In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and SebastianJunger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventurein which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a greathistorical mystery–and make history themselves. For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was morethan a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents,braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigatingthrough wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselvesto their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than oncein the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers wereprepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in thefrigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: aWorld War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wastelandof twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried underdecades of accumulated sediment. No identifying marks were visible on

For 130 years historians and military strategists have beenobsessed by the battle of Chancellorsville. It began with anaudaciously planned stroke by Union general Joe Hooker as he senthis army across the Rappahannock River and around Robert E. Lee'slines. It ended with that same army fleeing back in near totaldisarray -- and Hooker's reputation in ruins.

From transforming the ways of war to offering godlike views ofinaccessible spots, revolutionizing rescues worldwide, andproviding some of our most-watched TV moments—including the cloudof newscopters that trailed O. J. Simpson’s Bronco—the helicopteris far more capable than early inventors expected. Now James Chilesprofiles the many helicoptrians who contributed to the developmentof this amazing machine, and pays tribute to the selfless heroismof pilots and crews. A virtual flying lesson and scientificadventure tale, The God Machine is more than the history of aninvention; it is a journey into the minds of imaginative thinkersand a fascinating look at the ways they changed our world.

My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever readbefore, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age inthe controversial war that defined a generation. In anastonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of dutyin Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the firsttime about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to becomea classic. Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out ofcollege and expecting a stateside assignment, when his ordersarrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, hetried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eightmore-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radiolocations. He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh anddrink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fearof war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radiotransmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidderrealized that he would spend hi

The sinking of the Dorchester in the icy waters offGreenland shortly after midnight on February 3, 1942, was one ofthe worst sea disasters of World War II. It was also the occasionof an astounding feat of heroism—and faith. As water gushed through a hole made by a German torpedo, fourchaplains—members of different faiths but linked by bonds offriendship and devotion—moved quietly among the men onboard.Preaching bravery, the chaplains distributed life jackets,including their own. In the end, these four men went down with theship, their arms linked in spiritual solidarity, their voicesraised in prayer. In this spellbinding narrative, award-winningauthor and journalist Dan Kurzman tells the story of these heroesand the faith—in God and in country—that they shared. They were about as different as four American clergymen could be.George Lansing Fox (Methodist), wounded and decorated in World WarI, loved his family and his Vermont congregation—yet he re-enlistedas soon as he heard about Pearl Harbo

On the day the firstshots of the Civil War were fired, a mob in Richmond clambered ontop of the Capitol to raise the Confederate flag. Four years later,another flag was raised in its place while the city burned below. Athirteen-year-old girl compared the stars and stripes to "so manybloody gashes." This richly detailed, absorbing book brings to lifethe years in which Richmond was the symbol of Southern independenceand the theater for a drama as splendid, sordid, and tragic as thewar itself. Drawing on an array of archival sources,Ashes ofGloryportrays Richmond's passion through the voices of soldiers andstatesmen, preachers and prostitutes, slaves and slavers.Masterfully orchestrated and finely rendered, the result is apassionate and compelling work of social history. "Furguson is alively writer with an eye for the apt quotation and the tellingincident...He brings to life a diverse cast ofcharacters."--Newsday "Succeeds to a remarkable extent...Furgusonbrings war-torn Richmond to life."--Baltimore Sun

Georges Duby, one of this century's great medieval historians,has brought to life with exceptional brilliance and imaginationWilliam Marshal, adviser to the Plantagenets, knightextraordinaire, the flower of chivalry. A marvel of historicalreconstruction, William Marshal is based on a biographical poemwritten in the thirteenth century, and offers an evocation ofchivalric life -- the contests and tournaments, the rites of war,the daily details of medieval existence -- unlike any we have everseen. An enchanting and profoundly instructive book....Owing in signalpart to the imaginative scholarship of Georges Duby, darkness ismore and more receding from the Dark Ages." George Steiner New Yorker "A small masterpiece of its genre....It is a splendid story andProfessor Duby tells it splendidly....Duby has reconstructed aliving picture of a particular sector of society at a crucialmoment, at the brink of great change. The vividness, the intimacy,and the historical perception with which he presents his picture ofth

Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato ,Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year asa foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him toexperience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk theminefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and toexplore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war goneterribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, IfI Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.

In the spring of 2003, acclaimed journalist Anne Nivat set offfrom Tajikistan on a six-month journey through the aftermath of theAmerican invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Nivatfelt compelled to meet and write about the lives of everydaypeople, whom she allows to speak in their own voices, in their ownwords--words of hope, sadness, anger, and, above all, theuncertainty that fills their everyday lives. Her new Preface forthe paperback edition looks at the situation in Iraq today.

In this unprecedented account, Chandra Manning uses letters,diaries, and regimental newspapers to take the reader inside theminds of Civil War soldiers-black and white, Northern andSouthern-as they fought and marched across a divided country. Withstunning poise and narrative verve, Manning explores how the Unionand Confederate soldiers came to identify slavery as the centralissue of the war and what that meant for a tumultuous nation. Thisis a brilliant and eye-opening debut and an invaluable addition toour understanding of the Civil War as it has never been renderedbefore.

The heartwarming New York Times bestseller by the author ofThe Greatest Generation "When I wrote about the men and women who came out of theDepression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices inWorld War II and then returned home to begin building the world wehave today ... it was my way of saying thank you. I was notprepared for the avalanche of letters and responses touched off bythat book. "I had written a book about America, and now America was writingback." Tom Brokaw touched the heart of the nation with his towering #1bestseller The Greatest Generation, a moving tribute to those whogave the world so much -- and who left an enduring legacy ofheroism and grace. The Greatest Generation Speaks was born out ofthe vast outpouring of letters Brokaw received from people eager toshare their personal memories and experiences of a momentous timein America's history. These letters and reflections cross time, distance, andgenerations as they give voice to lives forever chan

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army hadno specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought theinvading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named CharlesMinot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let himrecruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates,wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form theminto a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These men endured nearlythree years of grueling training in the Colorado Rockies and in theprocess set new standards for both soldiering and mountaineering.The newly forged 10th Mountain Division finally faced combat in thewinter of 1945, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, against theseemingly unbreakable German fortifications north of the GothicLine. There, they planned and executed what is still regarded asthe most daring series of nighttime mountain attacks in U.S.military history, taking Mount Belvedere and the sheer, tre

A harrowing portrait of a largely forgotten campaign thatpushed one battalion to the limits of human suffering. Despite their lack of jungle training, the 32nd Division’s “GhostMountain Boys” were assigned the most grueling mission of theentire Pacific campaign in World War II: to march over the10,000-foot Owen Stanley Mountains to protect the right flank ofthe Australian army during the battle for New Guinea. Reminiscentof the classics like Band of Brothers and The Things They Carried,The Ghost Mountain Boys is part war diary, part extreme-adventuretale, and—through letters, journals, and interviews—part biographyof a group of men who fought to survive in an environment every bitas fierce as the enemy they faced. Theirs is one of the greatuntold stories of the war. “Superb.” —Chicago Sun-Times “Campbell started out with history, but in the end he has writtena tale of survival and courage of near-mythic proportions.” —America in WWII magazine

The Boys’ Crusade is the great historian PaulFussell’s unflinching and unforgettable account of the Americaninfantryman’s experiences in Europe during World War II. Based inpart on the author’s own experiences, it provides a stirringnarrative of what the war was actually like, from the point of viewof the children—for children they were—who fought it. While dealingdefinitively with issues of strategy, leadership, context, andtactics, Fussell has an additional purpose: to tear away the veilof feel-good mythology that so often obscures and sanitizes war’sbrutal essence. “A chronicle should deal with nothing but the truth,” Fussellwrites in his Preface. Accord-ingly, he eschews every kind ofsentimentalism, focusing instead on the raw action and humanemotion triggered by the intimacy, horror, and intense sorrows ofwar, and honestly addressing the errors, waste, fear, misery, andresentments that plagued both sides. In the vast literature onWorld War II, The Boys’ Crusade stands

For the first time in one enthralling book, here is theincredible true story of the numerous attempts to assassinate AdolfHitler and change the course of history. Disraeli once declared that “assassination never changed anything,”and yet the idea that World War II and the horrors of the Holocaustmight have been averted with a single bullet or bomb has remained atantalizing one for half a century. What historian Roger Moorhousereveals in Killing Hitler is just how close–and how often–historycame to taking a radically different path between Adolf Hitler’srise to power and his ignominious suicide. Few leaders, in any century, can have been the target of so manyassassination attempts, with such momentous consequences in thebalance. Hitler’s almost fifty would-be assassins ranged fromsimple craftsmen to high-ranking soldiers, from the apolitical tothe ideologically obsessed, from Polish Resistance fighters topatriotic Wehrmacht officers, and from enemy agents to his closestassociates. And yet, up to

John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice has been dubbed“indispensable” by none other than Jan Morris. Now, in his secondbook on the city once known as La Serenissima, Norwich advances thestory in this elegant chronicle of a hundred years of Venice’shighs and lows, from its ignominious capture by Napoleon in 1797 tothe dawn of the 20th century. An obligatory stop on the Grand Tour for any cultured Englishman(and, later, Americans), Venice limped into the 19th century–firstunder the yoke of France, then as an outpost of the AustrianHapsburgs, stripped of riches yet indelibly the most ravishing cityin Italy. Even when subsumed into a unified Italy in 1866, itremained a magnet for aesthetes of all stripes–subject or settingof books by Ruskin and James, a muse to poets and musicians, in itsway the most gracious courtesan of all European cities. Byrefracting images of Venice through the visits of such extravagant(and sometimes debauched) artists as Lord Byron, Richard Wagner,and the inimi