David Poyer - Böcker

The year is 1861, and America shudders on the brink of disunion. Elisha Eaker, scion of a wealthy Manhattan banking family, joins the Navy against his father's wishes. He does it as much to avoid an arranged marriage to his cousin, Araminta Van Velsor, as to defend the flag. Eli meets Lieutenant Ker Claiborne aboard the sloop of war U.S.S. Owanee. An Annapolis graduate who's seen action in the West Indies and the Africa Station, Claiborne is cool and competent in storm and battle, but he now faces an agonizing choice between the Navy he loves and his native Virginia. Whichever road he takes, he'll be called a traitor. With authentic nautical and historical detail, master sea-yarner David Poyer follows Eli, Araminta, Ker, and their loved ones and shipmates into a maelstrom of divided loyalties, bitter partings, stormy seas, governmental panic, political blundering, and, finally, the test of battle as the bloodiest and most divisive war in American history begins.

In the third volume of David Poyer's monumental Civil War at Sea cycle, North meets South in the momentous first battle between ironclads. In Fire on the Waters America split in two and the characters in David Poyer's Civil War at Sea series had to choose sides. Then, in A Country of Our Own, Ker Claiborne took the war north, aboard the Confederacy's most formidable commerce raider. Now, in That Anvil of Our Souls, David Poyer takes us into the turrets and casemates of the most historic sea engagement of the Civil War. In New York, Theo Hubbard is the engineer for a revolutionary new "fighting machine," the Monitor, and is eager to become a man of means . . . even if it compromises his integrity. In Norfolk, Catherine Claiborne faces her husband's impending hanging for piracy, their baby daughter's death, and the realities of occupation. In Richmond, Lieutenant Lomax Minter must find a spy who threatens the South's ultimate weapon: a tremendous ironclad, rebuilt from a sunken wreck; aging Dr. Steele witnesses the horrors that are the aftermath of glory; and gun captain Hanks, escaped slave, struggles with the twin snakes of "freedom."

We first met Lt. Ker Custis Claiborne, formerly of the United States Navy, in Fire on the Waters. Claiborne is no admirer of slavery. But he's a Virginian, joining the fledgling Confederate States Navy in 1861. After fighting along the Potomac with the Army of Virginia, Ker and his mentor, Captain Parker Trezevant, burn, sink, and destroy across the Caribbean to undermine the Union and force a truce favorable to the Confederacy. But when their first cruiser proves too slow and small, Ker joins Commander James Bullock in London to buy or build a ship of war that can sweep Yankee commerce from the seas. A daring coup puts Ker in command of the most dangerous raider ever to range from Brazil to Boston, but the bloodiest battle is yet to come -- a confrontation between the ex-opium clipper C.S.S. Maryland and the Union cruiser that has trailed her across a quarter of the world. A Country of Our Own is historical sea fiction at its best -- authentic, engrossing, and masterfully paced -- from the master sea-yarner The New York Times Book Review says "knows what he is writing about when it comes to anything on, above, or below the water."

The inside story of the most expensive and controversial military program in history, as told by those who lived it.The F-35 has changed allied combat warfare. But by the time it’s completed, it will cost more than the Manhattan Project and the B-2 Stealth Bomber. It has been subject to the most aggressive cyberattacks in history from China, Russia, North Korea, and others. Its stealth technology required nearly 9 million lines of code; NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover required 2.5 million. And it was this close to failure.F-35 is the only inside look at the most advanced aircraft in the world and the historic project that built it, as told by those who were intimately involved in its design, testing, and production. Based on the authors' personal experience and over 100+ interviews, F-35 pulls back the curtain on one of the most heavily criticized government programs in history from start to finish: the dramatic flights that won Lockheed Martin the contract over Boeing; the debates and decisions over capabilities; feats of software, hardware, and aeronautical engineering that made it possible; how the project survived the Nunn-McCurdy breach; the conflicts among all three branches of the U.S. military, between the eight other allied nation partners, and against spy elements from enemies.For readers of Skunk Works by Ben Rich and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, F-35 will pique the interest of airplane enthusiasts, defense industry insiders, military history aficionados, political junkies, and general nonfiction readers.