Staff Picks
BroaderBookshelf 2024: War in Nonfiction
- Megan M.
- Monday, January 15
Collection
Fulfill the "read a book about war" prompt with these titles.
This list is part of the BroaderBookshelf 2024 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
Paths of Dissent
Soldiers Speak out Against America's Misguided Wars
Published in 2022
Fifteen original essays from American veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan offer first-hand perspectives on what made America's post-9/11 wars such costly and misguided exercises in futility, documenting how the world's self-proclaimed greatest military power went so badly astray.
The Drone Eats with Me
A Gaza Diary
Published in 2016
"An ordinary Gazan's chronicle of the struggle to survive during Israel's 2014 invasion of Gaza The fifty-day Israel-Gaza conflict that began in early July of 2014 left over 2,100 people dead. The overwhelming majority of the dead were Palestinians, including some 500 children. Another 13,000-odd Palestinians were wounded, and 17,200 homes demolished. These statistics are sadly familiar, as is the political rhetoric from Israeli and Palestinian authorities alike. What is less familiar, however, is a sense of the ordinary Gazan society that war lays to waste. One of the few voices to make it out of Gaza was that of Atef Abu Saif, a writer and teacher from Jabalia refugee camp, whose eyewitness accounts (published in the Guardian, New York Times, and elsewhere) offered a rare window into the conflict for Western readers. Here, Abu Saif's complete diaries of the war allow us to witness the events of 2014 from the perspective of a young father, fearing for his family's safety. In The Drone Eats with Me, Abu Saif brings readers an intimate glimpse of life during wartime, as he, his wife, and his two young children attempt to live their lives with a sense of normalcy, in spite of the ever-present danger and carnage that is swallowing the place they call home"-- Provided by publisher.
A Stranger in Your Own City
Travels in the Middle East's Long War
Published in 2023
"An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war"-- Provided by publisher.
Volunteers
Growing Up in the Forever War
Published in 2021
"The memoir of a young man from a long line of enlisted men and women, raised on military bases and shaped from a young age to idolize and glorify war and the people who fight it. After he joins the Marines and serves in Iraq, he must begin to reckon with the troubled and complicated truths of the American war machine"-- Provided by publisher.
Valiant Women
The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
Published in 2023
n this groundbreaking new history of the role of American women in World War II, a top military analyst for the CIA presents the inspiring, shocking and heartbreaking stories of these servicewomen that reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of combat in the war and illustrates important realities about modern warfighting.
The Generals Have No Clothes
The Untold Story of Our Endless Wars
Published in 2021
A leading military expert looks at America's state of perpetual war, and offers solutions such as civilian control of the military and the use of a "Global Security Index" to determine if intervention is truly necessary.
The Rooster House
A Ukrainian Family Memoir
Published in 2023
"In 2014, the landmarks of Victoria Belim's personal geography were plunged into tumult at the hands of Russia. Her hometown Kyiv was gripped by protests and violent suppression. Crimea, where she'd once been sent to school to avoid radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, was invaded. Kharkiv, where her grandmother Valentina studied economics and fell in love; Donetsk, where her father once worked; and Mariupol, where she and her mother bought a cherry tree for Valentina's garden all became battlegrounds. A naturalized American citizen then living in Brussels, Belim felt she had to go back. She had to spend time with her aging grandmother and her cousin Dima. She had to unravel a family mystery spanning several generations. And she needed to understand how her country's tragic history of communist revolution, civil war, famine, world war, totalitarianism, and fraught independence had changed the course of their lives"-- Provided by publisher.
Fatherland
A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets
Published in 2023
"What do we owe the past? How to make peace with a dark family history? Burkhard Bilger hardly knew his grandfather growing up. His parents immigrated to Oklahoma from Germany after World War II, and though his mother was an historian, she rarely talked about her father or what he did during the war. Then one day a packet of letters arrived from Germany, yellowing with age, and a secret history began to unfold. Karl Gönner was a schoolteacher and Nazi party member from the Black Forest. In 1940, he was sent to a village in occupied France and tasked with turning its children into proper Germans. A fervent Nazi when the war began, he grew close to the villagers over the next four years, till he came to think of himself as their protector, shielding them from his own party's brutality. Yet he was arrested in 1946 and accused of war crimes. Was he guilty or innocent? A vicious collaborator or just an ordinary man, struggling to atone for his country's crimes? Bilger goes to Germany to find out"-- Provided by publisher.
Why We Fight
The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace
Published in 2022
"An acclaimed expert on violence and seasoned peacebuilder explains the five reasons why conflict (rarely) blooms into war, and how to interrupt that deadly process. It's easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war, to see it solely as a series of errors, accidents, and emotions gone awry. It's also easy to forget that war shouldn't happen-and most of the time it doesn't. Around the world there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a tiny fraction erupt into violence. Too many accounts of conflict forget this. With a counterintuitive approach, Blattman reminds us that most rivals loathe one another in peace. That's because war is too costly to fight. Enemies almost always find it better to split the pie than spoil it or struggle over thin slices. So, in those rare instances when fighting ensues, we should ask: what kept rivals from compromise? Why We Fight draws on decades of economics, political science, psychology, and real-world interventions to lay out the root causes and remedies for war, showing that violence is not the norm; that there are only five reasons why conflict wins over compromise; and how peacemakers turn the tides through tinkering, not transformation. From warring states to street gangs, ethnic groups and religious sects to political factions, there are common dynamics to heed and lessons to learn. Along the way, we meet vainglorious European monarchs, African dictators, Indian mobs, Nazi pilots, British football hooligans, ancient Greeks, and fanatical Americans. What of remedies that shift incentives away from violence and get parties back to deal-making? Societies are surprisingly good at interrupting and ending violence when they want to-even the gangs of Medellin do it. Realistic and optimistic, this is book that lends new meaning to the old adage, "Give peace a chance.""-- Provided by publisher.
The Lessons of Tragedy
Statecraft and World Order
Published in 2019
The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage--to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than seventy years of great-power peace and a quarter-century of unrivaled global leadership, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history. This amnesia has become most pronounced just as Americans and the global order they created are coming under graver threat than at any time in decades. In a forceful argument that brims with historical sensibility and policy insights, two distinguished historians argue that a tragic sensibility is necessary if America and its allies are to address the dangers that menace the international order today. Tragedy may be commonplace, Brands and Edel argue, but it is not inevitable-so long as we regain an appreciation of the world's tragic nature before it is too late.--Book jacket.
A Bright and Blinding Sun
A World War II Story of Survival, Love, and Redemption
Published in 2022
The New York Times best-selling author tells the true story of an underage solder who joined the Army at age fourteen and was sent to the Philippines after Pearl Harbor, where he became a prisoner of war.
Anatomy of Victory
Why the United States Triumphed in World War II, Fought to a Stalemate in Korea, Lost in Vietnam, and Failed in Iraq
Published in 2019
"This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America's modern wars, analyzing how and why the United States has moved from success to failure since WWII. As the United States enters a new period of uncertainty in the world, Caldwell makes the compelling case that leaders must think, plan, and prepare before shooting"-- Provided by publisher.
Father of Lions
One Man's Remarkable Quest to Save the Mosul Zoo
Published in 2020
"After two and a half years of ISIS occupation, and months of fighting between the militants and government forces, the Mosul Zoo was one of the few outdoor attractions still standing in Iraq's second city, its inhabitants kept alive by Abu Laith, a square-set 50-something mechanic and passionate animal lover. As the animals began to starve under the siege by advancing Iraqi army forces, Abu Laith, the "Father of Lions" and his protégées and family risked their lives to keep the animals alive. When liberation finally came, the city and the zoo were both on their last legs. It seemed as if all was lost, until a local former-government scientist, Hakam, saw a message on Facebook about a zoo nearby: a charity in Switzerland wanted to rescue the animals"-- Provided by publisher.
Lord of All the Dead
A Nonfiction Novel
Published in 2020
"From the internationally renowned author of The Impostor, a courageous journey into his own family history and that of a country collapsing from a fratricidal war--his most moving, most personal book, one he has spent his entire life preparing to write. Javier Cercas grew up hearing the legend of his adored great-uncle Manuel Mena, who died at nineteen in the bloodiest battle of the Spanish Civil War--while fighting for Franco's army. Who was this young man? A fascist hero whose memory is an embarrassment or a committed idealist who happened to fall on the wrong side of history? Is it possible to be a moral person defending an immoral cause? Through visits back to his parents' village in southern Spain, interviews with survivors, and research into the murkiest corners of the war, the author pieces together the life of this enigmatic figure and of an entire generation. This sui generis work combines intimate family history, investigative scholarship, personal confession, war stories, and road trips, finally becoming a transcendent portrait of a country's indelible scars--a book about heroism, death, the persistence of the past, and the meaning of an individual life against the tapestry of history"-- Provided by publisher.
Tastes Like War
A Memoir
Published in 2021
"Grace M. Cho grew up in a small, rural American town as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. When Grace was fifteen, her Korean mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue for the rest of her life. Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, TASTES LIKE WAR is a hybrid text about a daughter's search through intimate and global history to understand herself and the cultural roots of her mother's condition"-- Provided by publisher.
Bismarck's War
The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe
Published in 2023
A new history of the war that toppled the French Empire, unified Germany, and set Europe on the path to World War I Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shattering French supremacy, deposing Napoleon III, and uniting a new German Empire. But it also produced brutal military innovations and a precarious new imbalance of power that together set the stage for the devastating world wars of the next century. In Bismarck's War, historian Rachel Chrastil chronicles events on the battlefield in full, while also showing in intimate detail how the war reshaped and blurred the boundaries between civilian and soldier as the fighting swept across France. The result is the definitive history of a transformative conflict that changed Europe, and the history of warfare, forever.
The Soldier's Truth
Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II
Published in 2023
"The Soldier's Truth brings to life Ernie Pyle's years as a combat journalist in World War II. With a background in helping veterans and other survivors of trauma come to terms with their experiences through storytelling, the author brings empathy and insight to bear on Pyle's experiences. A tribute to an ordinary American hero whose impact on the war is still little understood, as well as a reckoning with that war's impact and how it is remembered, this book contributes to our understanding of war and how we make sense of it"-- Provided by publisher.
Muhammad
Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires
Published in 2018
"A ... history that brings to life the fascinating and complex world of the Prophet, Muhammad is the story of how peace is the rule and not the exception for one of the world's most practiced religions."--Jacket.
A Brutal Reckoning
Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South
Published in 2023
"From acclaimed historian Peter Cozzens, the pivotal struggle between the Creek Indians and an insatiable United States for control over the Deep South"-- Provided by publisher.
No Ordinary Assignment
A Memoir
Published in 2023
"From award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, an unflinching memoir of ambition and war-from the Troubles to the fall of Kabul. In Northern Ireland in the 1980s and '90s, war was a secret, and young Jane Ferguson wanted to know the truth. For her, war was called the Troubles, bomb threats and military checkpoints on the way to school were commonplace, and an uncle's gunshot wound in IRA crossfire was disguised as a cow kick. Jane developed a penchant for asking questions that cut through this culture of silence, while the unspoken tension in her village exploded into abuse and rage at home. An opportunity to study Arabic in Yemen after college came as a great relief, a ticket to a different, adventurous life-and to the very center of the story. Ferguson has since reported from nearly every war front around the globe-from Yemen and Syria during the Arab Spring, Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul, and Ukraine during Russia's 2022 invasion-but her rise to the highest ranks of journalism has been anything but ordinary. As a scrappy one-woman reporting team, a borrowed camera her only equipment, networks often told her she simply had the wrong accent, even the wrong appearance. Still, her ambition to build a life in journalism on her own terms thrust her into harm's way time and again. While other reporters chased "bang bang shoot 'em up" stories, a different set of questions guided Ferguson's work, ones that gave faces and names to the people experiencing these conflicts. In the face of grave violence and suffering, giving voice to civilian lives seemed a small act of justice, no matter the risks. For fans of Samantha Power, Marie Colvin, and Ariel Levy, Ferguson's bold debut chronicles her unlikely journey from bright, inquisitive child to intrepid war correspondent from the front lines of the most dangerous conflicts and dire humanitarian crises of our time. With an open-hearted humanity we rarely see in conflict stories, No Ordinary Assignment shows what it means to build an authentic career against the odds"-- Provided by publisher.
What You Have Heard is True
A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
Published in 2019
Describes the author's deep friendship with a mysterious intellectual who introduced her to the culture and people of El Salvador in the 1970s, a tumultuous period in the country's history, inspiring her work as an unlikely activist.
Crash Course
From the Good War to the Forever War
Published in 2018
"Growing up during the Second World War, H. Bruce Franklin believed what he was told: that America's victory would lead to a new era of world peace. Like most Americans, he was soon led to believe in a world wide Communist conspiracy that menaced the United States, forcing the nation into a disastrous war in Korea. But once he joined the U.S. Air Force and began flying top-secret missions as a navigator and intelligence officer, what he learned was eye-opening: that even as the U.S. preached about peace and freedom, it was engaging in an endless cycle of warfare, bringing devastation and oppression to fledgling democracies across the globe. Now, after fifty years as a renowned cultural historian, Franklin offers a set of hard-learned lessons about modern American history. Crash Course is essential reading for anyone who wonders how America ended up where it is today: with a deeply divided and disillusioned populace, led by a dysfunctional government, and mired in unwinnable wars. It also finds startling parallels between America's foreign military exploits and the equally brutal tactics used on the home front to crush organized labor, antiwar, and civil rights movements."--Dust jacket flap.
Pumpkinflowers
A Soldier's Story
Published in 2016
"Describes the author's harrowing experiences manning a remote Israeli outpost with a regiment of other young soldiers, during a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s that foreshadowed other unwinnable conflicts in the Middle East,"--NoveList.
Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful
Stories from Afghanistan
Published in 2022
"Collection of literary reportage from Afghanistan: stories that go unreported, the lives of people not usually considered newsworthy or important, people who struggle just to survive"-- Provided by publisher.
Rome and Persia
The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry
Published in 2023
"The relationship between the Roman Empire and its rival, the Parthian-Persian Empire, has long been viewed as bloody, hostile, and destructive. In fact, the truth is more complex. For more than seven hundred years, the Romans lived side by side by their eastern neighbors, sometimes at war, more often at peace, almost always trading with each other to their mutual benefit. The Roman Empire was wealthier and larger than the Persian Empire and its predecessor, the Parthian Empire, but all three enjoyed a level of sophistication unprecedented in history. The bitter rivals had no choice but to view one another with suspicion as well as respect. The empires tread a tenuous peace-until, following the Arab Conquests, Persia collapsed and Rome violently contracted. Covering seven centuries of imperial competition, Rome and Persia offers the definitive history of the epic rivalry between the ancient world's superpowers. Drawing on extensive research, historian Adrian Goldsworthy traces how the empires clashed as they co-evolved, from first-century diplomatic misunderstandings between the Roman Republic and Parthia, through centuries of bitter assaults on both sides under dozens of leaders, to the Sassanid clan's seizure of Persian power from the Parthian dynasty in the third century, to a fifth-century return to wary peace between nations as the strength of both sides fluctuated. Across the ages, trade between Rome and Persia helped enrich both empires, and each side maintained active, if tense, diplomatic relations with the other. Even as Romans tried to conquer all their other enemies, they grudgingly respected Persia and never tried to permanently neutralize the empire; Persians also restrained themselves when caught in conflict with Rome. Only with the sudden onset of a titanic, exhausting, and ultimately futile war launched by the last great Sasanian king in the 7th century did the two empires overstretch themselves and severely weaken one another. In the wake of the devastating conflict, ascendant Arab armies easily conquered Persia, sweeping away the Sasanians, and left the Roman Empire as a shadow of its former self. Authoritative and epic in scope, this completely reshapes our understanding of the ancient world's two superpowers, revealing the fascinating history of Rome and Persia's rivalry and the empires' rich legacies"-- Provided by publisher.
Saved
A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home
Published in 2023
When veteran war reporter Benjamin Hall woke up in Kyiv on the morning of March 14, 2022, he had no idea that, within hours, Russian bombs would nearly end his life. As a journalist for Fox News, Hall had worked in dangerous war zones like Syria and Afghanistan, but with three young daughters at home, life on the edge was supposed to be a thing of the past. Yet when Russia viciously attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Hall quickly volunteered to go. A few weeks later, while on assignment, Hall and his crew were blown up in a Russian strike. With Hall himself gravely injured and stuck in Kyiv, it was unclear if he would make it out alive.
The Hungry Season
A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
Published in 2023
This unforgettable portrait of resistance, from Laos to California, follows one woman, with wounds inflicted by war and family alike, as she builds a new existence for her and her children by growing Hmong rice, just as her ancestors did, and selling it to those who hunger for the Laos of their memories.
Invasion
The Inside Story of Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival
Published in 2022
"In a damning, inspiring, and breathtaking narrative of what is likely to be a turning point for Europe--and the world--Guardian correspondent and New York Times bestselling author Luke Harding reports firsthand on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When, just before dawn on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin launched a series of brutal attacks, Harding was there, on the ground in Kyiv. But this senseless violence was met with astounding resilience--from, among others, the country's embattled president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy--and the courage of a people prepared to risk everything to preserve their nation's freedom." -- Back cover.
Modern Warriors
Real Stories from Real Heroes
Published in 2020
From Fox & Friends Weekend cohost Pete Hegseth comes a collection of stories from fifteen of America's greatest heroes--highly decorated Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, marines, Purple Heart recipients, combat pilots, a Medal of Honor recipient, and more--based on Fox Nation's show of the same name.
The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine
A History
Published in 2022
A startling narrative revealing the impressive medical and surgical advances that quickly developed as solutions to the horrors unleashed by World War I. The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb. The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine provides a startling and graphic account of the efforts of teams of doctors and researchers to quickly develop medical and surgical solutions. Those problems of gas gangrene, hemorrhagic shock, gas poisoning, brain trauma, facial disfigurement, broken bones, and broken spirits flooded hospital beds, stressing caregivers and prompting medical innovations that would last far beyond the Armistice of 1918 and would eventually provide the backbone of modern medical therapy. Thomas Helling's description of events that shaped refinements of medical care is a riveting account of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of men and women to deter the total destruction of the human body and human mind. His tales of surgical daring, industrial collaboration, scientific discovery, and utter compassion provide an understanding of the horror that laid a foundation for the medical wonders of today. The marvels of resuscitation, blood transfusion, brain surgery, X-rays, and bone setting all had their beginnings on the battlefields of France. The influenza contagion in 1918 was an ominous forerunner of the frightening pandemic of 2020-2021. For anyone curious about the true terrors of war and the miracles of modern medicine, this is a must read.
"Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself"
The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945
Published in 2020
"By the end of April 1945 in Germany, the Third Reich had fallen and invasion was underway. As the Red Army advanced, horrifying stories spread about the depravity of its soldiers. For many German people, there seemed to be nothing left but disgrace and despair. For tens of thousands of them, the only option was to choose death -- for themselves and for their children. "Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself" recounts this little-known mass event. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, historian Florian Huber traces the euphoria of many ordinary Germans as Hitler restored national pride; their indifference as the Führer's political enemies, Jews, and other minorities began to suffer; and the descent into despair as the war took its terrible toll, especially after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Above all, he investigates how suicide became a contagious epidemic as the country collapsed. Drawing on eyewitness accounts and other primary sources, "Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself" presents a riveting portrait of a nation in crisis, and sheds light on a dramatic yet largely unknown episode of postwar Germany."--Amazon.com.
The Apache Wars
The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History
Published in 2016
Sword and Scimitar
Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West
Published in 2018
A sweeping history of the often-violent conflict between Islam and the West, shedding a revealing light on current hostilities The West and Islam--the sword and the scimitar--have clashed since the mid-seventh century, when, according to Muslim tradition, the Byzantine emperor rejected Prophet Muhammad's order to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, unleashing a centuries-long jihad on Christendom. Sword and Scimitar chronicles the significant battles that arose from this ages-old Islamic jihad, beginning with the first major Islamic attack on Christian land in 636, through the occupation of the Middle East that prompted the Crusades and the far-flung conquests of the Ottoman Turks, to the European colonization of the Muslim world in the 1800s, when Islam largely went on the retreat--until its reemergence in recent times. Using original sources in Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Turkish, preeminent historian Raymond Ibrahim describes each battle in vivid detail and explains the effect the outcome had on larger historical currents of the age and how the military lessons of the battle reflect the cultural faultlines between Islam and the West. The majority of these landmark battles are now forgotten or considered inconsequential. Yet today, as the West faces a resurgence of this enduring Islamic jihad, Sword and Scimitar provides the needed historical context to understand the current relationship between the West and the Islamic world, and why the Islamic State is merely the latest chapter of an old history.
The Tears of a Man Flow Inward
Growing Up in the Civil War in Burundi
Published in 2022
"As a little boy, Pacifique Irankunda lived through the thirteen-year civil war in Burundi, the war that upended his home and family, and destroyed Burundi's beautiful culture and traditions. He hid and watched as military units destroyed his village; he and his brother slept in the woods on nights when they heard shooting and violence. From his own memories and those of his family, he tells this story of surviving the devastating ethnic divisions and violence in a country that once had a rich and beautiful culture of belief and traditions, destroyed by the aftermath of a history of colonialism. Paci's extraordinary and wise mother, one of the inspiring beacons of light in this book, led her children and others in ingenious acts of survival and kindness, through her unique ability to bring out the good in people, generosity towards even the soldiers who threatened them, and in her role as a Mushingantahe, an honorary title for a chosen leader in the village"-- Provided by publisher.
Crusaders
An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
Published in 2019
"For more than one thousand years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era. Expanding the usual timeframe, Jones looks to the roots of Christian-Muslim relations in the eighth century and tracks the influence of crusading to present day. He widens the geographical focus to far-flung regions home to so-called enemies of the Church, including Spain, North Africa, southern France, and the Baltic states. By telling intimate stories of individual journeys, Jones illuminates these centuries of war not only from the perspective of popes and kings, but from Arab-Sicilian poets, Byzantine princesses, Sunni scholars, Shi'ite viziers, Mamluk slave soldiers, Mongol chieftains, and barefoot friars. Crusading remains a rallying call to this day, but its role in the popular imagination ignores the cooperation and complicated coexistence that were just as much a feature of the period as warfare. The age-old relationships between faith, conquest, wealth, power, and trade meant that crusading was not only about fighting for the glory of God, but also, among other earthly reasons, about gold. In this richly dramatic narrative that gives voice to sources usually pushed to the margins, Dan Jones has written an authoritative survey of the holy wars with global scope and human focus"-- Provided by publisher.
Nazi Billionaires
The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties
Published in 2022
A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II--and how America allowed them to get away with it. In 1946, Günther Quandt--patriarch of Germany's most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW--was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his archrival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz, and still control Porsche, Volkswagen, and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight--until now. In this landmark work of investigative journalism, David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany's wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler's army as Europe burned around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how America's political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.
Bravo Company
An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath
Published in 2022
"In Bravo Company, journalist and combat veteran Ben Kesling tells the story of the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of the men of one unit, part of a combat-hardened parachute infantry regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division. A decade ago, the soldiers of Bravo Company deployed to Afghanistan for a tour in Kandahar's notorious Arghandab Valley. By the time they made it home, three soldiers had been killed in action, a dozen more had lost limbs, and an astonishing half of the company had Purple Hearts. In the decade since, two of the soldiers have died by suicide, more than a dozen have tried, and others admit they've considered it. Declared at "extraordinary risk" by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Bravo Company was chosen as test subjects for a new approach to the veteran crisis, focusing less on isolated individuals and more on the group"--book jacket.
Uncertain Ground
Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War
Published in 2022
"When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago, after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself part of the community of veterans who have no choice but to grapple with the meaning of their wartime experiences-for themselves and for the country. American identity has always been bound up in war-from the revolutionary war of our founding, to the civil war that ended slavery, to the two world wars that launched America as a superpower. What did the current wars say about who we are as a country, and how should we respond as citizens? Unlike previous eras of war, few other Americans have had to do any real grappling with the endless, invisible wars of the post-9/11 world at all; in fact, increasingly, few people are even aware they are still going on. It's as if there's a dark star with a strong gravitational force that draws a relatively small number of soldiers and their families into its orbit, while remaining inconspicuous to most other Americans. In the meantime, the consequences of American military action abroad may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are very real indeed. This chasm between military and civilian in American life, and the moral blind spot it has created, is one of the great themes of Uncertain Ground, Phil Klay's powerful series of reckonings in essay form over the past ten years with some of our country's thorniest concerns. In the name of what do we ask young Americans to kill, and to die? In the name of what does this country hang together? As we see at every turn in these pages, those two questions have a great deal to do with one another, and how we answer them will go a long way toward deciding where our troubled country goes from here"-- Provided by publisher.
Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth
New and Selected Poems, 2001-2021
Published in 2021
"A selection of new and previously published poems from the celebrated poet"-- Provided by publisher.
The Wingmen
The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams
Published in 2023
"The untold story of the unique fifty-year friendship between two American icons: John Glenn, the unassailable pioneer of space exploration and Ted Williams, indisputably the greatest hitter in baseball history"-- Provided by publisher
African Samurai
The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan
Published in 2019
The Long War
The Inside Story of America and Afghanistan Since 9/11
Published in 2021
"As troops pull out of Afghanistan at the end of America's longest war, The Long War uncovers the failures at the start that set the scene for this prolonged conflict. Three American presidents tried to defeat the Taliban - sending 150,000 international troops at the peak and spending a trillion dollars. But early policy mistakes that allowed Osama bin Laden to escape made the task far harder. Deceived by easy victories, they backed ruthless corrupt local allies and misspent aid. The story of The Long War is told by the Generals who led it through the hardest years of combat as surges of international troops tried to turn the tide. Generals including David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal, Joe Dunford and John Allen were tested in battle as never before. With the reputation of a "warrior monk" McChrystal was considered one of the most gifted military leaders of his generation. He was one of two Generals to be fired in this most public of commands. Holding together the coalition of countries who joined America's fight in Afghanistan was just one part of the multi-dimensional puzzle faced by the Generals, as they fought an elusive and determined enemy while responsible for thousands of young American and allied lives. The Long War goes behind the scenes of their command and of the Afghan government. The fourth president to take on the war, Joe Biden, pulled troops out in 2021 twenty years after 9/11 while the conflict still raged, a decision with unforeseeable consequences"-- Provided by publisher.
Star Crossed
A True Romeo and Juliet Story in Hitler's Paris
Published in 2023
"Paris, 1940. The City of Light has fallen under German occupation. Among patriotic Parisians, the pursuit of art, culture, and jazz has become a bold act of defiance. So has forbidden love for talented and spirited Jewish teenager Annette Zelman, a student at the Beaux-Arts, and dashing young Catholic poet Jean Jausion. Despite their devout families' vehement opposition, the young couple finds acceptance at the famed Café de Flore, whose habitues include Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Django Reinhardt, and other luminaries of the Latin Quarter. For a time, Annette and Jean feel they have eluded the brute might of the relentless Nazis--and more immediately, their parents' threats and demands. But as restrictions on the Jewish community escalate to arrests and deportations, the maleficent forces gathering around the young lovers set them on divergent and tragically inevitable paths. Drawn from never-before-published family letters and other treasures, as well as archival sources and exclusive interviews, Star-Crossed offers us precious insight into the Holocaust and the lives French people bravely led under the Hitler regime. This breathtaking true story of beauty, art, liberation, and the transformative power of love resonates with an intimate story of undying devotion, seen through the prism of history"-- Provided by publisher.
Black Ghost of Empire
The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation
Published in 2022
"The 1619 Project illuminated the ways in which every aspect of life in the United States was and is shaped by the existence of slavery. Black Ghost of Empire focuses on emancipation and how this opportunity to make right further codified the racial castesystem-instead of obliterating it.To understand why the shadow of slavery still haunts society today, we must not only look at what slavery was, but also the unfinished way it ended. One may think of "emancipation" as a finale, leading to a new age of human rights and universal freedoms. But in reality, emancipations everywhere were incomplete. In Black Ghost of Empire, acclaimed historian and professor Kris Manjapra identifies five types of emancipation-explaining them in chronological order-along withthe lasting impact these transitions had on formerly enslaved groups around the Atlantic. Beginning in 1770s and concluding in 1880s, different kinds of emancipation processes took place across the Atlantic world. These included the Gradual Emancipationsof North America, the Revolutionary Emancipation of Haiti, the Compensated Emancipations of European overseas empires, the War Emancipation of the American South, and the Conquest Emancipations that swept across Sub-Saharan Africa. Tragically, despite a century of abolitions and emancipations, systems of social bondage persisted and reconfigured. We still live with these unfinished endings today. In practice, all the slavery emancipations that have ever taken place reenacted racial violence against Blackcommunities, and reaffirmed commitment to white supremacy. The devil lurked in the details of the five emancipation processes, none of which required atonement for wrongs committed, or restorative justice for the people harmed. Manjapra shows how, amidstthis unfinished history, grassroots Black organizers and activists have become custodians of collective recovery and remedy; not only for our present, but also for our relationship with the past. Timely, lucid, and crucial to our understanding of the ongoing "anti-mattering" of Black people, Black Ghost of Empire shines a light into the deep gap between the idea of slavery's end and its actual perpetuation in various forms-exposing the shadows that linger to this day"-- Provided by publisher.
Overreach
The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine
Published in 2022
"The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most serious geopolitical crisis since the Second World War--and yet at the heart of the conflict is a mystery. Vladimir Putin apparently lurched from a calculating, subtle master of opportunity to a reckless gambler, putting his regime--and Russia itself--at risk of destruction. Why? Drawing on over 25 years' experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the COVID bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky. Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreach tells the story not only of the war's causes but how the first six months unfolded"-- Provided by publisher.
The Greek Revolution
1821 and the Making of Modern Europe
Published in 2021
"As Mark Mazower shows us in his enthralling and definitive new history, myths about the Greek War of Independence outpaced the facts from the very beginning, and for good reason. This was an unlikely cause, against long odds, a ragtag collection of Greek patriots up against what was still one of the most formidable empires in the world, the Ottomans. The revolutionaries needed all the help they could get. And they got it as Europeans and Americans embraced the idea that the heirs to ancient Greece, the wellspring of Western civilization, were fighting for their freedom against the proverbial Eastern despot, the Turkish sultan. This was Christianity versus Islam, now given urgency by new ideas about the nation-state, and democracy, that were shaking up the old order. Lord Byron is only the most famous of the combatants who went to Greece to fight and die-many more followed events passionately and supported the cause through art, music, and humanitarian aid. To many who did go, it was a rude awakening to find that the Greeks were a far cry from their illustrious forebears, and were often hard to tell apart from the Ottomans. Mazower does full justice to the realities on the ground as a revolutionary conspiracy triggered outright rebellion, and a shambolic and distracted Ottoman leadership first missed the plot and then overreacted disastrously. He shows how and why ethnic cleansing commenced almost immediately on both sides. By the time the dust settled, Greece was free, and Europe was changed forever. It was a victory for a completely new kind of politics-international in its range and affiliations, popular in its origins, romantic in sentiment, and radical in its goals. It was here on the very edge of Europe that the first successful revolution took place in which a people claimed liberty for themselves and overthrew an entire empire to attain it, transforming diplomatic norms and the direction of European politics forever. This new world of nation-states is the world in which we still live. Mark Mazower's reckoning with its birth pangs in Greece is a masterpiece of the historian's art"-- Provided by publisher
The Napoleonic Wars
A Global History
Published in 2020
"In this ambitious and far-ranging work, Alexander Mikaberidze argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood in an international perspective. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Taking specific regions in turn, Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century. In Egypt, the wars led to the rise of Mehmed Ali and the emergence of a powerful state; in North America, the period transformed and enlarged the newly established United States; and in South America, the Spanish colonial empire witnessed the start of national-liberation movements that ultimately ended imperial control." --Provided by publisher.
The Polar Bear Expedition
The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919
Published in 2019
"The extraordinary true story of America's forgotten invasion of Russia: one-thousand miles north of Moscow, five-thousand brave U.S. troops from Michigan fought the Red Army during the winter of 1918-1919 in brutal arctic conditions."--Provided by publisher.
The Allure of Battle
A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost
Published in 2017
"History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains--from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon--played a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare."--Provided by publisher.
War Doctor
Surgery on the Front Line
Published in 2020
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world's most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital. The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal. Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe whether war or natural disaster was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets. War Doctor is his extraordinary story.
Conflict
The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
Published in 2023
"In this deep and incisive study, General David Petraeus, who commanded the US-led coalitions in both Iraq, during the Surge, and Afghanistan and former CIA director, and the prize-winning historian Andrew Roberts, explore over 70 years of conflict, drawing significant lessons and insights from their fresh analysis of the past. Drawing on their different perspectives and areas of expertise, Petraeus and Roberts show how often critical mistakes have been repeated time and again, and the challenge, for statesmen and generals alike, of learning to adapt to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies"-- Provided by publisher.
The Crowded Hour
Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century
Published in 2019
"The dramatic story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century"-- Provided by publisher.
Black Snow
Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
Published in 2022
"Black Snow brilliantly vivifies the horrific reality of the most destructive air attack in history, against Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945. James Scott deftly employs sharply etched portraits of individuals of all stations and nationalities to survey the global, technological, and moral backdrop of the cataclysm, including the searing experiences of Japanese trapped in a gigantic firestorm. This riveting account illuminates an historical moment of profound contemporary relevance." --Richard B. Frank, author of Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War: July 1937-May 1942.
The Diary Keepers
World War II in the Netherlands, As Written by the People Who Lived Through It
Published in 2023
"Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists. The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven't seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp"-- Provided by publisher
The War of Nerves
Inside the Cold War Mind
Published in 2022
A history of the Cold War as primarily a conflict of psychology.
You Don't Know What War is
The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine
Published in 2022
An important, harrowing and ultimately hopeful memoir about the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war as told through the diary entries of a young Ukrainian girl.
War Made Invisible
How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine
Published in 2023
"An exposé of how the American military, with the help of the media, conceals its perpetual war"-- Provided by publisher.
Four-fisted Tales
Animals in Combat
Published in 2021
"From hauling munitions to finding mines, and even being captured by the enemy and traded in a PoW exchange, animals have fought-and often died-alongside their human counterparts in virtually every military conflict in recorded history. You've likely heard the stories of the men and women who've fought in the trenches, jungles, and deserts of the world's battlefields; Four-Fisted Tales: Animals in Combat tells the stories of the animals who fought alongside them"-- Provided by publisher.
Road to Disaster
A New History of America's Descent into Vietnam
Published in 2018
Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the young stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite millions of words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent, brilliant, and previously successful men stumbled so badly, until now.
The Hell of Good Intentions
America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy
Published in 2018
What Have We Done
The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars
Published in 2016
Most Americans are now familiar with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking new book, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict. It is a call to listen intently to our newest generation of veterans, and to ponder the inevitable human costs of putting American "boots on the ground" as new wars approach, -- adapted from book jacket.
Lost at Sea
Eddie Rickenbacker's Twenty-four Days Adrift on the Pacific--a World War II Tale of Courage and Faith
Published in 2023
"The forgotten story of American war hero Eddie Rickenbacker's crash landing in the Pacific during World War II, and his incredible 23-day crusade to keep his crew alive"-- Provided by publisher.
Against the World
Anti-globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars
Published in 2023
"Before the First World War, enthusiasm for a borderless world reached its height. International travel, migration, trade, and progressive projects on matters ranging from women's rights to world peace reached a crescendo. Yet in the same breath, an undercurrent of reaction was growing, one that would surge ahead with the outbreak of war and its aftermath. In Against the World, a sweeping and ambitious work of history, acclaimed scholar Tara Zahra examines how nationalism, rather than internationalism, came to ensnare world politics in the early twentieth century. The air went out of the globalist balloon with the First World War as quotas were put on immigration and tariffs on trade, not only in the United States but across Europe, where war and disease led to mass societal upheaval. The "Spanish flu" heightened anxieties about porous national boundaries. The global impact of the 1929 economic crash and the Great Depression amplified a quest for food security in Europe and economic autonomy worldwide. Demands for relief from the instability and inequality linked to globalization forged democracies and dictatorships alike, from Gandhi's India to America's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. Immigration restrictions, racially constituted notions of citizenship, anti-Semitism, and violent outbursts of hatred of the "other" became the norm-coming to genocidal fruition in the Second World War. Millions across the political spectrum sought refuge from the imagined and real threats of the global economy in ways strikingly reminiscent of our contemporary political moment: new movements emerged focused on homegrown and local foods, domestically produced clothing and other goods, and back-to-the-land communities. Rich with astonishing detail gleaned from Zahra's unparalleled archival research in five languages, Against the World is a poignant and thorough exhumation of the popular sources of resistance to globalization. With anti-globalism a major tenet of today's extremist agendas, Zahra's arrestingly clearsighted and wide-angled account is essential reading to grapple with our divided present"-- Provided by publisher.
War and Punishment
Putin, Zelinsky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Published in 2023
"In his time as a journalist, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players--from politicians to oligarchs. As an expert on Putin's moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin's plan regarding Ukraine, and here, in clear, chronological order he explains how we got here. In 1996 to 2004, Ukraine became an independent post-Soviet country where everyone was connected to the former empire at all levels, financially, culturally, psychologically. However, the elite anticipated that the empire would be back and punish them. From 2004 to 2018, there were many states inside one state, each with its own rulers/oligarchs and its own interests--some of them directly connected with Russia. In 2018, a new generation of Ukrainians arrive, and having grown in an independent country, they do not consider themselves to be part of Russia--and that was the moment when the war began, as Putin could not tolerate losing Ukraine forever. Authoritative, timely, and vitally important, this is an unprecedented overview of the war that affects us all and continues to threaten the future of the entire world as we know it"-- Provided by publisher.