A renowned historian contends "that the Americanwarrior, not technology, wins wars." (Patrick K. O'Donnell, authorof Give Me Tomorrow ) John C. McManus coverssix decades of warfare in which the courage of American troopsproved the crucial difference between victory and defeat. Based onyears of archival research and personal interviews with veterans,Grunts demonstrates the vital, and too often forgotten, importanceof the human element in protecting the American nation, andadvances a passionate plea for fundamental change in ourunderstanding of war.

“Reads like a novel. A fast-paced page-turner, it haseverything: sex, wit, humor, and adventures. But it is animpressively researched and important story.” —David Fromkin, author of Europe’s Last Summer Vienna, 1814 is an evocative and brilliantly researched accountof the most audacious and extravagant peace conference in modernEuropean history. With the feared Napoleon Bonaparte presumablydefeated and exiled to the small island of Elba, heads of some 216states gathered in Vienna to begin piecing together the ruins ofhis toppled empire. Major questions loomed: What would be done withFrance? How were the newly liberated territories to be divided?What type of restitution would be offered to families of thedeceased? But this unprecedented gathering of kings, dignitaries,and diplomatic leaders unfurled a seemingly endless stream ofpersonal vendettas, long-simmering feuds, and romanticentanglements that threatened to undermine the crucial work athand, even as their hard-fought policy dec

The experience of war has affected every generation in thetwentieth and twenty-first centuries, and every soldier has a storyto tell. Since the year 2000, the Veteran's History Project, a newpermanent department of the Library of Congress, has beencollecting and preserving the memories of veterans. In addition tomore than 50,000 recorded oral histories, the Veteran's HistoryProject has amassed thousands of letters, photographs, scrapbooks,and invaluable mementos from nearly a century of warfare. In the first book to showcase the richness and depth of thiscollection, Voices of War tells a compelling, emotional, history ofthe experience of war, weaving together veterans' stories from inWorld Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Thestories are organized thematically into sections-from signing up tocoming home, generations of veterans recall individual experiencesthat together tell the extraordinary story of America at war.Letters, photographs, sketches and paintings enrich the compellingoral hi

Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking,spellbinding” ( New York Times ), “wildly improbable butentirely true” ( Entertainment Weekly ), and, quite simply,“the best book ever written” ( Boston Globe ). In his newbook, Operation Mincemeat , he tells an extraordinary storythat will delight his legions of fans. In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliantintelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple andcomplicated— Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazisinto thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southernEurope by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as theNazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligenceofficer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different.Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was anaristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were theperfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corp

What is fascism? Many authors have proposed definitions, butmost fail to move beyond the abstract. The esteemed historianRobert O. Paxton answers this question for the first time byfocusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than whatthey said. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up“enemies of the state,” through Mussolini’s rise to power, toGermany’s fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton showsclearly why fascists came to power in some countries and notothers, and explores whether fascism could exist outside theearly-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged. The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on ourunderstanding of modern European history, just as Paxton’s classicVichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on alifetime of research, this compelling and important book transformsour knowledge of fascism–“the major political innovation of thetwentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.”

This sweeping history provides the reader with a betterunderstanding of America’s consumer society, obsession withshopping, and devotion to brands. Focusing on the advertisingcampaigns of Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Wrigley’s, Gillette, and Kodak,Strasser shows how companies created both national brands andnational markets. These new brands eventually displaced genericmanufacturers and created a new desire for brand-name goods. Thebook also details the rise and development of department storessuch as Macy’s, grocery store chains such as A P and PigglyWiggly, and mail-order companies like Sears Roebuck and MontgomeryWard.

The epic story of the collision between one of nature’ssmallest organisms and history’s mightiest empire During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinianreigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa.It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classicalworld of Justinian had been plunged into the medieval and modernEurope was born. At its height, five thousand people died every day inConstantinople. Cities were completely depopulated. It was thefirst pandemic the world had ever known and it left its indeliblemark: when the plague finally ended, more than 25 million peoplewere dead. Weaving together history, microbiology, ecology,jurisprudence, theology, and epidemiology, Justinian’s Flea is aunique and sweeping account of the little known event that changedthe course of a continent.

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the authorof the highly acclaimed The Winter People tells the moving, searingstory of the betrayal and brutal dispossession of the CherokeeNation. "(A) beautifully written and emotionally mature book . . .a must."--New York Newsday.

The shocking and incredible story behind Hitler's "specialmission" to kidnap Pope Pius XII--kill him, if necessary--and thesurprising result of its failure. In September, 1943, Adolf Hitler, furious at the ouster ofMussolini, sent German troops into Rome with plans to deport Rome'sJews to Auschwitz. Hitler also ordered SS General Karl Wolff, whohad been Heinrich Himmler's chief aide, to occupy the Vatican andkidnap Pope Pius XII. But Wolff began playing a dangerous game:stalling Hitler's kidnap plot, while blackmailing the pope intosilence as the Jews were rounded up. This tale of intrigue and betrayal is one of the mostimportant untold stories of World War II, and A Special Mission isthe only book to give the full incredible account of Hitler'skidnap plot and its far-reaching consequences.

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

When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the CivilWar, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lostits philosophical moorings and looked eastward to “Old Japan,” withits seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance andperspective. Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as amore cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, inthe course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to aninternational power. This great wave of historical and culturalreciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified duringthe late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-lifepersonalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures promptedpilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific. In The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knitgroup of nineteenth-century travelers—connoisseurs, collectors, andscientists—who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving OldJapan. As Benfey writes, “A sense of urgency impelled them, forthe

In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writerSteve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrationsof our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years.Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human Historyis a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on awide range of sources, including the latest genetic research,linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals thesurprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just hownaive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been"(Discover).Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining,for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius asforebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on theinvention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the originsof language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging andlucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how wethink about ourselves and our relations with others.

Gibbon’s masterpiece, which narrates the history of the RomanEmpire from the second century a.d. to its collapse in the west inthe fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, iswidely considered the greatest work of history ever written. Thisabridgment retains the full scope of the original, but in a compassequivalent to a long novel. Casual readers now have access to thefull sweep of Gibbon’s narrative, while instructors and studentshave a volume that can be read in a single term. This uniqueedition emphasizes elements ignored in all other abridgments—inparticular the role of religion in the empire and the rise ofIslam.

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

In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renownedscholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent ofwritten records–the overwhelming majority of our time here onearth–and gives an incisive, concise, and lively survey of thepast, and of how scholars and scientists labor to bring it tolight. Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline,detailing how breakthroughs such as radiocarbon dating and DNAanalysis have helped us to define humankind’s past–how things havechanged–much more clearly than was possible just a half centuryago. As for why things have changed, Renfrew pinpoints some of theissues and challenges, past and present, that confront the study ofprehistory and its investigators. Renfrew then offers a summary ofhuman prehistory from early hominids to the rise of literatecivilization that is refreshingly free of conventional wisdom andgrand “unified” theories. In this invaluable account, Colin Renfrew delivers a meticulouslyresearched and

This riveting work of investigative reporting and historyexposes classified government projects to build gravity-defyingaircraft--which have an uncanny resemblance to flyingsaucers. The atomic bomb was not the only project to occupy governmentscientists in the 1940s. Antigravity technology, originallyspearheaded by scientists in Nazi Germany, was another highpriority, one that still may be in effect today. Now for the firsttime, a reporter with an unprecedented access to key sources in theintelligence and military communities reveals suppressed evidencethat tells the story of a quest for a discovery that could prove aspowerful as the A-bomb. The Hunt for Zero Point explores the scientific speculation thata "zero point" of gravity exists in the universe and can bereplicated here on Earth. The pressure to be the first nation toharness gravity is immense, as it means having the ability to buildmilitary planes of unlimited speed and range, along with the mostdeadly weaponry the wo

John Keegan, whose many books, including classic histories ofthe two world wars, have confirmed him as the premier miltaryhistorian of our time, here presents a masterly look at the valueand limitations of intelligence in the conduct of war. Intelligence gathering is an immensely complicated and vulnerableendeavor. And it often fails. Until the invention of the telegraphand radio, information often traveled no faster than a horse couldride, yet intelligence helped defeat Napoleon. In the twentiethcentury, photo analysts didn’t recognize Germany’s V-2 rockets forwhat they were; on the other hand, intelligence helped lead tovictory over the Japanese at Midway. In Intelligence inWar , John Keegan illustrates that only when paired withforce has military intelligence been an effective tool, as it mayone day be in besting al-Qaeda.

The secretive Mysteries conducted at Eleusis in Greece fornearly two millennia have long puzzled scholars with strangeaccounts of initiates experiencing otherworldly journeys. In thisgroundbreaking work, three experts—a mycologist, a chemist, and ahistorian—argue persuasively that the sacred potion given toparticipants in the course of the ritual contained a psychoactiveentheogen. The authors then expand the discussion to show thatnatural psychedelic agents have been used in spiritual ritualsacross history and cultures. Although controversial when firstpublished in 1978, the book’s hypothesis has become more widelyaccepted in recent years, as knowledge of ethnobotany has deepened.The authors have played critical roles in the modern rediscovery ofentheogens, and The Road to Eleusis presents an authoritativeexposition of their views. The book’s themes of the universality ofexperiential religion, the suppression of that knowledge byexploitative forces, and the use of psychedelics to reconcile theh

With What's So Great About America , Dinesh D'Souza isnot asking a question, but making a statement. The former WhiteHouse policy analyst and bestselling author argues that in theaftermath of September 11, 2001, American ideals and patriotismshould not be things we shy away from. Instead he offers thegrounds for a solid, well-considered pride in the Western pillarsof "science, democracy and capitalism," while deconstructingarguments from both the political Left and political Right. As an"outsider" from India who has had amazing success in the UnitedStates, D'Souza defends not an idealized America, but America as itreally is, and measures America not against an utopian ideal, butagainst the rest of the world in a provocative, challenging, andpersonal book.

In The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With theOld Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-centurybattles. Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitiveoral history, The Good War. Now E. B. Sledge’s acclaimedfirst-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns tothrill, edify, and inspire a new generation. An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of suchheroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B. Sledgebecame part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division–3d Battalion,5th Marines. Even after intense training, he was shocked to bethrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmareof flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledgehit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled withfear but no longer with panic. Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the NewTestament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity andsearing honesty the experience of a soldier