Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm thatswept the world remains the definitive history of the Second WorldWar. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep andfor its sense of personal involvement, it is universallyacknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction and is an enduring,compelling work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize forliterature. The Grand Alliance recounts the momentous events of1941 surrounding America's entry into the War and Hitler's march onRussia the continuing onslaught on British civilians during theBlitz, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the alliance betweenBritain and America that shaped the outcome of the War.

Despite all that has already been written on Franklin DelanoRoosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlookeddimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement inintelligence and espionage operations. Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkablerevelations: -FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor -A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to theOval Office -Roosevelt knew before any other world leader of Hitler's plan toinvade Russia -Roosevelt and Churchill concealed a disaster costing hundreds ofBritish soldiers' lives in order to protect Ultra, the Britishcodebreaking secret -An unwitting Japanese diplomat provided the President with adirect pipeline into Hitler's councils Roosevelt's Secret War also describes how much FDR had beentold--before the Holocaust--about the coming fate of Europe's Jews. And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennialquestion Did FDR know in advance about the attack on PearlHarbor? By temperament and chara

One ofthe most critical battles of the Afghan War is now revealed asnever before. Lions of Kandahar is an inside account from theunique perspective of an active-duty U.S. Army Special Forcescommander, an unparalled warrior with multiple deployments to thetheater who has only recently returned from combatthere. Southern Afghanistan was slipping away.That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his thirdtour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies wereinfiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, theirstrategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATOcoalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in itshistory. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packedwarren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers,lush orchards, and towering marijuana stands, all laced withtreacherous irrigation ditches. A mass exodus of civilians heraldedthe carnage to come. Dispatched as a diversionary force insuppo

The Politics of Upheaval, 1935-1936, volume three of PulitzerPrize-winning historian and biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr."sAge of Roosevelt series, concentrates on the turbulent concludingyears of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term. A measure of economicrecovery revived political conflict and emboldened FDR's critics todenounce "that man in the White house." To his left were demagoguesHuey Long, Father Coughlin, and Dr. Townsend. To his right were thechampions of the old order ex-president Herbert Hoover, theAmerican Liberty League, and the august Supreme Court. For a time,the New Deal seemed to lose its momentum. But in 1935 FDR ralliedand produced a legislative record even more impressive than theHundred Days of 1933 a set of statutes that transformed the socialand economic landscape of American life. In 1936 FDR coasted toreelection on a landslide. Schlesinger has his usual touch withcolorful personalities and draws a warmly sympathetic portrait ofAlf M. Landon, the Republican candidate of 1936.

As a defender of national unity, a leader in war, and theemancipator of slaves, Abraham Lincoln lays ample claim to beingthe greatest of our presidents. But the story of his rise togreatness is as complex as it is compelling. In this superb,prize-winning biography, acclaimed historian Richard Carwardineexamines Lincoln’s dramatic political journey, from his early yearsin the Illinois legislature to his nation-shaping years in theWhite House. Here, Carwardine combines a new perspective with acompelling narrative to deliver a fresh look at one of the pillarsof American politics. He probes the sources of Lincoln’s moral andpolitical philosophy and uses his groundbreaking research to cutthrough the myth and expose the man behind it.

More than two thousand years after his death, Julius Caesarremains one of the great figures of history. He shaped Rome forgenerations, and his name became a synonym for "emperor" -- notonly in Rome but as far away as Germany and Russia. He is bestknown as the general who defeated the Gauls and doubled the size ofRome's territories. But, as Philip Freeman describes in thisfascinating new biography, Caesar was also a brilliant orator, anaccomplished writer, a skilled politician, and much more. Julius Caesar was a complex man, both hero and villain. Hepossessed great courage, ambition, honor, and vanity. Born into anoble family that had long been in decline, he advanced his careercunningly, beginning as a priest and eventually becoming Rome'sleading general. He made alliances with his rivals and thendiscarded them when it suited him. He was a spokesman for theordinary people of Rome, who rallied around him time and again, buthe profited enormously from his conquests and lived opulently.Eventually he

Since it was first published in 1952, Lincoln and HisGenerals has remained one of the definitive accounts ofLincoln’s wartime leadership. In it T. Harry Williams dramatizesLincoln’s long and frustrating search for an effective leader ofthe Union Army and traces his transformation from a politician withlittle military knowledge into a master strategist of the CivilWar. Explored in depth are Lincoln’s often fraught relationshipswith generals such as McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Fremont,and of course, Ulysses S. Grant. In this superbly writtennarrative, Williams demonstrates how Lincoln’s persistent“meddling” into military affairs was crucial to the Northern wareffort and utterly transformed the president’s role ascommander-in-chief.

In his inspiring new book, You Don’t Need a Title to Be aLeader , Mark Sanborn, the author of the national bestseller The Fred Factor , shows how each of us can be a leader in ourdaily lives and make a positive difference, whatever our title orposition. Through the stories of a number of unsung heroes, Sanbornreveals the keys each one of us can use to improve ourorganizations and enhance our careers. Genuine leadership – leadership with a “little l ”, as heputs it, is not conferred by a title, or limited to the executivesuite. Rather, it is shown through our everyday actions and the waywe influence the lives of those around us. Among the qualities thatgenuine leaders share: ? Acting with purpose rather than getting bogged down by mindlessactivity ? Caring about and listening to others ? Looking for ways to encourage the contributions and developmentof others rather than focusing solely on personalachievements ? Creating a legacy of accomplishment and contribution ineverything they do As reade

An instant classic of war reporting, The Forever War isthe definitive account of America's conflict with Islamicfundamentalism and a searing exploration of its human costs.Through the eyes of Filkins, a foreign correspondent for the NewYork Times, we witness the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, theaftermath of the attack on New York on September 11th, and theAmerican wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins is the only Americanjournalist to have reported on all these events, and hisexperiences are conveyed in a riveting narrative filled withunforgettable characters and astonishing scenes.

The political memoiras rousing adventure story—a sizzling account of a life lived inthe thick of every important struggle of the era. April 1973: snow falls thick and fast on the Badlands ofSouth Dakota. It has been more than five weeks since protestingSioux Indians seized their historic village of Wounded Knee, andthe FBI shows no signs of abandoning its siege. When Bill Zimmermanis asked to coordinate an airlift of desperately needed food andmedical supplies, he cannot refuse; flying through gunfire and amechanical malfunction, he carries out a daring dawn raid andsuccess?0?2fully parachutes 1,500 pounds of food into the village.The drop breaks the FBI siege, and assures an Indian victory. This was not the first—or last—time Bill Zimmerman put his life atrisk for the greater social good. In this extraordi?0?2nary memoir,Zimmerman takes us into the hearts and minds of those making thesocial revolution of the sixties. He writes about registering blackvoters in deepest, most racist Mississippi; marc

“H.W Brands has given us the authoritative Franklin biographyfor out time.” —Joseph J. Ellis author of the PulitzerPrize-winning Founding Brothers “Like its subject, this biography is both solid and enchanting.”—The New Yorker “[A] biography with a rich cast of secondary characters and alarge and handsome stock of historical scenery.... Brands writesclearly and confidently about the full spectrum of the polymath’sinterests.... This is a Franklin to savor.” —The Wall StreetJournal “Benjamin Franklin’s life is one every American should know well,and it has not been told better than by Mr. Brands.” —The DallasMorning News “A vivid portrait of the 18th-century milieu and of the18th-century man.... [Brands is] a master storyteller.” —TheChristian Science Monitor “A thorough biography of Benjamin Franklin, America’s firstRenaissance man.... In graceful, even witty prose.... Brandsrelates the entire, dense-p

Capitalism has never been a subject for economists alone.Philosophers, politicians, poets and social scientists have debatedthe cultural, moral, and political effects of capitalism forcenturies, and their claims have been many and diverse. The Mindand the Market is a remarkable history of how the idea ofcapitalism has developed in Western thought. Ranging across an ideological spectrum that includes Hobbes,Voltaire, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Hegel, Marx, and MatthewArnold, as well as twentieth-century communist, fascist, andneoliberal intellectuals, historian Jerry Muller examines afascinating thread of ideas about the ramifications of capitalismand its future implications. This is an engaging and accessiblehistory of ideas that reverberate throughout everyday life.

Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm thatswept the world remains the definitive history of the Second WorldWar. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep andfor its sense of personal involvement, it is universallyacknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction and is an enduring,compelling work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize forliterature. The Grand Alliance recounts the momentous events of1941 surrounding America's entry into the War and Hitler's march onRussia the continuing onslaught on British civilians during theBlitz, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the alliance betweenBritain and America that shaped the outcome of the War.

Party Influence in Congress challenges current arguments andevidence about the influence of political parties in the U.S.Congress. Steven S. Smith argues that theory must reflect policy,electoral, and collective party goals. These goals call forflexible party organizations and leadership strategies. They demandthat majority party leaders control the flow of legislation;package legislation and time action to build winning majorities andattract public support; work closely with a president of theirparty; and influence the vote choices for legislators. Smithobserves that the circumstantial evidence of party influence isstrong, multiple collective goals remain active ingredients afterparties are created, party size is an important factor in partystrategy, both negative and positive forms of influence areimportant to congressional parties, and the needle-in-the-haystacksearch for direct influence continues to prove frustrating.

Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years ofconflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not onlyabout how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawingfrom thousands of hours of previously unavailable (and stillclassified) tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels ofthe American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is aninsightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these finalyears. Through his exclusive access to authoritative materials,award-winning historian Lewis Sorley highlights the dramaticdifferences in conception, conduct, and-at least for a time-resultsbetween the early and later years of the war. Among his mostimportant findings is that while the war was being lost at thepeace table and in the U.S. Congress, the soldiers were winning onthe ground. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better Warsheds new light on the Vietnam War.

In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Senator Obama called “the audacity of hope.” Now, in The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics–a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces–from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media–that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating hu

Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm thatswept the world remains the definitive history of the Second WorldWar. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep andfor its sense of personal involvement, it is universallyacknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction and is an enduring,compelling work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize forliterature. Triumph and Tragedy recounts the dramatic months as theWar drew to a close the Normandy landings, the liberation ofWestern Europe, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thesurrender of Germany and Japan.

On the South Branch of the Raritan River in New Jersey, BillPlummer casts his line in the hope that fly-fishing will fortifyhim in the face of a failed marriage, his father's death, and afaltering career. With the discovery of his father's fly-fishingdiary, Bill has set his mind to understanding his father's devotionto the sport and fathoming the depths of what he thought was adistant and enigmatic man. He comes to delight in the peculiarpleasures of the pastime, finding in it points of tangency to hisown son, while developing the strength for a second marriage. Wishing My Father Well is a moving intergenerational memoirwhich will remind readers of James Prosek's Joe and Me, JamesDodson's Faithful Travelers, and Mitch Albom's Tuesdays WithMorrie.

whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. Drawingon historical records as well as his conversations with Chineseleaders over the past forty years, Kissinger examines how China hasapproached diplomacy, strategy, and negotiation throughout itshistory, and reflects on the consequences for the global balance ofpower in the 21st century. Since no other country can claim a more powerful link to itsancient past and classical principles, any attempt to understandChina's future world role must begin with an appreciation of itslong history. For centuries, China rarely encountered othersocieties of comparable size and sophistication; it was the "MiddleKingdom," treating the peoples on its periphery as vassal states.At the same time, Chinese statesmen-facing threats of invasion fromwithout, and the contests of competing factions within-developed acanon of strategic thought that prized the virtues of subtlety,patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess. In On China, Kissinger exa

In the era of Kennedy and Khrushchev, power was expressed interms of nuclear missiles, industrial capacity, numbers of menunder arms, and tanks lined up ready to cross the plains of EasternEurope. By 2010, none of these factors confer power in the sameway: industrial capacity seems an almost Victorian virtue, andcyber threats are wielded by non-state actors. Politics changed,and the nature of power—defined as the ability to affect others toobtain the outcomes you want—had changed dramatically. Power is notstatic; its story is of shifts and innovations, technologies andrelationships. Joseph Nye is a long-time analyst of power and a hands-onpractitioner in government. Many of his ideas have been at theheart of recent debates over the role America should play in theworld: his concept of "soft power" has been adopted by leaders fromBritain to China; "smart power” has been adopted as thebumper-sticker for the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. Thisbook is the summation of his work, as relevant to gene

Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History atHarvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College,Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution,Stanford University. The bestselling author of Paper andIron , The House of Rothschild , The Pity of War , The Cash Nexus , Empire , and Colossus , he alsowrites regularly for newspapers and magazines all over the world.Since 2003 he has written and presented three highly successfultelevision documentary series for British television: Empire , American Colossus , and, most recently, TheWar of the World .

John McCain is one of the most admired leaders in the UnitedStates government, but his deeply felt memoir of family and war isnot a political one and ends before his election to Congress. Withcandor and ennobling power, McCain tells a story that, in the wordsof Newsweek, "makes the other presidential candidates look likepygmies." John McCain learned about life and honor from his grandfather andfather, both four-star admirals in the U.S. Navy. This is a memoirabout their lives, their heroism, and the ways that sons are shapedand enriched by their fathers. John McCain's grandfather was a gaunt, hawk-faced man known asSlew by his fellow officers and, affectionately, as Popeye by thesailors who served under him. McCain Sr. played the horses, drankbourbon and water, and rolled his own cigarettes with one hand.More significant, he was one of the navy's greatest commanders, andled the strongest aircraft carrier force of the Third Fleet in keybattles during World War II.