American Military

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow reveals in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.

U.S. soldiers who served in overseas conflicts—from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan—share true stories of the actions that earned them some of America’s most distinguished military medals, up to and including the Medal of Honor. They never acted alone, but always in the spirit of camaraderie, patriotism, and for the good of our beloved country. There has never been a better time for all of us to think about duty, sacrifice, and what it means to be an American hero.

On the last, cold Sunday of February 1859, Daniel Sickles shot his wife's lover in Washington's Lafayette Square, just across from the White House. This is the story of that killing and its repercussions. Thomas Keneally brilliantly recreates an extraordinary period, when women were punished for violating codes of society that did not bind men. And the caddish, good-looking Dan Sickles personifies the extremes of the era.

Noted historian William J. Cooper has forged a reputation as one of today' s foremost Civil War experts. In We Have the War upon Us, Cooper takes a fresh look at the months between Lincoln's election and the attack on Fort Sumter that sparked the war. For years, compromise had kept the North and South from conflict but in these crucial months, the actions of major players on both sides pushed the country to the brink of destruction.

For over twenty years, the South African Border War was fought to counter the influence of Marxism-Leninism and to maintain control of Namibia. The South African people relied on cultural tools and adaptive strategies to protect their own interests. John S. McCain IV isn?t interested in taking sides on this issue; instead, he analyzes the military?s tactics, operational effectiveness, and strategy. Angola, Clausewitz, and the American Way of War explores the concept of strategy making in war within the context of the South African Border War. It describes the danger of leaning on middle-...

Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed.

William Tecumseh Sherman and Geronimo were keen strategists and bold soldiers, ruthless with their enemies. Over the course of the 1870s and 1880s these two war chiefs would confront each other in the final battle for what the American West would be: a sparsely settled, wild home where Indian tribes could thrive, or a densely populated extension of the America to the east of the Mississippi.

As the Russian contingent and government tyrants begin to lose power, they turn to bioweapons in their fight against the resistance. Infected mosquitos carrying a modified strain of Malaria are released into the rural water supplies and the results are devastating. Battling a growing Russian military presence along with displaced gang members, the patriots now must suffer the ravages of this ancient disease. Can they survive and more importantly, can they win?

For the past half century, John Keegan, the greatest military historian of our time, has been returning to the scenes of America’s most bloody and wrenching war to ponder its lingering conundrums: the continuation of fighting for four years between such vastly mismatched sides; the dogged persistence of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and often malnourished combatants; the effective absence of decisive battles among some two to three hundred known to us by name.

In January 1944, 16 Black enlisted men gathered at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois to begin a cram course that would turn them into the US Navy's first African American officers on active duty. Years later, these pioneers came to be known as the Golden Thirteen, but at the outset they were treated more as pariahs than pioneers. This book collects their stories.

In The Cause of All Nations, distinguished historian Don H. Doyle explains that the Civil War was more than an internal American conflict; it was a struggle that spanned the Atlantic Ocean. This audiobook follows the agents of the North and South who went abroad to tell the world what they were fighting for, and the foreign politicians, journalists, and intellectuals who told America and the world what they thought this war was really about - or ought to be about.

With his parting words "I shall return," General Douglas MacArthur sealed the fate of the last American forces on Bataan. Yet one young Army Captain, named Russell Volckmann, refused to surrender. He disappeared into the jungles of north Luzon where he raised a Filipino army of over 22,000 men. For the next three years he led a guerrilla war against the Japanese, killing over 50,000 enemy soldiers. At the same time he established radio contact with MacArthur's HQ in Australia and directed Allied forces to key enemy positions.

Recruited by the US Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than 10,000 women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of codebreaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them.

White Billionaire Helps With More Than Money Shanika is drowning in debt and trying to get her college degree while Steven, who is new in her life, doesn’t have a worry in the world. He offers to help, but can she pay the price? Look inside to find out more. This was originally published as "BWWM White Billionaire."

In the wake of World War II, the Allied forces charged 28 Japanese men with crimes against humanity. Correspondents at the Tokyo trial thought the evidence fell most heavily on 10 of the accused. In December 1948, five of these defendants were hanged, while four received sentences of life in prison. The tenth was a brilliant philosopher-patriot named Okawa Shumei. His story proved strangest of all. Among all the political and military leaders on trial, Okawa was the lone civilian.

Liberty, my wisecracking horse, our old friends Cam, Tommy, Freedom, and I are off to meet some super-brave soldiers in the year 1775. Yep, that’s right. We’ll be visiting with the underdog heroes who fought for American independence, against all odds - and won! But not before eight very real years of danger and uncertainty. Be a part of Rush Revere’s crew as we rush, rush, rush into a time when British rule had become a royal pain, and rebellion was in the air.

The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was the first and only all-black Ranger unit in the history of the United States Army. Edward Posey's The US Army's First, Last, and Only All-Black Rangers is the first complete history of this elite all-volunteer unit. As a member, Posey bases his account on firsthand experience, official records, interviews with survivors, and other material to produce a rich and worthy addition to the growing literature on the Korean War. Now the world will learn the true story of the United States Army's first, only, and last all-black Ranger unit.

Follow a young American from college through service as a Special Forces (Green Beret) adviser in Vietnam. An uplifting inspirational story of the courageous and selfless of those he met and those who supported him as he fought for the freedom of a Southeast Asian country.

Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and offers some provocative interpretations. He shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was less a product of strategic calculation and more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition.

Two weeks before the U.S. entered World War I, a Chicago advertising executive visited the Department of Justice with a proposal - organize the country’s businessmen into a secret force of volunteer agents to ferret out and investigate enemy activities within the United States. The country, overcome by a wave of patriotic fervor, had also become gripped with fear and uncertainty of the influx of immigrants from the very countries with which the country was now at war.