Politics War

Winner of three book awards, The Lavender Scare masterfully traces the origins of contemporary sexual politics to Cold War hysteria over national security. Drawing on newly declassified documents and interviews with former government officials, historian David Johnson chronicles how the myth that homosexuals threatened national security determined government policy for decades, ruined thousands of lives, and pushed many to suicide. As Johnson shows, this myth not only outlived McCarthy but, by the 1960s, helped launch a new civil rights struggle.

As editor of the award-winning Library of America collection of George Washington's writings and a curator of the great man's original papers, John Rhodehamel has established himself as an authority of our nation's preeminent founding father. Rhodehamel examines George Washington as a public figure, arguing that the man - who first achieved fame in his early twenties - is inextricably bound to his mythic status.

Published on the 15th anniversary of the Six-Day War that culminated in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Pappe offers a comprehensive exploration of one of the world's most prolonged and tragic conflicts. Using recently declassified archival material, Pappe analyses the motivations and strategies of the generals and politicians-and the decision-making process itself - that laid the foundation of the occupation. Pappe paints a picture of what is to all intents and purposes the world's largest "open prison".

At War with Ourselves is the story of helping a disruptive President drive necessary shifts in U.S. foreign policy at a critical moment in history. McMaster entered an administration beset by conflict and the hyper partisanship of American politics. With the candor of a soldier and the perspective of a historian, McMaster rises above the fray to lay bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of Trump’s presidency and give listeners insight into what a second Trump term would look like.

Prominent military historian Victor Davis Hanson explores the nature of leadership with his usual depth and vivid prose in The Savior Generals, a set of brilliantly executed pocket biographies of five generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus) who single-handedly saved their nations from defeat in war. War is rarely a predictable enterprise - it is a mess of luck, chance, and incalculable variables. Today's sure winner can easily become tomorrow's doomed loser.

Acclaimed biographer Susan Ronald delivers a stunning account of Elizabeth I that focuses on her role in the Wars of Religion - the battle between Protestantism and Catholicism that tore Europe apart in the sixteenth century. Elizabeth’s 1558 coronation procession was met with an extravagant outpouring of love. Only 25 years old, the young queen saw herself as the nation’s Protestant savior, aiming to provide new hope, prosperity, and independence from the foreign influence that had plagued her sister Mary’s reign. Given the scars of the Reformation, Elizabeth would need all of the powers of diplomacy and tact she could summon.

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.

In this disturbing exposé, journalist Paul L. Williams describes a secret alliance forged at the close of World War II by the CIA, the Sicilian and US mafias, and the Vatican to thwart the possibility of a Communist invasion of Europe. Williams presents evidence suggesting the existence, in many European countries, of "stay-behind" units consisting of 5,000 to 15,000 military operatives.

Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt's expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.

Now a green open space enjoyed by residents, Fort Hunt, Virginia, about 15 miles south of Washington, DC, was the site of one of the highest-level, clandestine operations during World War II.

Warning: The next terrorist attack on American soil is coming...sooner than you think. They can strike anytime, anywhere. A public landmark. A suburban shopping mall. And now, the human body itself. Three Middle Eastern terrorists have been injected with a biological weapon, human time bombs unleashed on American soil. They are prepared to die. To spread their disease. To annihilate millions. If America hopes to fight this enemy from within, we need a new kind of weapon. Meet Special Agent Jericho Quinn. Air Force veteran. Champion boxer. Trained assassin.

When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as "the Program": a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program.

A riveting new account of Theodore Roosevelt's impassioned crusade for military preparedness as America fitfully stumbles into World War I, spectacularly punctuated by his unique tongue-lashings of the vacillating Woodrow Wilson, his rousing advocacy of a masculine, pro-Allied "Americanism", a death-defying compulsion for personal front-line combat, a gingerly rapprochement with GOP power brokers - and, yes, perhaps, even another presidential campaign.

The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew - the roots of the Second World War - and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period.

With a postscript describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan, The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and most relentless military training in the world. What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep?

When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the Tonight show - a job he had been promised five years earlier - skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno's show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings - and the profits - of NBC's affiliates, while ratings for Conan's new Tonight show plummeted to the lowest levels in history.

On a small two-lane bridge in a rural county that loathes the federal government, the US Army uses lethal force to end a standoff with hard-right anti-government patriots. Inside an ordinary diner, a disaffected young man with a handgun takes aim at the American president stepping in for an impromptu photo-op, and a bullet splits the hyper-partisan country into violently opposed mourners and revelers.

The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road - both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to 20 miles at some points.

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the US Military in Hawaii, received a summons to report immediately to Washington, DC. The Pentagon had reason to believe he was a homosexual, and after a series of humiliating interviews, Kameny - like gay men and women for generations - was promptly dismissed from the military. Unlike many others, though, Kameny fought back.

Born over 2,400 years ago, warrior, thinker, and leader Sun Tzu lived during a time of great internecine conflict in China. A classic of Chinese literature, Art of War reveals the strategies, tactics, and insights that lead to success. Mastery of warfare and the maintenance of power are the most important values in Sun's philosophy, without which there can be no peace or life.