United States Military

How can you achieve victory in war if you don't have a clear idea of your political objectives and a vision of what victory means? In this provocative challenge to US policy and strategy, Donald Stoker argues that America endures endless wars because its leaders no longer know how to think about war, particularly limited wars.

The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Conflict shifted from the battlefield to the Capitol as Congress warred with President Andrew Johnson over just what to do with the South. Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction, which was sympathetic to the former Confederacy, would ultimately lead to his impeachment and the institution of Radical Reconstruction.

The Battle of New Orleans sets its scenes with an almost unbelievably colorful cast of characters - a happenstance coalition of militia-men, regulars, untrained frontiersmen, free blacks, Indians, townspeople, and of course, Jackson himself. His glorious, improbable victory will catapult a once-poor, uneducated orphan boy into the White House and forge the beginning of a true nation.

African American Slave Medicine offers a critical examination of how African American slaves' medical needs were addressed during the years before and surrounding the Civil War. Drawing upon ex-slave interviews conducted during the 1930s and 1940s by the Works Project Administration (WPA), Dr. Herbert C. Covey inventories many of the herbal, plant, and non-plant remedies used by African American folk practitioners during slavery.

This sweeping biography about the man who was the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is an epic tale of courage and bravery in the face of unimaginable trials. The Road to Dawn tells the improbable story of Josiah Henson - a dynamic, driven man with exceptional intelligence and unyielding principles, who overcame incredible odds to escape from slavery and improve the lives of hundreds of freedmen throughout his long life. He was immortalized by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters reexamine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies.

Riveting, moving, and impossible to put down, War, Terrible War takes us into the heart of the Civil War, from the battle of Manassas to the battle of Gettysburg and on to the South's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Follow the common soldiers in blue and gray as they endure long marches, freezing winter camps, and the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil.

The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Beginning in 1803, many free states, claiming the authority to maintain the domestic peace, enacted laws that discouraged free African Americans from settling their boundaries and restricted the rights to testify in court, move freely from place to place, work, vote, and attend public school. But over time, African American activists and their white allies, often facing mob violence, courageously built a movement to fight these racist laws.

Walk in Hell is the incredible second book of best-selling author Harry Turtledove’s alternate history tetralogy of World War I, The Great War. The first book, American Front, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 1998.

In this startlingly vivid portrait of a world torn apart by war and strife, the Confederate States of America ally with Britain and France, while the United States sides with Germany in a World War I that might have been.

The remarkable story of the seven African American soldiers ultimately awarded the World War II Medal of Honor, and the 50-year campaign to deny them their recognition. In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades.

For decades after its founding, America was really two nations—one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights.

American Revolution for Dummies capitalizes on the recent resurgence of interest in the Revolutionary War period - one of the most important in the history of the United States. From the founding fathers to the Declaration of Independence, and everything that encapsulates this extraordinary period in American history, American Revolution for Dummies is your one-stop guide to the birth of the United States of America. Understanding the critical issues of this era is essential to the study of subsequent periods in American history.

The image of the Baron de Steuben training Washington's ragged, demoralized troops in the snow at Valley Forge is part of the iconography of our Revolutionary heritage, but most history fans know little more about this fascinating figure.

At the crux of America's history stand two astounding events: the immediate and complete destruction of the most powerful system of slavery in the modern world, followed by a political reconstruction in which new constitutions established the fundamental rights of citizens for formerly enslaved people. Few people living in 1860 would have dared imagine either event, and yet, in retrospect, both seem to have been inevitable. In a beautifully crafted narrative, Edward L. Ayers restores the drama of the unexpected to the history of the Civil War.

The life of John Marshall, founding father and America's premier chief justice. In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the US. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again.

In The Icarus Syndrome, Peter Beinart tells a tale as old as the Greeks—a story about the seductions of success. Beinart describes Washington on the eve of three wars—World War I, Vietnam, and Iraq—three moments when American leaders decided they could remake the world in their image. Each time, leading intellectuals declared that history was over, and the spread of democracy was inevitable. Each time, a president held the nation in the palm of his hand.

Contrary to movie and legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo in the war for Texan independence—including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William B. Travis—did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry. Instead, the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness. In this book, Dr. Tucker informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: most of the Alamo’s defenders died in breakouts from the fort, cut down by Santa Anna’s cavalry, positioned to intercept the escapees.

***Newly Updated in 2025*** Over the course of three days in July 1863, a small town in south-central Pennsylvania became a household name: Gettysburg. Thousands of books have been written about the battle that made Gettysburg famous. This edition of 101 Travel Bits focuses not on the battle, but on the town as it was before, during, and after it became America’s most famous battlefield—a town you can still visit today. Let this edition of 101 Travel Bits™ be your guide to the world of Gettysburg. 101 Travel Bits are not your typical guidebooks. Each collection of 101 Travel Bits ...

George Washington was famously unknowable, but Robert Middlekauff penetrates the mystique to reveal the fears, values, and passions that drove him. Rich in psychological details regarding Washington's temperament, idiosyncrasies, and experiences, this audiobook shows us a self-conscious Washington who grew in confidence and experience as a young soldier, businessman, and Virginian gentleman; and was transformed into an American patriot by the revolutionary ferment of the 1760s and 70s.

The French and Indian War was the world's first truly global conflict. When the French lost to the British in 1763, they lost their North American empire along with most of their colonies in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa. In The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France, the only comprehensive account from the French perspective, William R. Nester explains how and why the French were defeated.