War Years

The famous journalist and author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich documents his front row seat at the pivotal events leading up to World War II. In the second of a three-volume series, William L. Shirer tells the story of his own eventful life, detailing the most notable moments of his career as a journalist stationed in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. Shirer was there while Hitler celebrated his new domination of Germany, unleashed the Blitzkrieg on Poland, and began the conflict that would come to be known as World War II.

With the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright became generally acknowledged as one of our major journalists writing on terrorism in the Middle East. This collection draws on several articles he wrote while researching that book as well as many that he's written since, following where and how al-Qaeda and its core cultlike beliefs have morphed and spread.

The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of that era’s most compelling narratives, defining the nation and one of history’s great turning points. Now, S.C. Gwynne’s Hymns of the Republic addresses the time Ulysses S. Grant arrives to take command of all Union armies in March 1864 to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox a year later. He breathes new life into the epic battle between Lee and Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; and much more.

The new United States in central Germany launches a one-plane Doolittle Raid on Paris, France. The target: their arch-enemy, Cardinal Richelieu. Meanwhile, an ambassador from the Mughal Empire of northern India is being held captive in Austria by the Habsburg dynasty. Mike Stearns decides to send a mercenary company to rescue him, led by two 17th-century mercenary officers: an Englishman and a Irishman, who seem to spend as much time fighting each other as they do the enemy.

In this first volume of a new chronicle, Frank McDonough charts the rise and fall of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand, ending on Germany's comprehensive military defeat of Poland in 1939.

At the beginning of 1940, Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945, Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left her people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust. Despite Hitler's grand ambitions and the successful early stages of the Third Reich's advances into Europe, Frank McDonough convincingly argues that Germany was only ever a middle-ranking power and never truly stood a chance against the combined forces of the Allies.

Going far beyond a military account, Segev re-creates the crisis in Israel before 1967, showing how economic recession, a full grasp of the Holocaust's horrors, and the dire threats made by neighbor states combined to produce a climate of apocalypse. He depicts the country's bravado after its victory and the mood revealed in a popular joke in which one soldier says to his friend, "Let's take over Cairo". The friend replies, "Then what shall we do in the afternoon?"

Raw, straightforward, and powerful, Ed Kugler's account of his two years as a Marine scout-sniper in Vietnam vividly captures his experiences there - the good, the bad, and the ugly. After enlisting in the Marines at 17, then being wounded in Santo Domingo during the Dominican crisis, Kugler arrived in Vietnam in early 1966. As a new sniper with the 4th Marines, Kugler picked up bush skills while attached to 3d Force Recon Company, and then joined the grunts.

Dark clouds cast a shadow over 17th century Europe and color the continent in a dark fog. When they break out, a deluge of blood and sweat rolls over the countries, destroying landscapes and wiping out entire cities. There has never been a more merciless war in the history of Europe. Between state-building and religious conflicts, soldiers are sent to certain death and villages are razed to the ground.

Britannia: land of mist and magic clinging to the western edge of the Roman Empire. A red-haired queen named Boudica led her people in a desperate rebellion against the might of Rome, an epic struggle destined to consume heroes and cowards, young and old, Roman and Briton . . . and these are their stories.

In 1965, Col. Thomas "Jerry" Curtis's helicopter was shot down over North Vietnam. He was immediately captured and spent seven and a half years confined in a filthy cell at the notorious Hanoi prison camp. Thousands of miles from home and unable to communicate with his wife and children, Jerry endured months of solitary confinement, suffocating heat, freezing cold, grueling physical and psychological torture, constant hunger, and unimaginable mental duress.

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 Spring of 1974, 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal. Hunted in turn by American troops, the Philippine army and police, hostile islanders, and eventually successive Japanese search parties, Onoda had skillfully outmaneuvered all his pursuers, convinced that World War II was still being fought and waiting for the day when his fellow soldiers would return victorious.

An Improbable Friendship is the dual biography of Israeli Ruth Dayan, now 98, who was Moshe Dayan's wife for 37 years, and Palestinian journalist Raymonda Tawil, Yasser Arafat's mother-in-law, now 74. It reveals for the first time the two women's surprising and secret 40-year friendship and delivers the story of their extraordinary and turbulent lives growing up in a war-torn country.

The D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, launched on June 6, 1944, is widely referred to as the longest day of World War Two. Historian Victor Brooks argues that 1944 was, in effect, the longest year for Americans of that era both in terms of United States casualties and in deciding the outcome of war itself.

Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases. In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take listeners through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts to the Russian and Italian mobs to biker gangs and contract killers to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys.

From the author of the New York Times best-selling Holy War, Inc., this is the definitive account of the decade-long manhunt for the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multidimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, including the operation that killed him.

This story is from The Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (His Last Bow) collection. Further adventures by the master of observation and deduction, as faithfully recounted by his companion and greatest admirer, Dr. Watson. "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans," "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", and "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" are among the stories. David Timson's award-winning performances continue with this series.

Preeminent military historian Max Hastings presents Winston Churchill as he has never been seen before. Winston Churchill was the greatest war leader Britain ever had. In 1940, the nation rallied behind him in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering.

Political alliances are beginning to rupture, and no state is immune: England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Milan Genoa, Venice, Constantinople . . . Every mercenary knight must sharpen his sword and prepare for battle. But Sir William Gold has other problems. Just to reach Europe, he must capture its most unassailable fortress. He must also protect his liege lord, the Green Count, from assassins hell-bent on his death.