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War by Numbers assesses the nature of conventional warfare through the analysis of historical combat. Christopher A. Lawrence establishes what we know about conventional combat and why we know it. By demonstrating the impact a variety of factors have on combat he moves such analysis beyond the work of Carl von Clausewitz and into modern data and interpretation.Using vast data sets, Lawrence examines force ratios, the human factor in case studies from World War II and beyond, the combat value of superior situational awareness, and the effects of dispersion, among other elements. Lawrence challenges existing interpretations of conventional warfare and shows how such combat should be conducted in the future, simultaneously broadening our understanding of what it means to fight wars by the numbers.

“The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.” With these words, Robert Taber began a revolution in conventional military thought that has dramatically impacted the way armed conflicts have been fought since the book’s initial publication in 1965.Whether ideological, nationalistic, or religious, all guerrilla insurgencies use similar tactics to advance their cause. War of the Flea's timeless analysis of the guerrilla fighter’s means and methods provides a fundamental resource for any reader seeking to understand this distinct form of warfare and the challenge it continues to present to today’s armed forces in the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere.

Before Chappaquiddick captures Mary Jo Kopechne’s intelligence, idealism, and beauty. Weaving her life story into the fabric of the Kennedy brothers’ political careers, Kashatus sets this promising young political consultant free from the rumors and bold-faced lies that have tarnished her reputation for a half century.-Donald D. McFadden, attorney and private investigator for the Kopechne exhumation hearingOn July 18, 1969, a car driven by Senator Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, off the coast of Cape Cod. Mary Jo Kopechne, a twenty-eight-year-old former staffer for Kennedy’s brother Robert, died in the crash. The scandal that followed demeaned Kopechne’s reputation and scapegoated her for Ted Kennedy’s inability to run for the presidency instead of acknowledging her as an innocent victim in a tragedy that took her life.William C. Kashatus’s biography of Mary Jo Kopechne illuminates the life of a politically committed young woman who embodied the best ideals of the sixties. Arriving in Washington in 1963, Kopechne soon joined the staff of Robert F. Kennedy and committed herself to his vision of compassion for the underprivileged, social idealism tempered by political realism, and a more humane nation. Kashatus details her work as an energetic and trusted staffer who became one of the famed Boiler Room Girls at the heart of RFK’s presidential campaign. Shattered by his assassination, Kopechne took a break from politics before returning as a consultant. It was at a reunion of the Boiler Room Girls that she accepted a ride from Edward Kennedy-a decision she would pay for with her life.The untold-and long overdue-story of a promising life cut short, Before Chappaquiddick tells the human side of one of the most memorable scandals of the 1960s.

Spymaster’s Prism is a prescient study of our unending struggle with Russia and its intelligence agencies’ relentless effort to undermine our national security. Replete with the most salient spy stories, covert actions, and counterintelligence investigations from the beginning of the Cold War up until the eve of Putin’s misguided march on Kiev, legendary spymaster Jack Devine builds a vivid and complex mosaic that illustrates how Russia has employed intelligence activities to undermine our democracy throughout modern history and lay the groundwork for this invasion.Devine tells this story through the gimlet-eyed perspective of a seasoned CIA professional who served his country for more than three decades, sometimes at the highest levels of the agency, offering objective and candid analysis that will bring new insight into Russia’s invasion. Devine offers key lessons from our intelligence successes and failures over the past seventy-five years that illuminate how best to address our current strategic shortfalls, emerge ahead in the war, and be prepared for what’s to come from any adversary. This cogent study illuminates why intelligence has been such a key driver in the war and how it will be a critical lever in order to prevail.

. . . .rich in colourful detail, and displays impressive knowledge of sailing and fighting skills. --Richard Hill, The Naval ReviewAccessible to both the general and the more scholarly reader, it will appeal not only to those with an interest in piracy and in maritime, naval, and military history, but also to mariners in general, tall-ship and ship-modeling enthusiasts, tacticians and military analysts, readers of historical fiction, writers, and the adventurer in all of us.To read of sea roving's various incarnations - piracy, privateering, buccaneering, la flibuste, la course - is to bring forth romantic, and often violent, imagery. Indeed, much of this imagery has become a literary and cinematic clich?. And what an image it is! But its truth is by halves, and paradoxically it is the picaresque imagery of Pyle, Wyeth, Sabatini, and Hollywood that is often closer to the reality, while the historical details of arms, tactics, and language are often inaccurate or entirely anachronistic.Successful sea rovers were careful practitioners of a complex profession that sought wealth by stratagem and force of arms. Drawn from the European tradition, yet of various races and nationalities, they raided both ship and town throughout much of the world from roughly 1630 until 1730. Using a variety of innovative tactics and often armed with little more than musket and grenade, many of these self-described "soldiers and privateers" successfully assaulted fortifications, attacked shipping from small craft, crossed the mountains and jungles of Panama, and even circumnavigated the globe. Successful sea rovers were often supreme seamen, soldiers, and above all, tacticians. It can be argued that their influence on certain naval tactics is felt even today. The Sea Rover's Practice is the only book that describes in exceptional detail the tactics of sea rovers of the period - how they actually sought out and attacked vessels and towns.

Between the grinding battles of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa and the finality of the atomic bomb strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. Air Force conducted a bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands that escalated to new levels of destruction. Burning Japan is an investigation of how and why the air force shifted its tactics against Japan from a precision bombing strategy to area attacks. The guiding doctrine of the 1930s and 1940s called for focused attacks on specific targets deep behind enemy lines. Eager to prove itself, the nascent Army Air Force at first lauded the indispensability of strategic bombardment in areas otherwise unreachable by the army or navy. But when strategic bombing failed to yield the desired results in Europe and in initial efforts against Japan, the United States switched tactics, a shift that culminated in the area firebombing of nearly every major Japanese metropolis and the burning of sixty-six cities to the ground.  Daniel T. Schwabe closely examines the planning and implementation of these incendiary missions to determine how an organization dedicated to precision decided on such a dramatic change in tactics. Ultimately, Schwabe maintains, this strategic reimagining helped create a comprehensive offensive strategy that did immense amounts of destruction which crippled Japan and brought an end to World War II.

Helicopter pilots in Vietnam kidded one another about being nothing but glorified bus drivers. But these “rotor heads” saved thousands of American lives while performing what the Army classified as the most dangerous job it had to offer. One in eighteen did not return home.Tom A. Johnson flew the UH-1 “Iroquois” - better known as the “Huey” - in the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion of the First Air Cavalry Division. From June 1967 through June 1968, he accumulated an astonishing 1,600 flying hours (1,150 combat and 450 noncombat). His battalion was one of the most highly decorated units in the Vietnam War and, as part of the famous First Air Cavalry Division, helped redefine modern warfare. With tremendous flying skill, Johnson survived rescue missions and key battles that included those for Hue and Khe Sanh and operations in the A Shau and Song Re valleys, while many of his comrades did not.His heartfelt and riveting memoir will strike a chord with any soldier who ever flew in the ubiquitous Huey and any reader with an interest in how the Vietnam War was really fought.

“Shattered Sword [is] a necessary read for anyone interested in the Pacific War.”-NYMAS ReviewShattered Sword is the winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and was cited by Proceedings as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, Shattered Sword makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida’s Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle.Parshall and Tully examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading World War II naval historian John Lundstrom, Shattered Sword is an indispensable part of any military buff’s library.

John M. Collins has distilled the wisdom of history’s great military minds to tutor readers on the necessary intellectual skills to win not only battles but also wars. He illuminates practices that worked well or poorly in the past, together with reasons why. He discusses national security interests, strategic building blocks, military strategies across the conflict spectrum, methods for developing talent and strategic acumen, and recent case studies that put principles into practice. Collins never tells readers what to think, but in Military Strategy he provides them with the intellectual tools to think for themselves. Written in a clear, straightforward style, this book will appeal to officers, policy-makers, students, and the public.

The battle of Tannenberg (August 27–30, 1914) opened World War I with a decisive German victory over Russia-indeed the Kaiser’s only clear-cut victory in a non-attritional battle during four years of war. In this first paperback edition of the classic work, historian Dennis Showalter analyzes this battle’s causes, effects, and implications for subsequent German military policy. The author carefully guides the reader through what actually happened on the battlefield, from its grand strategy down to the level of improvised squad actions. Examining the battle in the context of contemporary diplomatic, political, and economic affairs, Showalter also reviews both armies’ social settings and military doctrine, and shows how the battle may be understood as a case study of problems that military organizations face in the initial stages of a major war. In addition, he demolishes many myths about the battle, such as the supposed superiority of the German military, the animosity among Russian field commanders, and the assumption that the Germans viewed their opponents as a horde of uniformed illiterates.Tannenberg’s mystique later served the Weimar Republic and Third Reich propagandists. For years its legends helped to shape German nationalist ideology and military policy. In 1941, Hitler’s Wehrmacht grossly underestimated Soviet military capability, leading to disaster in World War II.

On December 22, 1964, at a small, closely guarded airstrip in the desert town of Palmdale, California, Lockheed test pilot Bob Gilliland stepped into a strange-looking aircraft and roared into aviation history.Developed at the super-secret Skunk Works, the SR-71 Blackbird was a technological marvel. In fact, more than a half century later, the Mach 3–plus titanium wonder, designed by Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson, remains the world’s fastest jet.It took a test pilot with the right combination of intelligence, skill, and nerve to make the first flight of the SR-71, and the thirty-eight-year-old Gilliland had spent much of his life pushing the edge.  In Speed one of America’s greatest test pilots collaborates with acclaimed journalist Keith Dunnavant to tell his remarkable story: How he was pushed to excel by his demanding father. How a lucky envelope at the U.S. Naval Academy altered the trajectory of his life. How he talked his way into U.S. Air Force fighters at the dawn of the jet age, despite being told he was too tall. How he made the conscious decision to trade the security of the business world for the dangerous life of an experimental test pilot, including time at the clandestine base Area 51, working on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Oxcart program.The narrative focuses most intently on Gilliland’s years as the chief test pilot of the SR-71, as he played a leading role in the development of the entire fleet of spy planes while surviving several emergencies that very nearly ended in disaster.Waging the Cold War at 85,000 feet, the SR-71 became an unrivaled intelligence-gathering asset for the U.S. Air Force, invulnerable to enemy defenses for a quarter century.Gilliland’s work with the SR-71 defined him, especially after the Cold War, when many of the secrets began to be revealed and the plane emerged from the shadows-not just as a tangible museum artifact but as an icon that burrowed deep into the national consciousness.Like the Blackbird itself, Speed is a story animated by the power of ambition and risk-taking during the heady days of the American Century.

"[A] must-read for students of history and historians alike."-Washington Book ReviewAlthough southern Poland and western Ukraine are not often thought of in terms of decisive battles in World War I, the impulses that precipitated the battle for Galicia in August 1914-and the unprecedented carnage that resulted-effectively doomed the Austro-Hungarian Empire just six weeks into the war.In Fall of the Double Eagle, John R. Schindler explains how Austria-Hungary, despite military weakness and the foreseeable ill consequences, consciously chose war in that fateful summer of 1914. Through close examination of the Austro-Hungarian military, especially its elite general staff, Schindler shows how even a war that Vienna would likely lose appeared preferable to the “foul peace” the senior generals loathed. After Serbia outgunned the polyglot empire in a humiliating defeat, and the offensive into Russian Poland ended in the massacre of more than four hundred thousand Austro-Hungarians in just three weeks, the empire never recovered. While Austria-Hungary’s ultimate defeat and dissolution were postponed until the autumn of 1918, the late summer of 1914 on the plains and hills of Galicia sealed its fate.

The Disappeared tells the extraordinary saga of Argentina’s attempt to right the wrongs of an unspeakably dark past. Using a recent human rights trial as his lens, Sam Ferguson addresses two central questions of our age: How is mass atrocity possible, and What should be done in its wake?From 1976 to 1983 thousands of people were the victims of state terrorism during Argentina’s so-called Dirty War. Ferguson recounts a twenty-two-month trial of the most notorious perpetrators of this atrocity, who ran a secret prison from the Naval Mechanics School in Buenos Aires. The navy executed as many as five thousand political “subversives,” most of whom were sedated and thrown alive out of airplanes into the South Atlantic. The victims of these secret death flights and others who went missing during the regime are known as los desaparecidos-“the disappeared.”Ferguson explores Argentina’s novel response to mass atrocity: the country’s remarkable and controversial decisions in 2003 to repeal a series of amnesty laws passed in the 1980s and to prosecute anew the perpetrators of the Dirty War a generation after the collapse of the country's last dictatorship. As of 2022 more than one thousand aging military officers have been indicted for their involvement in the Dirty War and hundreds of trials have commenced in the country’s civilian courts. Among the many facets of the book, Ferguson takes an in-depth look at allegations that Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was involved in the disappearance of two Jesuit priests under his supervision in 1976. Bergoglio was called to testify in a closed-chambers session. Ferguson reviewed those secret proceedings and uses them as a springboard to explore the Argentine Catholic Church and its broader role in the Dirty War.The lingering but acute trauma of the victims who testified at the trial underscores the moral urgency of accountability. When a state strips its citizens of all their rights, the only response that approximates reparation is to restore the rule of law and punish the perpetrators. Yet the trial also revealed the limits of using criminal law to respond to mass atrocity. Justice demands a laser-like focus on evidence relevant to a crime, but atrocity begs for social understanding. Can the law ever bring full justice?

At the risk of succumbing to hyperbole, Basketball on Paper is a revolutionary strike for statistical analysis of the game of basketball. . . . There has never been a basketball book quite like [it].-Hoopsworld.comJourney "inside the numbers" for an exceptional set of statistical tools and rules that can help explain the winning, or losing, ways of a basketball team. Basketball on Paper doesn’t diagram plays or explain how players get in shape, but instead demonstrates how to interpret player and team performance. Dean Oliver highlights general strategies for teams when they’re winning or losing and what aspects should be the focus in either situation.He describes and quantifies the jobs of team leaders and role players, then discusses the interactions between players and how to achieve the best fit. Oliver conceptualizes the meaning of teamwork and how to quantify the value of different types of players working together. He examines historically successful NBA teams and identifies what made them so successful: individual talent, a system of putting players together, or good coaching. Oliver then uses these statistical tools and case studies to evaluate the best players in history, such as Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Charles Barkley and how they contributed to their teams’ success. He does the same for some of the NBA’s "oddball" players-Manute Bol, Muggsy Bogues, and Dennis Rodman and for the WNBA’s top players. Basketball on Paper is unique in its incorporation of business and analytical concepts within the context of basketball to measure the value of players in a cooperative setting. Whether you’re looking for strategies or new ideas to throw out while watching the ballgame at a sports bar, Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper will give you amazing new insights into teamwork, coaching, and success.

A Raid on the Red Sea is the thrilling, real-life tale of illegal gun-running in the Middle East. In this firsthand account, Amos Gilboa gives the harrowing details of the secret close-working relations between Israeli and American intelligence in the seizure of the Karine A ship, the most successful Israeli intelligence operation since the legendary Entebbe hostage rescue.At 0400 hours, January 3, 2002, two fast boats of Israel’s naval commando unit closed in on the stern of the Palestinian Authority’s Karine A. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had clandestinely loaded its cargo: fifty-six tons of high-grade, long-range weapons destined for the Gaza Strip. The Israelis’ plan to seize it went awry when they found nothing but a confused group of Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians. Had they boarded the wrong ship? Was there going to be an international incident disgracing Israel?This drama has more than its share of plot twists. The story’s hero, a low-level female intelligence analyst, was the first to grasp the grave danger posed by the Karine A. Analyzing piles of disinformation, she kept on the scent of the ship, tracking it from Egypt to Sudan to Dubai. Only through the joint efforts of Israeli and U.S. naval intelligence, Mossad and the CIA, was the ship stopped and calamity averted. Seizing the ship led to a fateful reorientation of U.S. policy regarding the Middle East with consequences to this day, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the 2020 assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani.

His formal schooling abruptly cut off at age eleven, George Washington saw his boyhood dream of joining the British army evaporate and recognized that even his aspiration to rise in colonial Virginian agricultural society would be difficult. Throughout his life he faced challenges for which he lacked the academic foundations shared by his more highly educated contemporaries. Yet Washington’s legacy is clearly not one of failure.Breaking new ground in Washington scholarship and American revolutionary history, Adrienne M. Harrison investigates the first president’s dedicated process of self-directed learning through reading, a facet of his character and leadership long neglected by historians and biographers. In A Powerful Mind, Harrison shows that Washington rose to meet these trials through a committed campaign of highly focused reading, educating himself on exactly what he needed to do and how best to do it. In contrast to other famous figures of the revolution-Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin-Washington did not relish learning for its own sake, viewing self-education instead as a tool for shaping himself into the person he wanted to be. His two highest-profile and highest-risk endeavors-commander in chief of the Continental Army and president of the fledgling United States-are a testament to the success of his strategy.

Originally published in 1980 and still the best one-volume aerial history of World War II, Richard Overy's classic work remains profound and highly origi-nal. Far from just an account of the various air battles, Professor Overy treats the air war as a complex and fascinating historical web, woven out of grand strategy, economic mobilization, the recruitment of science, and the nature of leadership and training. Analyzing the achievements and failures of the aerial component of the war, he places it in perspective by explaining the role aviation played in the overall conflict. He points out that while the Axis powers tended to limit their use of air power to one major role, such as support of ground forces, the Allies exploited all aspects of aerial doctrine: air defense, strategic bombardment, air-naval cooperation, and ground support. He also demonstrates how aircraft ensured that the Second World War became a people's war and how success in the air war was, in a very real sense, a test of a nation's modernity. The air war was won and lost not only in the skies but also in the factories and the research institutes. Finally, the author dispels many popular myths and in particular reveals that although air power in the form of strategic bombing by itself did not deter-mine the war's final outcome, its use dramatically illustrated the complexities of managing modern war. Richard Overy's The Air War thus deepens our under-standing not only of World War II but of military history in general.

When the German Army captured LwÓw, Poland, in 1941, the city contained a vibrant Jewish community of 160,000 people. By 1945, all but a few hundred were dead. Witness to Annihilation is the book that Samuel Drix vowed he would write. Drix endured nearly a year in the Janowska concentration camp, escaped and hid from the Nazis, was liberated by the Red Army, and eventually fled from behind the Iron Curtain to America. This rare Holocaust memoir by a caring physician will both horrify and inspire.

Technological failure results when one side in a conflict does not fully grasp the potential impact of known, or even familiar, weapons in the enemy's hands. In most cases, such failure resulted from higher officials' ignorance or their total misunderstanding of the importance and relevance of such technology and science as well as of their application to warfare. Technological failure is also the root cause of technological surprise. While operational surprise on the battlefield poses grave problems, technological surprise is far more serious, because, as Azriel Lorber explains, it often leads to disasters on the battlefield and is more difficult to recover from. In too many cases, technological failure and surprise stem from all-too-human characteristics, such as self-satisfaction, disdain for the adversary, obtuseness, and conservatism. Because these traits show no evidence of disappearing, political decision makers and military commanders should be aware that technological failure and technological surprise could happen at any time.

In this ambitious work David T. Byrne analyzes the ideas that informed Ronald Reagan’s political philosophy and policies. Rather than appraising Reagan’s personal and emotional life, Byrne’s intellectual biography goes one step further; it establishes a rationale for the former president’s motives, discussing how thinkers such as Plato and Adam Smith influenced him. Byrne points to three historical forces that shaped Reagan’s political philosophy: Christian values, particularly the concept of a universal kingdom of God; America’s firm belief in freedom as the greatest political value and its aversion to strong centralized government; and the appeasement era of World War II, which stimulated Reagan’s aggressive and confrontational foreign policy.Byrne’s account of the fortieth president augments previous work on Reagan with a new model for understanding him. Byrne shows how Reagan took conservatism and the Republican Party in a new direction, departing from the traditional conservatism of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk. His desire to spread a “Kingdom of Freedom” both at home and abroad changed America’s political landscape forever and inspired a new conservatism that persists to this day.

In the summer of 2021, twenty years of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan came to a jarring end. The United States' longest war spanned four U.S. presidential administrations, claimed 2,461 American lives, and wounded more than 20,000 American soldiers. What began as an operation to destroy al-Qa'ida mushroomed into a nation-building project. When at last the United States withdrew, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban swept back into Kabul. Last Flight out of Kabul tells the story of what happened next: a dramatic humanitarian airlift of nearly 124,000 American citizens, Afghan allies, and international partners from Hamid Karzai International Airport under terribly dangerous conditions. Senior diplomat James P. DeHart was there, and he helped lead the harrowing evacuation on the ground in Kabul.But the story begins long before the evacuation. In 2009 DeHart was assigned to a U.S. forward operating base in remote Panjshir Province as part of a surge of troops and civilians across Afghanistan intended to reverse the Taliban's momentum. During that heady, hopeful year, he lived with the U.S. military and together with the troops hiked, drove, and rode horseback from village to village in the shadow of the Hindu Kush mountain range to form alliances with the locals. Last Flight out of Kabul alternates between DeHart's year in Panjshir and the massive U.S. evacuation twelve years later, coming full circle as the Afghans DeHart met and cared about in Panjshir appear once again in the evacuation he helped to coordinate.

Crisis and Crossfire traces the origins of the contemporary challenges facing the United States in the Middle East by analyzing the broad contours of U.S. policy in the region since the government’s first involvement there in the 1940s. Peter L. Hahn evaluates U.S. policy in the context of such global phenomena as the Cold War and the multipolar international order that emerged in the early 2000s. He explains how the United States has tried, with varying degrees of success, to curtail, modify, and channel Arab and Iranian nationalist movements to serve U.S. interests.Crisis and Crossfire examines the U.S. approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict through eight decades, exploring the interstate wars of the 1940s–1980s, the quests to make peace in the 1970s–2010s, and the enduring strife between Israel and Palestine. Hahn details how the United States has assumed growing responsibility for regional stability and security in the Middle East since World War II, culminating in involvement in the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait and the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. This second edition provides an objective explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian Gaza War; the U.S. stand-off with Iran; the proxy wars in Lebanon, Yemen, Libya, and Syria; the threat of terrorism; and related topics.

Finalist for the 2018 National Jewish Book Award in BiographyThough she only lived to be twenty-seven, Sarah Aaronsohn led a remarkable life. The Woman Who Fought an Empire tells the improbable but true odyssey of a bold young woman-the daughter of Romanian-born Jewish settlers in Palestine-who became the daring leader of a Middle East spy ring.Amid the outbreak of World War I, Aaronsohn learned that her brother Aaron had formed Nili, an anti-Turkish spy ring, to aid the British in their war against the Ottomans. Aaronsohn, who had witnessed the atrocities of the Armenian genocide by the Turks, believed that only the defeat of the Ottoman Empire could save the Palestinian Jews from a similar fate. She joined Nili, eventually rising to become the organization’s leader, and she and her spies furnished vital information to British intelligence in Cairo about the Turkish military forces until she was caught and tortured by the Turks in the fall of 1917. The Woman Who Fought an Empire, set at the birth of the modern Middle East, is an espionage thriller that rebukes the Hollywood stereotype of women spies as femmes fatales.

“Shattered Sword [is] a necessary read for anyone interested in the Pacific War.”-NYMAS ReviewShattered Sword is the winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and was cited by Proceedings as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, Shattered Sword makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida’s Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle.Parshall and Tully examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading World War II naval historian John Lundstrom, Shattered Sword is an indispensable part of any military buff’s library.

The Reagan administration spent eight years and a vast amount of money backing the Contras in their bid to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Although the Sandinistas eventually were ousted, it was by the ballot box and not the M-16, for by that time the Contras had ceased to be a viable force. What caused their untimely demise? Some of the fault lies with the Contras themselves, but in this account of villainy, courage, incompetence and violent death in a country at war with itself, the author sets out to show that there is blame in Washington, too. Garvin covered the war for six years, often travelling with Contra combat units, and his work was nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in 1988 and 1989. He won the Mencken Award for Investigative Reporting.

2014 SLA Baseball Caucus Readers’ Choice Award winner from the Special Libraries AssociationThe Deadball Era (1901–1920) is a baseball fan’s dream. Hope and despair, innocence and cynicism, and levity and hostility blended then to create an air of excitement, anticipation, and concern for all who entered the confines of a major league ballpark. Cheating for the sake of victory earned respect, corrupt ballplayers fixed games with impunity, and violence plagued the sport. Spectators stormed the field to attack players and umpires, ballplayers charged the stands to pummel hecklers, and physical battles between opposing clubs occurred regularly in a phenomenon known as “rowdyism.”  At the same time, endearing practices infused baseball with lightheartedness, kindness, and laughter. Fans ran onto the field with baskets of flowers, loving cups, diamond jewelry, gold watches, and cash for their favorite players in the middle of games. Ballplayers volunteered for “benefit contests” to aid fellow big leaguers and the country in times of need. “Joke games” reduced sport to pure theater as outfielders intentionally dropped fly balls, infielders happily booted easy grounders, hurlers tossed soft pitches over the middle of the plate, and umpires ignored the rules. Winning meant nothing, amusement meant everything, and league officials looked the other way. Mark Halfon looks at life in the major leagues in the early 1900s, the careers of John McGraw, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson, and the events that brought about the end of the Deadball Era. He highlights the strategies, underhanded tactics, and bitter battles that defined this storied time in baseball history, while providing detailed insights into the players and teams involved in bringing to a conclusion this remarkable period in baseball history.

The United States of Sports takes kids on a first-of-its-kind journey across the U.S. with stops in every state in the union. Super cool maps with unique hand-illustrated icons show where all the great sites can be found, including arenas, stadiums, halls of fame, championship golf clubs, the greatest ski mountains, Olympic cities, and more. Each state’s Greatest Moments and homegrown heroes are pro led, and we wouldn’t forget to run down all the numbers! Championships, pro teams, famous events, and more— spread by spread—it’s the book to pore over this season.

This handsome commemorative volume contains hundreds of Allied and German photographs, many never seen before by the general public. Written by the coauthors of Gordon W. Prange's acclaimed bestsellers, At Dawn We Slept and Miracle at Midway, it is in the tradition of their highly successful series of pictorial war chronicles. With text keyed to photos on the same page, Goldstein, Dillon, and Wenger lead the reader through the dramatic experiences of D-Day combatants on both sides, from the invasion's complex preparations, to the furious combat vividly portrayed in the film Saving Private Ryan, to its ultimate result-the beginning of the end for Hitler's Third Reich.

This is a report by the Commission on the Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces, which should be of interest to defence personnel who will be most affected by its findings. Defence experts at the highest levels assess the current functions of the Armed Forces and make recommendations for change.