Showing titles in Weapons & Warfare

In November 1944, the U.S. Navy fleet lay at anchor in Ulithi Harbor, deep in the Pacific Ocean, when the oiler USS Mississinewa erupted in a ball of flames. Japan's secret weapon, the Kaiten - a manned suicide submarine - had succeeded in its first mission. The Kaiten was so secret that even Japanese naval commanders didn't know of its existence. And the Americans kept it secret as well. Embarrassed by the shocking surprise attack, the U.S. Navy refused to salvage or inspect the sunken Mighty Miss.

Malgré les violences de la guerre, le monde a été frappé de stupeur, en 1945, en découvrant l'ampleur des destructions d'Hiroshima et Nagasaki. On n'en finit plus de compter les victimes directes et indirectes - souffrant des radiations et développant à long terme des maladies cancéreuses. On dit qu'un des technicien d'Oppenheimer, le "père" de la première bombe américaine tirée le 16 juillet 1945, aurait dit que l'équipe réalisant le premier essai pouvait se prendre pour la Mort elle-même, mais que sitôt le tir effectué, il aurait ajouté "nous sommes tous des fils de putes"... Sentiment d'ivresse et de stupeur qui ne manquera pas de traverser bientôt l'opinion publique internationale.

During the 1950s, the big fear was nuclear war. From the Soviet Union's perspective, having a communist stronghold so close to the American border was a dream come true. By the early 1960s, there was a strong undercurrent of tension between the Americans and the Soviets. Aside from the disastrous loss of life and dignity at the Bay of Pigs, something else happened. The line was firmly drawn in the sand. The world was on the brink of nuclear war.

After his father died, James L. Nolan, Jr., took possession of a box of private family materials. To his surprise, the small secret archive contained a treasure trove of information about his grandfather's role as a doctor in the Manhattan Project. Dr. Nolan, it turned out, had been a significant figure.

Here are the extraordinary tales behind the ingenious weapons and technological wizardry that determined the outcome of the war. From radar, huff-duff (high-frequency direction finding), invisible radio beams, electronic-guidance systems, homing devices, and submarine-detection equipment, Breuer deftly exposes the gargantuan efforts employed by both adversaries and the fascinating details of the high-stakes warfare waged behind the well-known scenes of combat.

Alexander Lemons is a Marine Corps scout sniper who, after serving multiple tours during the Iraq War, returned home seriously and mysteriously ill. Joshua Howe is an environmental historian who met Lemons as a student in one of his classes. Together they have crafted a vital book that challenges us to think beyond warfare's acute violence of bullets and bombs to the "slow violence" of toxic exposure and lasting trauma.

In Leveraging Latency, Tristan A. Volpe argues that having greater capacity to build weaponry doesn't translate to greater coercive advantage. Volpe finds that there is a trade-off between threatening proliferation and promising nuclear restraint. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation, but not so much that it becomes too difficult for them to offer nonproliferation assurances. The boundaries of this sweet spot align with the capacity to produce the fissile material at the heart of an atomic weapon.

From 1951 to 1967 Egypt pursued a secret program to build military rockets that could have conceivably posed a threat to neighboring Israel. Because such an ambitious project required Western expertise, the Egyptian leader President Nasser hired West German scientists, many of them veterans of the Nazi rocket program at Peenemünde and elsewhere. These covert plans soon came to the attention of Israel’s legendary secret service, Mossad, and caused deep alarm in Tel Aviv.

At 2:00 a.m. on October 2, 2001, Robert Stevens entered a hospital emergency room. Feverish, nauseated, and barely conscious, no one knew what was making him sick. Three days later he was dead. Stevens was the first fatal victim of bioterrorism in America. Bioterrorism expert Leonard Cole has written the definitive account of the Anthrax attacks. Cole is the only person outside law enforcement to have interviewed every one of the surviving inhalation-anthrax victims, along with the relatives, friends, and associates of those who died.

Wernher von Braun was a rare and complex figure. He went on to become one of the most prominent figures not just in one country but in two. Although the first half of his life and his contributions to Nazi Germany remain extremely controversial, it can’t be denied that he was a pioneer. He oversaw the development of the first long-range guided ballistic missile, the V-2, which became a terrifying weapon in Nazi Germany’s arsenal. After the war, von Braun and many of his colleagues were brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip.

The Hiroshima Men’s vivid narrative recounts the decade-long journey toward this first atomic attack. It charts the race for the bomb during World War II, as the Allies fought the Axis powers, and is told through several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr.; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside eighty thousand fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer John Hersey.

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on the orders of President Vladimir Putin in February 2022 shocked the Western world with its suddenness and brutality. Western countries, especially commercial partners with Russia like Germany, could not fathom why Russian forces would lurch across a neighbor's borders, seeking land and control.

In the eight decades since the United States deployed the most destructive weapon ever used, conventional wisdom has held that American leaders were faced with a difficult choice: Invade Japan, which would have cost millions of Japanese and Allied lives in bloody combat, or use the fearsome atom bomb in the hopes of convincing the Japanese emperor to surrender. President Truman—in what many have come to regard as an immoral decision—ordered the military to drop the bomb. Now, historian Alex Wellerstein offers a revisionist narrative of what happened in the spring of 1945.

Searching for John DeWitt is more than a historical narrative; it’s a gripping family saga that bridges generations. Through this emotional and eye-opening journey, Chase honors his grandfather’s legacy and sheds light on the silent burdens carried by veterans. This book uncovers an untold story of valor and the unbreakable strength of family bonds in the face of war.

The Wuhan Incident: Bioweapons and the Emerging Global Reset begins with a look at “Covid-19 ground zero” in Wuhan China. The audiobook picks up where the lab leak theory leaves off, to propose a hypothesis which raises the question: Could this virus be the result of a biological weapon of mass destruction that was engineered with the nefarious intent of global disruption? Whether it was due to an intentional or accidental viral release (lab leak), the author presents his perspective that Covid was weaponized to create a convenient opportunity for a “global reset.”

Das Hörbuch zum Kino-Highlight im Sommer 2023. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), der "Vater der Atombombe", zählt zu den schillerndsten Figuren der jüngeren Zeitgeschichte. Für ihre glänzende Biographie des "amerikanischen Prometheus" erhielten der Journalist Kai Bird und der Historiker Martin J. Sherwin den Pulitzer-Preis. Exemplarisch lassen sie das Drama eines Forschers lebendig werden, der sich zwischen Erkenntnisdrang und ethischer Verantwortung entscheiden muss.

Firearms-related incidents kill more than 45,000 people in the US every year and are the leading cause of death for US children and adolescents. But talking about guns doesn't have to be scary or divisive. With this easy-to-listen-to and politics-free guide, you can arm yourself with the facts and strategies to calmly discuss firearms laws, firearms ownership, court decisions, and the Founding Fathers’ thinking behind the Second Amendment.

Centered on the inter-war years—within the ivy clad walls of Cambridge University's famed Cavendish Laboratory, amid the windswept valleys of north Wales, and in the industrial heartland of Birmingham—The Basis of Everything is the story of the coming of the atomic bomb, and how the unlikely union of two scientists—Ernest Rutherford, the son of a New Zealand farmer, and Mark Oliphant, a peace-loving vegetarian from a tiny Australian hills village—would change the world.

Nuclear War Survival Skills is a comprehensive guide that delves into the crucial aspect of preserving mental health during such challenging times. This book offers invaluable insights, practical strategies, and expert advice to help individuals, families, and communities navigate the psychological challenges that arise from nuclear threats.

After being called up for National Service in July 1960, twenty-year-old Chas Hall joined the RAF and signed on to extend his time for an extra three years becoming a regular serviceman. He got his first foreign posting in late 1961 to Christmas Island. It was on this island, that Chas encountered the horrors of nuclear testing. In an operation codenamed "Brigadoon" by the British government and "Dominic" by the Americans, Chas experienced twenty-five atmospheric nuclear tests.