Showing titles in 21st Century

Since the Arab Spring uprising of 2011, reports of terrorist attacks around the world have flooded international media. Syria has become the central battleground for many terrorist groups; those the world often focuses on and has heard much of - such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS and Da'ash, but from here on referred to as ISIL) - and those the world rarely hears about and is unable to make distinctions between others - such as Jabhat Al-Nusra.

The Sweet Potato Queens are bona fide experts at planning a marvelous marriage (and ending one, look below if you're looking for advice on dumping a deadweight hubby!), so who better to provide this handy wedding planner? And even if you're not planning your own nuptials, surely you have dreamt about your perfect day, regardless of whether you've met Mr. Right yet!

Joe "Rock" Musial was the real deal. He was a hero. As one fellow soldier put it, "Rock was an absolute legend.... I can remember guys in other units, when Rock walked around the perimeter, they'd stare and ask, 'Is what they say about him true?'"

In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for the unique challenges of modern warfare, where it is charged with everything from providing security to supporting reconstruction to establishing basic governance - all while stabilizing conquered territory and engaging with local populations.

This audiobook offers the first systematic analysis of Putin's two wars, placing the Second Chechen War and the War with Georgia of 2008 in their broader historical contexts. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin's wars were prepared and conducted and why they led to allegations of war crimes and genocide.

Barack Obama’s inspirational politics and personal mythology have overshadowed his fascinating history. Young Mr. Obama gives us the missing chapter: the portrait of the politician as a young leader, often too ambitious for his own good, but still equipped with a rare ability to inspire change. The route to the White House began on the streets of Chicago’s South Side. Edward McClelland, a veteran Chicago journalist, tells the real story of the first Black president’s political education in the capital of the African American political community.

While On Hallowed Ground chronicled the history of the cemetery, Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery is the powerful contemporary biography of a five-acre plot where many of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been laid to rest alongside service members from earlier wars.

Winner of the 2011 Strega Prize, this blend of essay, social criticism, and memoir is a striking portrait of the effects of globalization on Italy’s declining economy. Starting from his family’s textile factory in Prato, Tuscany, Edoardo Nesi examines the recent shifts in Italy’s manufacturing industry. Only one generation ago, Prato was a thriving industrial center that prided itself on craftsmanship and quality. But during the last decade, cheaply made goods - produced overseas or in Italy by poorly paid immigrants - saturated the market, making it impossible for Italian companies to keep up.

It was one of the strangest sights the Coast Guard pilots had ever seen: a tall-masted wooden ship, the kind that sailed centuries ago, capsizing in the wind and towering waves of Hurricane Sandy off the coast of North Carolina. It looked like something out of a movie - and, in a way, it was. The ship was the Bounty, a replica of a British merchant vessel of the same name whose crew famously mutinied in 1789. She had been built for a Marlon Brando film in the 1960s - and now she was sinking, her 16-person crew fleeing into the sea amid the splintered wood and torn canvas.

Informed by unparalleled access to still-secret documents, interviews with top field commanders, and a review of the military's own internal after-action reports, Cobra II is the definitive chronicle of America's invasion and occupation of Iraq, a conflict that could not be lost but one that the United States failed to win decisively. From the Pentagon to the White House to the American command centers in the field, the book reveals the inside story of how the war was actually planned and fought.

The United States' response to the terrible events of September 11, 2001 marked a watershed in American policy toward the Middle East region. Instead of pursuing stability, the country has practiced a strategy of destabilization in the hopes of democratization. What are the results, and what can we expect U.S. policy to be in the new administration?

Intelligence and Surprise Attack examines why surprise attacks often succeed even though, in most cases, warnings are available beforehand. Erik J. Dahl challenges the conventional wisdom about intelligence failure, which holds that attacks succeed because important warnings get lost amid noise or because intelligence officials lack the imagination and collaboration to connect the dots of available information.

The attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris shocked the world, with many governments coming out strongly to condemn it. There are many people who did not know the events that led to this attack and what followed.

Winston Churchill had a longer and closer relationship with the Royal Navy than any British statesman in modern times, but his record as a naval strategist and custodian of the nation's sea power has been mired in controversy since the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign in 1915. Today, Churchill is regarded by many as an inept strategist who interfered in naval operations and often overrode his professional advisers - with inevitably disastrous results.

In November 2008, Hillary Clinton agreed to work for her former rival. As President Barack Obama's secretary of state, she set out to repair America's image around the world - and her own. For the following four years, BBC foreign correspondent Kim Ghattas had unparalleled access to Clinton and her entourage, and she weaves a fast-paced, gripping account of life on the road with Clinton in The Secretary.

Patti, the mother of Army medic Jon, and Jennifer, sister of infantry soldier James, forge a dear and lifelong friendship as their soldiers fight to stay alive in one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq. The story begins separately with the Patti and Jennifer's recollections of the day their soldiers deployed to Iraq from Ft. Lewis, Washington. As the book progresses, their separate stories of Army life grow together as their soldier's deployment continues.

Thirty-five years after the publication of Ronald Blythe's classic portrait of an English village, Akenfield, Craig Taylor returned to the Suffolk village on which the book was based. He sought out locals who appeared in the original book to learn how their lives had changed, met newcomers, and interviewed Ronald Blythe himself.

In the year that David Bowie died, Brexit shocked us, 'Hiddleswift' was a thing and Trump trumped, we are all asking ourselves: was 2016 really the worst year ever? Find out in this special commemorative book. In this cathartic memento of the annus shitabulus that was 2016, you'll find a hilarious guide to everything that went wrong and the few - very few - things that actually went right.

La historia que cautivó a millones de personas en todo el mundo, quienes fueron testigos de cómo fueron saliendo cada uno de los 33 mineros de las entrañas de la tierra. A 800 kilómetros al norte de Santiago, en pleno desierto de Atacama, pasado el mediodía del 5 de agosto de 2010, el tiempo se detuvo. Una roca gigante bloqueó el acceso principal de la mina San José, cercana a la ciudad de Copiapó, dejando atrapado a 33 mineros por 69 días.

As a National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the attempt to rebuild a broken nation. With her NPR assignment finished in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn around the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the postwar government, Chayes witnessed a tragic, perverse turn of events.