The effects of war refuse to remain local: they persistthrough the centuries, sometimes in unlikely ways far removed fromthe military arena. In Ripples of Battle , the acclaimed historianVictor Davis Hanson weaves wide-ranging military and culturalhistory with his unparalleled gift for battle narrative as heilluminates the centrality of war in the human experience. The Athenian defeat at Delium in 424 BC brought tacticalinnovations to infantry fighting; it also assured the influence ofthe philosophy of Socrates, who fought well in the battle. Nearlytwenty-three hundred years later, the carnage at Shiloh and thedeath of the brilliant Southern strategist Albert Sidney Johnsoninspired a sense of fateful tragedy that would endure and stymieSouthern culture for decades. The Northern victory would alsobolster the reputation of William Tecumseh Sherman, and inspire LewWallace to pen the classic Ben Hur . And, perhaps most resonant forour time, the agony of Okinawa spurred the Japanese towardstate-sanct

On 22 June 1941, the German army invaded the Soviet Union, onehundred fifty divisions advancing on three axes in a surpriseattack that overwhelmed and destroyed whatever opposition theRussians were able to muster. The German High Command was under theimpression that the Red Army could be destroyed west of the DneprRiver and that there would be no need for conducting operations incold, snow, and mud. They were wrong. In reality, the extreme conditions of the German war in Russiawere so brutal that past experiences simply paled before them.Everything in Russia--the land, the weather, the distances, andabove all the people--was harder, harsher, more unforgiving, andmore deadly than anything the German soldier had ever facedbefore. Based on the recollections of four veteran German commanders ofthose battles, FIGHTING IN HELL describes in detail what happenedwhen the world's best-publicized "supermen" met the world's mostbrutal fighting. It is not a tale for the squeamish.

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

A firsthand look at the Battle of Gettysburg offers Union andConfederate viewpoints of the conflict, recreating the three daysand discussing the decisions of Lee, Longstreet, and Meade.Reprint.

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

This brief and illuminating account of the ideas of worldorder prevalent in the Elizabethan age and later is anindispensable companion for readers of the great writers of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Shakespeare and the Elizabethandramatists, Donne and Milton, among many others. The basic medievalidea of an ordered Chain of Being is studied by Professor Tillyardin the process of its various transformations by the dynamic spiritof the Renaissance. Among his topics are: Angels; the Stars andFortunes; the Analogy between Macrocosm and Microcosm; the FourElements; the Four Humours; Sympathies; Correspondences; and theCosmic Dance—ideas and symbols which inspirited the minds andimaginations not only of the Elizabethans but of all men of theRenaissance.

Propelled by the discovery of an ancient book and a cache ofyellowing letters, a young woman plunges into a labyrinth where thesecrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: thedark reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that mayhave kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for thethe truth becomes an adventure of monumental propportions, takingus from monasteries and dusty libraries to the captitals of EasternEurope - in a feat of storytelling so rich, so exciting, sosuspenseful that it has enthralled readers around he world.

Here is an oral history of the Vietnam War by thirty-threeAmerican soldiers who fought it. A 1983 American Book Awardnominee.

The First Battle is a graphic account of the first major clashof the Vietnam War. On August 18, 1965, regiment fought regiment onthe Van Tuong Peninsula near the new Marine base at Chu Lai. On theAmerican side were three battalions of Marines under the command ofColonel Oscar Peatross, a hero of two previous wars. His opponentwas the 1st Viet Cong Regiment commanded by Nguyen Dinh Trong, aveteran of many fights against the French and the South Vietnamese.Codenamed Operation Starlite, this action was a resounding successfor the Marines and its result was cause for great optimism aboutAmerica's future in Vietnam. Those expecting a book about Americansin battle will not be disappointed by the detailed de*ions ofhow the fight unfolded. Marine participants from private to colonelwere interviewed during the book's research phase. The battle isseen from the mud level, by those who were at the point of thespear. But this is not just another war story told exclusively fromthe American side. In researching the book, t

November 11, 1918. The final hours pulsate with tension asevery man in the trenches hopes to escape the melancholydistinction of being the last to die in World War I. The Alliedgenerals knew the fighting would end precisely at 11:00 A.M, yet inthe final hours they flung men against an already beaten Germany.The result? Eleven thousand casualties suffered–more than duringthe D-Day invasion of Normandy. Why? Allied commanders wanted topunish the enemy to the very last moment and career officers saw afast-fading chance for glory and promotion. Joseph E. Persico puts the reader in the trenches with theforgotten and the famous–among the latter, Corporal Adolf Hitler,Captain Harry Truman, and Colonels Douglas MacArthur and GeorgePatton. Mainly, he follows ordinary soldiers’ lives, illuminatingtheir fate as the end approaches. Persico sets the last day of thewar in historic context with a gripping reprise of all that led upto it, from the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke, FranzFerdinand

In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story ofcourage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefullydocuments--and exposes--one of the worst racial massacres inAmerican history. Whitaker's important book commemorates a legalstruggle, "Moore v. Dempsey, " that paved the way for the civilrights era, and tells too of a man, Scipio Africanus Jones, whosename surely deserves to be known by all Americans. "Whitaker has ... placed the massacre and the Supreme Courtdecision in their full legal and historical context. At the sametime, he has revived the story of a great African-American lawyer,Scipio Africanus Jones." --"New York Times Book Review"

From the deadly shores of North Africa to the invasion ofSicily to the fierce jungle hell of the Pacific, the contributionof the World War II Ranger Battalions far outweighed their numbers.They were ordinary men on an extraordinary mission, experiencingthe full measure of the fear, exhaustion, and heroism of combat innearly every major invasion of the war. Whether spearheading alanding force or scouting deep behind enemy lines, these highlymotivated, highly trained volunteers led the way for other soldiers-- they were Rangers. With first-person interviews, in-depth research, and a completeappendix naming every Ranger known to have served, author RobertBlack, a Ranger himself, has made the battles of WWII come to lifethrough the struggles of the men who fought to win the greatest warthe world has ever seen.

These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalitiesand military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whoselives span the earliest days of the Republic to the establishmentof the Empire. Selected from Plutarch's "Roman Lives", they includeprominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles inRoman history, such as soldierly Marcellus, eloquent Cato andcautious Fabius. Here too are vivid portraits of ambitious,hot-tempered Coriolanus; objective, principled Brutus andopen-hearted Mark Anthony, who would later be brought to life byShakespeare. In recounting the lives of these great leaders,Plutarch also explores the problems of statecraft and power andillustrates the Roman people's genius for political compromise,which led to their mastery of the ancient world.

What ties Americans to one another? What unifies a nation ofcitizens with different racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds?These were the dilemmas faced by Americans in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries as they sought ways to bind the newly UnitedStates together. In A is for American, award-winning historian Jill Leporeportrays seven men who turned to language to help shape a newnation’s character and boundaries. From Noah Webster’s attempts tostandardize American spelling, to Alexander Graham Bell’s use of“Visible Speech” to help teach the deaf to talk, to Sequoyah’sdevelopment of a Cherokee syllabary as a means of preserving hispeople’s independence, these stories form a compelling portrait ofa developing nation’s struggles. Lepore brilliantly explores thepersonalities, work, and influence of these figures, seven mendriven by radically different aims and temperaments. Through thesesuperbly told stories, she chronicles the challenges faced by ayoung country trying to unify

With a post* describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan,The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and mostrelentless military training in the world. What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented,intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, coldwater, and days without sleep? In The Warrior Elite, former NavySEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young meninto warriors. SEAL training is the distillation of the humanspirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men withcharacter, courage, and the burning desire to win at all costs, menwho would rather die than quit.

The veteran Wall Street Journal science reporterMarilyn Chase’s fascinating account of an outbreak of bubonicplague in late Victorian San Francisco is a real-life thriller thatresonates in today’s headlines. The Barbary Plague transports us to the Gold Rush boomtown in 1900, at the end of thecity’s Gilded Age. With a deep understanding of the effects onpublic health of politics, race, and geography, Chase shows how onecity triumphed over perhaps the most frightening and deadly of allscourges.

John Keegan, widely considered the greatest military historianof our time and the author of acclaimed volumes on ancient andmodern warfare--including, most recently, The First World War, anational bestseller--distills what he knows about the why’s andhow’s of armed conflict into a series of brilliantly conciseessays. Is war a natural condition of humankind? What are the origins ofwar? Is the modern state dependent on warfare? How does war affectthe individual, combatant or noncombatant? Can there be an end towar? Keegan addresses these questions with a breathtaking knowledgeof history and the many other disciplines that have attempted toexplain the phenomenon. The themes Keegan concentrates on in thisshort volume are essential to our understanding of why war remainsthe single greatest affliction of humanity in the twenty-firstcentury, surpassing famine and disease, its traditionalcompanions.

Drawing from Smith's own personal journals, this concisebiography paints a rich and detailed portrait of one of America'smost intriguing founding fathers. Historian John Thompson guides usthrough annotated selections of Smith's most important andcompelling writings, adding authoritative perspective andcommentary to round out the picture. The volume includes some ofthe earliest primary source accounts of life in colonial Virginia,including excerpts from Proceedings of the English Colony ofVirginia (1612), Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), and The TrueAdventures and Observations of Captain John Smith (1630). Readers share eyewitness accounts of Smith's capture andimprisonment by the Indians, his explorations of the Chesapeake Bayregion, and various other adventures and exploits in the New World.We get a firsthand look at Smith's pivotal role in the founding andgovernance of colonial Jamestown and his attempts to establishtrade relationships with the Native Americans. We also learn thereal facts behind Smi

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.

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

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.

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

Sherman's March is the vivid narrative of General William T.Sherman's devastating sweep through Georgia and the Carolinas inthe closing days of the Civil War. Weaving together hundreds ofeyewitness stories, Burke Davis graphically brings to life thedramatic experiences of the 65,000 Federal troops who plunderedtheir way through the South and those of the anguished -- and oftendefiant -- Confederate women and men who sought to protectthemselves and their family treasures, usually in vain. Dominatingthese events is the general himself -- "Uncle Billy" to his troops,the devil incarnate to the Southerners he encountered.

Nominated for the National Book Award, this book is set incolonial Massachusetts where, in 1704, a French and Indian warparty descended on the village of Deerfield, abducting a Puritanminister and his children. Although John Williams was eventuallyreleased, his daughter horrified the family by staying with hercaptors and marrying a Mohawk husband.