Mike May spent his life crashing through. Blinded at agethree, he defied expectations by breaking world records in downhillspeed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor,entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision.Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: arevolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore May’svision. It would allow him to drive, to read, to see his children’sfaces. But the procedure was filled with gambles, some of themdeadly, others beyond May’s wildest dreams. Beautifully written andthrillingly told, Crashing Through is a journey of suspense,daring, romance, and insight into the mysteries of vision and thebrain. Robert Kurson gives us a fascinating account of one man’schoice to explore what it means to see–and to truly live.NAMED ONEOF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

In The Breakthrough , veteran journalist Gwen Ifillsurveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on theimpact of Barack Obama’s stunning presidential victory andintroducing the emerging young African American politicians forginga bold new path to political power. Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during theCivil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men andwomen who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominentleaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor DevalPatrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama (allinterviewed for this book), and also covers numerous up-and-comingfigures from across the nation. Drawing on exclusive interviewswith power brokers such as President Obama, former Secretary ofState Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, hisson Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., and many others, as well as herown razor-sharp observations an

In this provocative and timely book, Middle East expert LeeSmith overturns long-held Western myths and assumptions about theArab world, offering advice for America’s future success in theregion. Seeking the motivation behind the September 11 attacks, Smithmoved to Cairo, where he discovered that the standard explanation—aclash of East and West—was simply not the case. Middle Eastconflicts have little to do with Israel, the United States, or theWest in general, but are endemic to the region. According toSmith’s “Strong Horse Doctrine,” the Arab world naturally alignsitself with strength, power, and violence. He argues that Americamust be the strong horse in order to reclaim its role there, andthat only by understanding the nature of the region’s ancientconflict can we succeed.

“This is a thriller, a page-turner, a probing look into theinner workings of the assassination squads that Israel mobilizedafter the Munich massacre.” –David K. Shipler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Arab andJew “Gratitude is due to Mr. Klein for his painstaking . . . book, thebest one could possibly hope for.” –Walter Lacquer, The Wall Street Journal Award-winning journalist Aaron J. Klein tells, for the firsttime, the complete story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre andthe Israeli counterterrorism operation it spawned. Withunprecedented access to Mossad agents and an nparalleled knowledgeof Israeli intelligence, Klein peels back the layers of myth andmisinformation that have permeated previous books, films, andmagazine articles about the “shadow war” against Black Septemberand other related terrorist groups. In this riveting account,long-held secrets are finally revealed, including who was killedand who was not, how it was done, which targets were hit and whichwere m

How did America become a nation that tortured prisoners, spiedon its citizens, and gave its president unchecked powers in mattersof defense? Has justice been the greatest casualty of the war onterror?After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bushadministration swiftly began to rethink its approach to nationalsecurity. In a series of memos and policy decisions, many topsecret and only made public much later, the administration’slawyers dismissed the Geneva conventions as “quaint,” justified thetorture of suspected terrorists, argued that the president in hiscapacity as commander in chief was bound by no laws in defendingthe nation at home and abroad, and approved a domestic surveillanceprogram that flagrantly violated US law.In Justice at War, DavidCole takes a critical look at the men who made the decisions thatshaped America’s war on terror. After September 11, AttorneyGeneral John Ashcroft aggressively expanded federal law enforcementpowers. John Yoo, who served in the Justice Department

On July 26, 1996, the United States Supreme Court nullifiedthe single-sex admissions policy of the Virginia MilitaryInstitute, the last all-male military college in America. Capturingthe voices of female and male cadets, administrators, faculty, andalumni, Laura Brodie tells the story of the Institute's intenseplanning for the inclusion of women and the problems and triumphsof the first year of coeducation.

The wide ranging adventures of outdoorsman, naturalist andU.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, are collected in this anthologyof African safaris, ranch life in the American West, and a perilfilled trip down Brazil's legendary River of Doubt.