War Years

Told with a thrilling pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years. Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North.

From freezing infantrymen huddled in bloodied trenches on the front lines to intricate political maneuvering and tense strategy sessions in European capitals, noted historian John Toland tells of the unforgettable final year of the First World War. In this audiobook, participants on both sides, from enlisted men to generals and prime ministers to monarchs, vividly recount the battles, sensational events, and behind-the-scenes strategies that shaped the climactic, terrifying year.

There can be no doubt that military conflict between France and England dominated European history in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Hundred Years War is of considerable interest both because of its duration and the number of theatres in which it was fought. Drawing on the latest research for this new edition, Hundred Years War expert Professor Anne Curry examines how the war can reveal much about the changing nature of warfare: the rise of infantry and the demise of the knight; the impact of increased use of gunpowder and the effect of the war on generations of people.

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.

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.

This is the autobiography of Group Captain Sir Hugh Dundas CBE, DSO, DFC, who was one of the most distinguished fighter pilots of World War II. He writes of his wartime experiences, and particularly of his period as Squadron Leader and Wing Commander and his involvement in the Battle of Britain.

Matthew Continetti gives a sweeping account of movement conservatism’s evolution, from the Progressive Era through the present. He tells the story of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures, resembling national populist movements. Drawing out the tensions between the desire for mainstream acceptance and the pull of extremism, Continetti argues that the more one studies conservatism’s past, the more one becomes convinced of its future.

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.

Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known. The Weimar Years is a vivid narrative of a dramatic period in German history. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in both domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with developments in music, art, theatre and literature.

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.

Big league baseball would seem to have been a hard sell in 1942. World War II was not going well for the United States in the Pacific and not much better in Europe. Moreover, the country was in drastically short supply of ships, planes, submarines, torpedoes, and other war materials, and Uncle Sam needed men, millions of them, including those from 21 through 35 years of age who had been ordered to register for the draft, the age range of most big league baseball players.

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.

A startling look at how concentrated financial power and consumerism transformed American politics, resulting in the emergence of populism and authoritarianism, the fall of the Democratic Party - while also providing the steps needed to create a new democracy.

New York Times best-selling author Jay Winik brings to life in gripping detail the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.

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.

Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in Eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history.

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.

During an interrogation in Afghanistan, when asked how long the jihadists intended to fight, a Taliban commander uttered the words, "If it takes a thousand years." This chilling statement illustrates both how terrorists of this level operate and the generational approach they take when it comes to bringing destruction to the world.

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.

Won by the Sword describes the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War (1640s) recounting the years after the deaths of generals Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein when France took the lead in the struggle. The appointment of young Hector Campbell, orphaned son of a Scottish captain, as an aide in the household of the French General Turenne marks the beginning of a series of adventures that includes battles, captures and escapes, a meeting with Mazarin, and high honors and awards for his prowess and bravery in battle.