Western Wars

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.

Before 9/11, the rugby team at West Point learned to bond on a sports field. This is what happened when those fifteen young men became leaders in war. Filled with drama, tragedy, and personal transformations, this is the story of a unique brotherhood. It is a story of American rugby and a story of the U.S. Army created through intimate portraits of men shaped by West Point's motto: "Duty, Honor, Country."

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

With the return of Louis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, news of the vast Rocky Mountains and their abundant wildlife enticed American traders and trappers. Their goal, to obtain the riches offered there in beaver fur. These men, seasoned by years of hunting in the eastern forests of the young United States, ventured out braving not only the hazards of nature, but the enmity of the Blackfeet Nation and the hostility of competitors such as Canada’s North West Company. Men like Obadiah Cash went west to trap and harvest the “Furry Bank Notes”, as beaver hides were called. Within a few...

A shadow world behind the real world... When Jack West, Jr. won the Great Games, he threw the four legendary kingdoms into turmoil. A world with its own history, rules and prisons... Now these dark forces are coming after Jack...in ruthless fashion. That is reaching into our world...explosively... With the end of all things rapidly approaching, Jack must find the Three Secret Cities, three incredible lost cities of legend. It’s an impossible task by any reckoning, but Jack must do it while he is being hunted...by the greatest hunters ever.

The award-winning author of The Battle of Bretton Woods reveals the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan—told with verve, insight, and resonance for today.

In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, US officials under new secretary of state George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events.

Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Benn Steil’s thrilling account brings to life the seminal episodes marking the collapse of postwar US-Soviet relations—the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, we see and understand like never before Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe.

Given current echoes of the Cold War, as Putin’s Russia rattles the world order, the tenuous balance of power and uncertain order of the late 1940s is as relevant as ever. The Marshall Plan provides critical context into understanding today’s international landscape. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Steil’s account will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan and the birth of the Cold War. A polished and masterly work of historical narrative, this is an instant classic of Cold War literature.

In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.

In London, twenty-six-year-old Venetia Stanley—aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless—is part of a fast group of upper-crust bohemians and socialites known as “The Coterie.” She’s also engaged in a clandestine love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state.

Union soldier John Chenneville suffered a traumatic head wound in battle. His recovery took the better part of a year as he struggled to regain his senses and mobility. By the time he returned home, the Civil War was over, but tragedy awaited. John’s beloved sister and her family had been brutally murdered. Their killer goes by many names. He fought for the North in the late unpleasantness, and wore a badge in the name of the law. But the man John knows as A. J. Dodd is little more than a rabid animal, slaughtering without reason or remorse, needing to be put down.

A rousing and meticulously researched account of the notorious Battle of Little Big Horn and its unforgettable cast of characters from Sitting Bull to Custer himself.

This is the first volume of the memoir of Rick L. Scifres, relating his early life and the first half of a twenty-year Naval career during the Cold War. The author was born in Texas, raised in New Mexico, and eventually reached maturity while serving in the U. S. Navy. He attained the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer before retiring as a CTOCS (NAC). He specialized in the field of Cryptologic Technician (Communications) and was qualified as a Naval Aircrewman. This volume chronicles part of his childhood and the first eleven and a half years of his career serving with the Naval Security ...

ONE WOMAN'S ODYSSEY OF LIFE AND LOVE ACROSS NAZI GERMANY AND POSTWAR EUROPE “I want to live an extraordinary life.” Inge Krumm-Heller yearned to live the life of a modern, independent woman in Nazi Germany. From her childhood in East Prussia and labor service with the Reichsarbeitsdienst, to the hardships and air raids of the Second World War, Inge emerged ready to face a bold new world turned upside down by the American occupation. When a mysterious stranger brings news of Inge’s missing parents, she embarks upon an odyssey across the ruins of Europe to find them and, ultimately, to...

"I was present at the Frog Lake Massacre and escaped by the slim margin of one hundred paces the fate that overtook my hapless fellows. For months afterward the unexpected report of a gun put my heart in my mouth, painted savages plunged in my dreams at early dawn through belts of dark firs upon my flying footsteps, bullets sang in my ears or found their mark in my flesh, and I awoke gasping and unable in the first few seconds of consciousness to convince myself that it was not all a horrible reality. Looking back on that now distant date and thinking over the flow of perilous turns in ...

It was early afternoon on October 26, 1881. In the mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, the well-armed lawmen Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, along with their friend Doc Holliday, wore long, dark coats as they strode to an alley near the O.K. Corral. Here, the four of them found five cattle rustlers who had threatened them repeatedly. The unarmed Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne were allowed to leave. The remaining three, Billy Clanton, and Frank and Tom McLaury, were shot dead while Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday were all injured. In the following months, the feud continued. Virgil was ...

For Clint Beck, a quest to arrest Ruffen is also his chance at redemption. Rustling is a big problem for the God-fearing folks of Perryville in 1870. Not only that, but it’s now escalated with the killing of community pillar Jonas Davidson – a farmer, husband and father of five. The town screams for justice. As Perryville sheriff, Clint sets out to arrest the guilty parties. Almost everyone in the county knows that Clyde Ruffen and his gang are behind the heinous crime but… proving it is another story. Ruffen has spent thirty years learning how to hide his crimes and avoid the law. He...

From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a bold, revelatory novel about one of the great untold stories of World War I—the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who broke down gender barriers in the military and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory.

The thrilling new novel featuring Jack West Jr., from the New York Times and number-one international best-selling author. Jack West Jr. and his family are living happily on their remote farm when Jack is brutally kidnapped, and he awakens in an underground cell to find a masked attacker with a knife charging at him. Jack, it seems, has been chosen - along with a dozen other elite soldiers - to compete in a series of deadly challenges designed to fulfill an ancient ritual.

A Call to Duty The greatest conflict in human history started brothers Ray F. and John B. Lewis on a journey that they never imagined as farm boys picking cotton in the dusty fields of West Texas during the Great Depression. World War II took them across the Atlantic to places they had only read about in books or seen on movie screens when they could afford theater tickets. By the time they returned to the States, they had lost their country-boy naivete. In To War and Back: The World War II Journey of Two West Texas Farm Boys, award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction Preston Lewis ...

He is a demon living in a human world Vice had always looked different. Cursed as a twisted halfling, his appearance makes the townsfolk both terrified and hateful. He spends his days struggling to coexist with the town and blaming himself for his human mother’s hardships. But when his burden becomes too much and he attempts to end it all, a flashing light blinds him. A meteor rains down, bringing with it mysterious voice that echoes in his mind. It calls itself Favian, and claims to come from a faraway place called Earth… Paired with this strange voice and tasked with a destiny beyond ...

London in April, 1940, was a place of great fear and conflict. Everyone was on edge; civilization itself seemed imperiled. The Germans are marching. They have taken Poland, France, Holland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia. They now menace Britain. Should Britain negotiate with Germany? The members of the War Cabinet bicker, yell, lose their control, and are divided. Churchill, leading the faction to fight, and Lord Halifax, cautioning that prudence is the way to survive, attempt to usurp one another by any means possible.