"A vivid narrative of a life in intelligence and special operations, from the Cold War to the war on terror. In 1984, Michael Vickers took charge of the CIA's secret campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Inheriting a strategy aimed at imposing costs on Russia, Vickers transformed the campaign into an all-out effort to help the Afghans win their war. More than any other American, he was responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan that led to...

On Hallowed Ground opens with the long-delayed funeral of four servicemen, brought home for final honors at Arlington National Cemetery almost forty years after they disappeared in Vietnam. To understand how this tradition of extraordinary care for our war dead began, Robert Poole traces the founding of Arlington Cemetery on what had been the family plantation of Robert E. Lee. After resigning his commission in the U.S. Army, Lee left Arlington

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Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and scope--has expanded enormously with each passing year....

"This suspenseful and propulsive account of the days leading up to the end of World War II, is told through the stories of three men: Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atomic bomb; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in Europe and the Pacific, who was in charge of actually dropping the bombs; and Shigenori T�og�o, the Japanese Foreign Minister, who was the only one in Emperor...

"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about the possible use of atomic weapons in response to China's...

Presents a history of the most famous secret military installation in the world, assembled from interviews with the people who served there and formerly classified information.

"A chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism by Marines called on to do the impossible during the greatest battle of the Korean War."--Provided by publisher.

In "American Gun", the deadliest sniper in U.S. history tracks down and shoots the most important American firearms, from a flintlock rifle to a Colt revolver to the latest high-tech weapon he used as a SEAL. Chris Kyle uses these guns as a window on United States history, making the sweeping argument that the American story has been tied to and shaped by the gun.

Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" (The New York Times Book Review).
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...