Essential passages from the works of four "fathers ofhistory"-Herodotus's History, Thucydides' History of thePeloponnesian War, Xenophon's Anabasis, and Polybius's Histories.--This text refers to the Kindle Edition.

After Pearl Harbor, the United States was struggling to bringitself up to fighting strength for World War II when aspecially-trained force-based upon the famed British commandosquads-was formed. It would become known as the Rangers. Before their training was complete, the Rangers were thrust intobattle, taking part in an assault on the German-held French port ofDieppe. Plagued by politics and inter-service rivalry, the raidwould become one of the greatest debacles of the war. Allied lossesincluded several Rangers killed or wounded-the first American bloodspilled on European soil in the war.

A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an UnnecessaryWar Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatestpresident in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grownto mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, anda monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom.But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? Whatif, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves,Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged thebloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire thatrivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J.DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history booksand overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend. Through extensive research and meticulous documentation,DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted hispolitical career to revolutionizing the American form of governmentfrom one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralize

In this thrilling real-life account of bravery, greed,obsession, and ultimate betrayal, award- winning writer Joe Jacksonbrings to life the story of fortune hunter Henry Wickham and hiscollaboration with the empire that fueled, then abandoned him. In1876, Wickham smuggled 70,000 rubber tree seeds out of therainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England'smost prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. The story of howWickham got his hands on those seeds-and the history-makingconsequences-is the stuff of legend. The Thief at the End of theWorld is an exciting true story of reckless courage andambition that perfectly captures the essential nature of GreatBritain's colonial adventure in South America.

The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trottingtale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, ficklefashion, and mouthwatering cuisine–in short, the very stuff ofwhich our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, andanecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writerand food historian, tells the story of three legendarycities–Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam–and how their single-mindedpursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet andset in motion the first great wave of globalization. Sharing mealsand stories with Indian pepper planters, Portuguese sailors, andVenetian foodies, Krondl takes every opportunity to explore theworld of long ago and sample its many flavors. Along the way, hereveals that the taste for spice of a few wealthy Europeans ledto great crusades, astonishing feats of bravery, and even wholesaleslaughter. As stimulating as it is pleasurable, and filled with surprisinginsights, The Taste of Conquest offers a compell

CAN ARCHAEOLOGY’S GREATEST MYSTERIES BE TRACED BACK TO THE LOST CIVILIZATION OF ATLANTIS? The Great Pyramid. Stonehenge. Machu Picchu. For centuries, theseand other sacred sites have attracted pilgrims, scholars, andadventurers drawn by the possibility that their true spiritual andtechnological secrets remain hidden. Who could have built theseelaborate monuments? How did they do it? And what were theirincomprehensible efforts and sacrifices designed toaccomplish? Now comes a revolutionary theory that connects these mysteries toreveal a hidden global pattern--the ancient work of an advancedcivilization whose warnings of planetary cataclysm now reverberateacross one hundred millennia. Here is startling evidence of anintelligent society dating back as much as 100,000 years--one thatsailed the oceans of the world, building monuments to preserve andcommunicate its remarkable wisdom. The Atlantis Blueprint is the authors’ term for a complex networkof connections between thes

Every few months you'll read a newspaper story of thediscovery of some long-lost art treasure hidden away in a Germanbasement or a Russian attic: a Cranach, a Holbein, even, not longago, a da Vinci. Such treasures ended up far from the museums andchurches in which they once hung, taken as war loot by Allied andAxis soldiers alike. Thousands of important pieces have never beenrecovered. Lynn Nicholas offers an astonishingly good account ofthe wholesale ravaging of European art during World War II, of howteams of international experts have worked to recover lostmasterpieces in the war's aftermath and of how governments "arestill negotiating the restitution of objects held by theirrespective nations." --This text refers to an out of print orunavailable edition of this title.

A monumental, groundbreaking work, now in paperback, thatshows how technological and strategic revolutions have transformedthe battlefield Combining gripping narrative history with wide-ranging analysis,War Made New focuses on four “revolutions” in military affairs anddescribes how inventions ranging from gunpowder to GPS-guided airstrikes have remade the field of battle—and shaped the rise andfall of empires. War Made New begins with the Gunpowder Revolution and explainswarfare’s evolution from ritualistic, drawn-out engagements to muchdeadlier events, precipitating the rise of the modern nation-state.He next explores the triumph of steel and steam during theIndustrial Revolution, showing how it powered the spread ofEuropean colonial empires. Moving into the twentieth century andthe Second Industrial Revolution, Boot examines three criticalclashes of World War II to illustrate how new technology such asthe tank, radio, and airplane ushered in terrifying new forms ofwarfare and the

The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the ThirdReich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity andmiscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy,Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand theultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the greatdrama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. Beginningwith the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army atDawn follows the British and American armies as they fight theFrench in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans andItalians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced andsometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fightingforce. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but falliblecommanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower,Patton, Bradley, Montgomery and Rommel.

The Iranians explores Iran in the context of its old andcomplex culture, for throughout its history Iran has struggled withtwo warring identities-one evolving from the values, socialorganization, and arts of ancient Persia, the other from Islam. Byexamining the relationship between these two identities, TheIranians explains how the revolution of 1979 came about, why theIslamic Republic has failed, and how Iran today is on the brink ofchaos. In this defining portrait of a troubled nation and theforces that shape it, Iranian history and religion becomeaccessible to the nonspecialist. Combining impeccable scholarshipwith the human insight of firsthand observations, The Iraniansprovides vital understanding of this unique and pivotalnation. ? Plume edition will contain a new epilogue by Sandra Mackey,reflecting on the results of the spring 1997 Iranianelections. ? Hardcover edition received enormous press coverage andincreased Mackey's already prominent visibility. ? Highly readable and ai

While the trial of Hitler's fallen elite at Nuremberg has beenthoroughly documented, the interval between the Nazis' capture inMay and June 1945 and the start of the actual trial in lateNovember has until now remained shrouded in shadow. WithInterrogations, acclaimed historian Richard Overy opens a newwindow into the Third Reich, providing an intimate glimpse of thesavage dictatorship in its death throes. More than thirtytran*s of the interrogations are reproduced here for the firsttime, allowing us to hear the voices of the newly captured "Hitlergang"-including G?ring, Speer, and Hess-as they squirmed under theAllies' glare. Interrogations is the stark and disturbinghistory of defeat; it lays bare as never before the humanweaknesses that made the Third Reich possible.

On 2 August 1944, Winston Churchill mocked Adolf Hitler in theHouse of Commons by the rank he had reached in the First World War.'Russian success has been somewhat aided by the strategy of HerrHitler, of Corporal Hitler', Churchill jibed. 'Even military idiotsfind it difficult not to see some faults in his actions'. AndrewRoberts' previous book "Masters and Commanders" studied thecreation of Allied grand strategy; "The Storm of War" now analyzeshow Axis strategy evolved. Examining the Second World War on everyfront, Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-makingprocess and a different strategy, the Axis might even have won.Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler afterthe war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their formerFuhrer once he was safely beyond defending himself? The book isfull of illuminating sidelights on the principle actors that bringtheir characters and the ways in which they reached decisions intofresh focus.

"A finely written, brave, and very personal book."-Orhan Pamuk In 2001, Christopher de Bellaiguewrote a story for The New York Review of Books , in which hebriefly discussed the killing and deportation of half a millionArmenians from Turkey in 1915. These massacres, he suggested, werebest understood as part of the struggles that attended the end ofthe Ottoman Empire. Upon publication, the Review wasbesieged with letters asserting that this was not war but genocide.How had he gotten it so wrong? De Bellaigue set out for Turkey'stroubled southeast to discover what really happened. What emergedis both an intellectual detective story and a reckoning with memoryand identity. Rebel Land unravels the enigma of the Turkishtwentieth century-a time that contains the death of an empire, thefounding of a nation, and the near extinction of a people.

The remarkable life of Alexander the Great, one of thegreatest military geniuses of all time, vividly told by one of theworld's leading exp erts in Greek history. With all theintensity, insight, and narrative drive that made The Spartans sucha hit with critics and readers, Paul Cartledge's Alexander theGreat: glowingly illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander(356-323 BC), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, andfounder of a new world order. Cartledge, the distinguished scholarand historian long acknowledged as the leading internationalauthority on ancient Sparta and Greece, brilliantly evokesAlexander's remarkable political and military accomplishments,leads us along the geographical path of his victorious armies, andcompellingly charting the tremendous field of this warrior hero'sinfluence. Alexander's legacy has had an astounding impact onmilitary tacticians, scholars, and statesmen—in his own lifetimeand in ours. In various countries and at various times he has beenseen as

Here’s the real history of our country. How Capitalism SavedAmerica explodes the myths spun by Michael Moore, the liberalmedia, Hollywood, academia, and the rest of the anticapitalistestablishment. Whether it’s Michael Moore or the New York Times, Hollywood oracademia, a growing segment in America is waging a war oncapitalism. We hear that greedy plutocrats exploit the Americanpublic; that capitalism harms consumers, the working class, and theenvironment; that the government needs to rein in capitalism; andon and on. Anticapitalist critiques have only grown more fevered inthe wake of corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom. Indeed, the2004 presidential campaign has brought frequent calls tore-regulate the American economy. But the anticapitalist arguments are pure bunk, as Thomas J.DiLorenzo reveals in How Capitalism Saved America. DiLorenzo, aprofessor of economics, shows how capitalism has made America themost prosperous nation on earth—and how the sort of governmentregulation th

Born in the wake of World War II, RAND quickly became thecreator of America’s anti-Soviet nuclear strategy. A magnet for thebest and the brightest, its ranks included Cold War luminaries suchas Albert Wohlstetter, Bernard Brodie, and Herman Kahn, whoarguably saved us from nuclear annihilation and unquestionablycreated Eisenhower’s "military-industrial complex." In the Kennedyera, RAND analysts and their theories of rational warfare steeredour conduct in Vietnam. Those same theories drove our invasion ofIraq forty-five years later, championed by RAND affiliated actorssuch as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Zalmay Khalilzad. ButRAND’s greatest contribution might be its least known: rationalchoice theory, a model explaining all human behavior throughself-interest. Through it RAND sparked the Reagan-ledtransformation of our social and economic system but also unleasheda resurgence of precisely the forces whose existence it denied --religion, patriotism, tribalism. With Soldiers of Reason, Alex Abella

This is a compendium of the weapons of war that may accompanyour soldiers in the near and far future, as well as an insightfullook at the soldier, sailor, and airman of today and tomorrow. Allmanner of military hardware is covered, as well as informationabout cutting-edge technology that will become standard in weaponsto come, the possibility of robotic soldiers, vehicles, protectivearmor, and the prospects of fighting a war in both space andcyberspace.

The Longest Night reveals the untold story of thehorrific bombing raid that almost brought Britain to militarycollapse-using extensive survivors' testimony and previouslyclassified documents to reveal just how close the Luftwaffe came tototal victory. This vivid, dramatically told account depicts howfate shifted based on Hitler's mistaken belief that he'd actuallylost the air war over Britain-and portrays the unsurpassed,"we-can-take-it" bravery of the British people when they'd beenpushed beyond all human endurance.

On General Douglas MacArthur's orders, a force of 12,000 U.S.Marines were marching north to the Yalu river in late November1950. These three regiments of the 1st Marine Division--strung outalong eighty miles of a narrow mountain road--soon found themselvescompletely surrounded by 60,000 Chinese soldiers. Despite beinggiven up for lost by the military brass, the 1st Marine Divisionfought its way out of the frozen mountains, miraculously takingthier dead and wounded with them as they ran the gauntlet ofunceasing Chinese attacks. This is the gripping story that Martin Russ tells in hisextraordinary book. Breakout is an unforgettable portrayal of theterror and courage of men as they face sudden death, making thebloody battles of the Korean hills and valleys come alive as theynever have before. "Magnificent . . . [Russ] seamlessly weaves the stories of manymen, units and battles, day and night, into a coherentpicture."--Chicago Tribune "Engrossing . . . Vivid, at times

If this is a book about war, it is equally a book about the hypocrisy and indifference of those in power. Fisk is an angry man and more than a little self-righteous. No national leader comes off with a scrap of credit here; he regards the lot of them with contempt, if not loathing. Among the men in charge -- whether Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Israeli, British or American -- there are no heroes and precious few honorable people doing their inadequate best in difficult situations. Jimmy Carter is lucky to escape with condescension, King Hussein of Jordan with a bit better than that. Fisk is not fond of the media either (though he grants some exceptions); CNN and the New York Times are particular targets of his scorn for what he sees as their abject failure to challenge the lies, distortions and cover-ups of U.S. policymakers. Only among ordinary people, entangled in a web of forces beyond their control, does Fisk find a human mixture of courage, cowardice, charity and cruelty!

From Thucydides' classic account of ancient Greek phalanxwarfare to a blow-by-blow de*ion of ground--fighting againstthe Iraqi forces during the Gulf War, The Book of War presents the face of battle over the course of more than 2,000years. Acclaimed historian John Keegan brings together an amazingarray of war writings, largely drawn from the protagoniststhemselves or firsthand accounts of the battles they describe. Hereare Caesar's Commentaires on the Roman Invasion of Britain;Wellington on the Battle of Waterloo; Hemingway after Copretto,Ernie Pyle at Normandy; and James Fenton at the Fall of Saigon.Weaving the various pieces together, with a brilliant introductoryessay and substantial headnotes, John Keegan has created a richtapestry that epitomizes the warrior spirit.

The fascinating story of a lost city and anunprecedented American civilization While Mayanand Aztec civilizations are widely known and documented, relativelyfew people are familiar with the largest prehistoric NativeAmerican city north of Mexico-a site that expert Timothy Pauketatbrings vividly to life in this groundbreaking book. Almost athousand years ago, a city flourished along the Mississippi Rivernear what is now St. Louis. Built around a sprawling central plazaand known as Cahokia, the site has drawn the attention ofgenerations of archaeologists, whose work produced evidence ofcomplex celestial timepieces, feasts big enough to feed thousands,and disturbing signs of human sacrifice. Drawing on thesefascinating finds, Cahokia presents a lively and astonishingnarrative of prehistoric America.

An innovative work of biography, social history, and literaryanalysis, this Pulitzer Prize-winning book presents the story oftwo men, William Cooper and his son, the novelist James FennimoreCooper, who embodied the contradictions that divided America in theearly years of the Republic. Taylor shows how Americans resolvedtheir revolution through the creation of new social forms and newstories that evolved with the expansion of our frontier. ofphotos.