarry villages of Wales found themselves in the most intense combat faced by British troops for a generation.

Caught in the crosshairs of Mexico's warring cartels, Juárez is the border city that most brutally exposes the lies that we tell ourselves about globalization, NAFTA, immigration, corruption, and the war on drugs. Once known only as the place where women disappear, its murder rate exceeds that of Baghdad and Mogadishu. In this heartbreaking, disturbing, and unforgettable examination, award winning-writer Charles Bowden takes an axe to the myths about the war on drugs—myths perpetuated by Mexico, the U.S. government, and the media.

The Shinkolobwe Mine in the Belgian Congo was described by a 1943 Manhattan Project intelligence report as the "most important deposit of uranium yet discovered in the world". So long as the United States remained in control of this mine and its supply, it had a world monopoly on the primary material needed to build an atomic bomb. The uranium from this mine was used to build the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Among all of the conflicts that took place in American history, the War of 1812 is one of the most unique wars that helped to shape many of the important American milestones in the years to come. It was also a battle of surprises and irony, as well. Firstly, the weaknesses of both parties ultimately ended up being their respective strengths in the two years of constant fighting that started off in 1812. Secondly, the War of 1812 was the most pointless series of conflicts for the parties involved, as the geographical borders ultimately reverted to what they were before the war.

Acclaimed historian Colin G. Calloway, Dartmouth professor of history and American Indian studies, is the series editor for The Penguin Library of American Indian History. Rich in detail and highly readable, this compelling narrative portrays the Shawnees' valiant struggle to maintain their way of life.

While he was the curator of the CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime military intelligence expert, began to discover tantalizing clues that suggested Ernest Hemingway's involvement in the Second World War was much more complex and dangerous than has been previously understood. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy brings to light for the first time this riveting secret side of Hemingway's life - when he worked closely with both the American OSS and the Soviet NKVD to defeat Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

It was a watershed year for Canada and the world. 1945 set Canada on a bold course into the future. A huge sense of relief marked the end of hostilities. Yet there was also fear and uncertainty about the perilous new world that was unfolding in the wake of the American decision to use the atomic bomb to bring the war in the Pacific to a dramatic halt.

The explosive narrative of the life, captivity, and trial of Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who was abducted by the Taliban and whose story has served as a symbol for America's foundering war in Afghanistan.

The death of General George S. Patton is shrouded in mystery. While officially the result of an unfortunate car accident, the evidence points to a far more malevolent plot: murder. So says investigative and military journalist Robert K. Wilcox in his book Target: Patton: The Plot to Assassinate General George S. Patton. Written like a WWII spy thriller and meticulously researched, Target: Patton leads you through that fateful December day in 1945, revealing a chilling plan to assassinate General Patton.

A leading dog-blogger offers a tour of military working dogs' extraordinary training, heroic accomplishments, and the lasting impacts they have on those who work with them. Maria Goodavage here tells heartwarming stories of modern soldier dogs and the amazing bonds that develop between them and their handlers. Beyond tales of training, operations, retirement, and adoption into the families of fallen soldiers, Goodavage talks to leading dog-cognition experts about why dogs like nothing more than to be on a mission with a handler they trust.

The never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists - quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans - that made clear the shocking truth and confirmed what some had long suspected, that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation.

Frank Luke, Jr., was an unlikely pilot. In the Great War, when fliers were still "knights of the air", Luke was an ungallant loner, a kid from Arizona who collected tarantulas, shot buzzards, and boxed miners. But during two torrid weeks in September 1918, he was the deadliest man on the Western Front. In only 10 missions, he destroyed 14 heavily defended German balloons and four airplanes, a rampage unequalled even by the dreaded von Richtofen, and the second highest American tally of the entire war.

From their birth in World War II as combat swimmers clearing the beaches of Normandy to their evolution into fighting men who could operate anywhere in the world by sea, air, or land, the intrepid story of the United States Navy SEALs is one of courage, sacrifice, and world-renowned toughness that echoes of other great military units of history - the Spartans, the Roman legions, or the samurai. Take a look inside to find out what makes the SEALs America's deadliest warriors.

This is the incredible true story of a brave military unit in Vietnam that risked everything to rescue an outnumbered troop under heavy fire-and the 39-year odyssey to recognize their bravery.

For twenty years after September 11, the war on terror was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. With all of the military violence occurring overseas even as the threat of sudden mass death permeated life at home, Americans found themselves living in two worlds at the same time. In one of them, soldiers fought overseas so that nothing at home would have to change at all. In the other, life in the United States took on all kinds of unfamiliar shapes, changing people’s sense of themselves, their neighbors, and the strangers they sat next to on airplanes.

The American Revolution was not simply a battle between independence-minded colonists and the oppressive British. As Thomas B. Allen reminds us, it was also a savage and often deeply personal civil war, in which conflicting visions of America pitted neighbor against neighbor and Patriot against Tory on the battlefield, the village green, and even in church.

In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. They faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The children were Japanese-American, were malnourished and barefoot, and had no pool; they trained in the filthy irrigation ditches that snaked down from the mountains into the sugarcane fields.