Tuesday, December 29, 2009

War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America's First Frontier

By John F. Ross

Ross, executive editor of American Heritage magazine, has written this biography of American colonial frontiersman Robert Rogers to reveal how his observations of Native American warriors led to combat strategies that are still effective today. Written for general audiences, this book explains how Rogers trained and led an army of farmers, scouts and woodsmen on a series of military missions that are still considered impossible today. The author also explains how Rogers' 28 Rules of Engagement laid the groundwork for the Revolutionary War, and how his explorations of the frontier inspired the Lewis and Clark expedition.

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Monday, December 21, 2009

Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned

By Rufus Phillips

As part of the US Central Intelligence Agency, Phillips engaged in military, pacification, and counter-insurgency operations in Vietnam from 1954 to 1968. He recalls his experience, pointing out the mistakes that were made and how they affected not only the later stages of the war, but also US foreign affairs to the present. His fundamental message is that the Americans never noticed what the natives were actually doing, just kept going on with the war they wanted to fight.

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Apache Dawn: Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned

By Damien Lewis

Presents the experiences of Flight Ugly, a British two Apache attack helicopter team that supported allied and American forces in Afghanistan in 2007, describing the heroism of the pilots, rescues of wounded soldiers, and its combat successes.

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Friday, December 18, 2009

The Kennedy assassination--24 hours after : Lyndon B. Johnson's pivotal first day as president

by Steven M. Gillon. In this fresh take on John F. Kennedy's assassination, history professor Gillon probes the chaos that surrounded Vice President Johnson's ascension to power as he coped with both the trauma of Kennedy's murder and the enmity of Kennedy's inner circle. At Parkland Hospital in Dallas, a battle of wills between Johnson and JFK's inner circle-including appointments secretary Kenneth O'Donnell and military aide Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh-contributed to the confusion then (and now) over the timeline of Kennedy's death and Johnson's assuming the presidency. Leading the anti-Johnson contingent was the president's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who tussled with LBJ over the swearing-in details (both disagreed bitterly about the episode afterwards). Johnson faltered as he moved into the spotlight, trying in vain to adopt Camelot as his own by trying (unsuccessfully) to console Jackie and persuading (with varying degrees of success) Kennedy staffers to stay on. Gillon captures the two faces of Johnson-the insecure second-guesser and the brilliant politician-as well as the earliest signs of the Johnson presidency's eventual failure. (Check catalog)

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

1938 : Hitler's gamble

by Giles Macdonogh. Might-have-beens haunt this insightful narrative of a watershed in the history of Nazi Germany. MacDonogh (After the Reich) chronicles milestones in the development of a radicalized, expansionist Third Reich in the year 1938: the forcible annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, the Kristallnacht pogrom and the purging of opposition figures in the government, army and church. He portrays these events not as an unfolding master plan but as a series of gambles by a sometimes chaotic Nazi regime plagued by infighting among Hitler's satraps, Wehrmacht coup plots, a collapsing economy (the Anschluss was motivated partly by a need to plunder Austria's treasury and raw materials), and jitters about foreign reaction. The Fuhrer perseveres with theatrical bullying and nervy improvisations that are matched by the Western powers' appeasement; a tragic theme of MacDonogh's story is how easily a determined resistance, from within Germany or without, might have derailed Hitler's initiatives. Another is the callousness of the international community; much of the book follows the travails of Jews who faced closed doors when the Reich was eager to expel them. This well-researched, fine-grained study sketches the moral rot that made possible Hitler's rise. --Publisher's Weekly. (Check catalog)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Patton, Montgomery, Rommel: Masters of War

By Terry Brighton


An account of World War II as it was experienced by three influential commanders draws on primary source materials to evaluate their explosive relationships with one another, their command talents and their enthusiasm for publicity.

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Monday, November 9, 2009

Seal Warrior: Death in the Dark: Vietnam: 1968-1972

By Thomas H. Keith and J. Terry Riebling


Documents the Vietnam tour of duty performed by a highly decorated Navy SEAL, describing his first-hand experiences with the emergence of modern guerilla warfare as well as his subsequent positive relationships with those he once fought.

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Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath

By Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman

Following the U.S. surrender to the Japanese on the peninsula of Bataan in 1942, 76,000 American and Filipino POWs began the infamous Death March. This gripping narrative, told in unsparing but sympathetic detail, focuses intermittently on American POW Ben Steele, whose sketches adorn the book, and the hell of Japanese prison and labor camps that introduced these captives to the starvation, dehydration and murderous Japanese brutality that would become routine for the next three years.

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The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation

By Andrew B. Lewis

A group portrait of leading civil rights activists who comprised the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee draws on original sources to illuminate their challenges to American perspectives on human rights, politics and moral obligation.

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Monday, November 2, 2009

John Brown's Trial

By Brian McGinty

McGinty (Lincoln and the Court) gives us a detailed account of the trial and execution of abolitionist John Brown in 1859 for his raid on Harpers Ferry. Through studying the trial records, period newspapers, and accounts by trial participants, the author raises several important points regarding the fairness of the proceedings. First, the Commonwealth of Virginia tried Brown even though the Harpers Ferry arsenal was the property of the federal government. The prosecutor, Andrew Hunter, had had a relative by marriage who was killed by Brown's men, a factor that should have removed him from the trial. Both of Brown's original defense attorneys had witnessed the raid. After the jury returned the guilty verdict, Brown's appeals were quickly denied, and Governor Henry Wise of Virginia refused to grant clemency. In short, the government of Virginia was determined to be rid of Brown. The results, however, went against Virginia and the South: Brown's eloquent defense of his actions, denunciation of slavery, and execution transformed him into a symbol for the end of slavery.

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Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers

By Kay Bailey Hutchison

In a series of skillfully drawn biographical portraits, United States Senator and bestselling author Kay Bailey Hutchison examines the lives of sixty-three pioneers in military service, journalism, public health, social reform, science, and politics—all American women. Mixing historical portraits with modern success stories, Senator Hutchison shows how American women from all periods of history have contributed to the strength and progress of our nation. Senator Hutchison, a trailblazer herself, became the first woman from the state of Texas elected to the United States Senate.

With courage, purpose, and compassion, the women of Leading Ladies continue to blaze trails for thousands of American women to follow—and no history of the nation can be written without them.

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Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant

By Carol Berkin


Traces the vivid stories of the wives of Theodore Weld, Jefferson Davis, and Ulysses S. Grant to demonstrate how their personal beliefs were overshadowed by the supporting roles they played to their high-profile husbands before unique wartime and personal challenges brought their characters to the foreground.

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Monday, October 19, 2009

In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation

By David Loyn

An award-winning BBC foreign correspondent chronicles the military conflicts of Afghanistan throughout the past two centuries, evaluating the roles of misunderstanding and broken agreements as well as the author's perspectives on how foreign occupiers underestimated Afghani capabilities.

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Lincoln's Political Generals


By David Work

In an examination of Lincoln's policy of appointing political generals to build a national coalition to fight and win the Civil War, Work follows the careers of sixteen generals through the war. He demonstrates convincingly that these generals' efforts significantly aided the Union war effort in their capacity as administrators, political supporters, recruiters and organizers of troops, and advocates of the Union cause among key political and ethnic constituencies.

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation

By Ray Raphael

Examines the lives of seven lesser known figures from the Revolutionary period, including one of Washington's soldiers, a wealthy merchant, a blacksmith, and the politically active Mercy Otis Warren.

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Citizen-in-Chief: The Second Lives of the American Presidents

By Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss

A collection of behind-the-scenes stories about the lives of presidents after their White House years includes such accounts as John Quincy Adams's work as an abolitionist, William Howard Taft's service as chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Dwight Eisenhower's covert support of the war effort in North Vietnam.

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Thursday, September 3, 2009

American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America

By Edmund S. Morgan


The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Benjamin Franklin celebrates lesser-known aspects of the lives of America's founding fathers, national heroes, and more obscure figures whose steadfastness to their causes influenced the country's development.

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Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda

By Gretchen Peters

Examines the drug trade in Afghanistan, discussing how farmers there continue to grow poppy illegally, and how the Taliban and al Qaeda control heroin labs and distribution networks, and use drug profits to finance terrorist activities.

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Monday, August 24, 2009

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008

By Thomas E. Ricks


Draws on extensive interviews with top officers in Iraq to document the war as it has unfolded in recent years, placing a focus on the unorthodox strategies of General David Petraeus, from his work with foreign advisors to the ways in which his officers disagreed with key decisions.

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As You Were: To War and Back With the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard

By Christian Davenport


A Washington Post reporter chronicles the military duties of five National Guard soldiers throughout their tours of duty in Iraq, documenting their sudden call-ups, combat experiences, and efforts to reacclimate to civilian life upon their returns.

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Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler

By Anne Nelson


In this inspiring account, noted journalist and playwright Nelson documents the wartime journey of Greta Kuckhoff, a young German, and her valiant colleagues who formed a potent resistance to the Hitler regime in its glory days. When Kuckhoff returned home from America in 1929 after university study, she joined with a band of young Communists, leftist Jews and other German antifascists to thwart the rise of Hitler at the risk of torture and death. Nelson explains in telling detail about the Nazis' tight grip on power after the 1933 Reichstag fire, eliminating all political foes, including Jews and other "non-Aryan" types, yet the Kuckhoffs, Mildred and Avrid Harnack, and other members of the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) fought fascist censorship, slid their people into Nazi ministries, helped Jews to flee and provided the Allies with vital information to aid the war effort. Nelson's riveting book speaks proudly of Greta, Mildred and all of the nearly three million Germans who resisted Hitler's iron will, and gives the reader a somber view of hell from the inside.

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The Venus Fixers: the Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy's Art During World War II

By Ilaria Dagnini Brey

Documents the contributions of a motley team of art historians, curators, and passionate amateurs who were appointed by Allied forces to save master works of European art from destruction during World War II, describing the volatile conditions under which they safeguarded thousands of years worth of masterpieces at the risk of their own lives.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg

By Helen Rappaport

A moment-by-moment account of the last thirteen days of the Russian Imperial family's lives draws on previously untapped resources to cover such topics as their imprisonment, the political maneuverings of those out to save or destroy them, and their brutal assassinations.

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How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

By Adrian Goldsworthy

Examines the decline of the Roman Empire, from the second to the sixth century, and how internal conflicts and the personal ambitions of its rulers brought about its eventual downfall.

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Selling Your Father's Bones: America's 140-Year War against the Nez Perce Tribe

By Brian Schofield

Traces how the Nez Perce fled the U.S. military in 1877 through more than 1,700 miles of inhospitable wilderness and evaluates the long-term consequences of Manifest Destiny on the nation's environmental and cultural welfare.

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The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

By Daniel James Brown

A chronicle of the mid-nineteenth-century wagon train tragedy draws on the perspectives of one of its survivors, Sarah Graves, recounting how her new husband and she joined the Donner party on their California-bound journey and encountered violent perils, in an account that also offers insight into the scientific reasons that some died while others survived.

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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Weller's War: A Legendary Foreign Correspondent's Saga of World War II on Five Continents

By George Weller; Edited by Anthony Weller

Presents the dispatches of World War II reporter George Weller, providing firsthand accounts of the Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe.

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What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?': Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country

By Kevin Mattson

An assessment of the events that led up to Jimmy Carter's infamous 1979 "malaise" speech places it against a backdrop of such events as the gas crisis and the Iran-hostage situation while explaining that the speech had far greater relevance than its reception reflected, in an account that also claims the speech inadvertently set a course for the conservative movement.

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Tuesday, August 4, 2009

With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain

By Michael Korda

An in-depth history of the Battle of Britain draws on the firsthand perspectives of pilots, ground crews, and commanders on both sides, and places the campaign against a backdrop of the political forces that shaped it.

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The Brenner Assignment: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Spy Mission of World War II

By Patrick K. O'Donnell


Enhanced with photos and maps, this account tells the true story of a small team of American spies who parachuted into Italy with plans to destroy a segment of the Brenner Pass in order to halt supplies coming in from Germany during World War II.

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The Spartacus War

By Barry Strauss

A portrait of the iconic gladiator by an esteemed historian and popular History Channel guest traces his rise from slavery in Thrace and the gladiatorial school rebellion in 73 BC to his leadership at the head of a rapidly growing army and its frequent clashes with the Roman military.

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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Germany 1945: From War to Peace

By Richard Bessel

A chronicle of Germany's transformation during a pivotal year describes the devastation from the war's final battles, the death marches and acts of vengeance suffered by ordinary citizens, and the first postwar year's burgeoning social, economic, and political cultures.

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Hunting Eichmann

By Neal Bascomb

Based on groundbreaking new information and featuring never-before-published surveillance photographs, a narrative of the pursuit and capture of Adolf Eichmann recounts how the Nazi managed to slip out of the country and build a new life in Argentina while an international manhunt spent fifteen years tracking him down and bringing him to justice.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

As You Were: To War and Back With the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard

By Christian Davenport

A Washington Post reporter chronicles the military duties of five National Guard soldiers throughout their tours of duty in Iraq, documenting their sudden call-ups, combat experiences, and efforts to reacclimate to civilian life upon their returns.

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Monday, July 20, 2009

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45


By Max Hastings

A chronicle of the final year in the Pacific war offers portraits of key figures in the efforts to defeat Japan and discusses such topics as the road to Allied victory, Japan's war against China, and the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat

By Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

Offers the story of the courageous mission of 234 Marines of Fox Company who found themselves surrounded and greatly outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese soldiers near Chosin Reservoir, the incredible steps they took to fend them off for five nights, and the major losses they suffered in their desperate struggle before finally being relieved.

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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Sea of Dangers: Captain Cook and His Rivals in the South Pacific

By Geoffrey Blainey


Captain James Cook has long been enshrined in the pantheon of British naval heroes. Cook had been a highly successful sailor during the French and Indian War, but his fame rests primarily upon his epic explorations across the South Pacific. In 1769 Cook and his crew left England on his initial voyage in the small ship, Endeavour. The ostensible purpose was to observe the transit of Venus. There were also military implications, as traditional rival France was also active in the South Pacific. At the same time, a French ship captained by Jean de Surville left India to explore the same area. While the two expeditions never met, they inadvertently shadowed each other. Blainey, an Australian historian, masterfully recounts these twin voyages in an absorbing, exciting saga. His narrative has a curious duality, as the vast expanse of the Pacific is contrasted with the cramped conditions aboard ships. An excellent work of popular history that recounts the exploits of men who dramatically expanded our knowledge of the globe.

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Kissinger: 1973, the Crucial Year

By Alistair Horne

A portrait of the controversial presidential advisor during a critical year in his career covers a wide range of topics from the signing of the pact to end the war in Vietnam and his appointment as secretary of state to his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Watergate scandal.

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A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel

By Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh

A dramatic account of the thirty-third president's controversial decision to recognize the state of Israel offers insight into the complicated issues affecting his declaration as well as the new state's fledging friendship with America, in an account that draws on previously untapped archival sources to chronicle the events leading to the decision and how it set the stage for subsequent Middle East policy.

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The H. L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy

By Tom Chaffin

An account of the legendary submarine and its legacy reconstructs the events of its successful 1864 attack on the USS Housatonic and subsequent sinking, the sub's recovery in 1995 after numerous attempts, and the myths attributed to its final hours.

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A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighter's Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home


By Peter N. Nelson

The subjects of A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighter's Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home also had a dramatic impact on the history of war. They were the members of the U.S. 369th Infantry, the first African-American regiment to serve in World War I, better known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Author Peter Nelson relates that these men distinguished themselves from most other black soldiers, who were relegated to supply duties, and earned a chance to fight in the trenches in Europe. But they were unable to overcome their country's segregationist tendencies, and fought with the French and not with white U.S. soldiers. Despite this slight, the Harlem Hellfighters served with distinction and became one of the most feared fighting units in the war.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Soldier from the War Returning: The Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming from World War II

By Thomas Childers


Intimate portraits of three families whose lives were adversely affected by World War II challenges popular misconceptions that the war's soldiers returned healthy and convinced that their service was in the world's best interest, in a revisionist account that reveals how veterans struggled with such debilitating challenges as PTSD, substance abuse, unemployment, and homelessness.

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Shadows In The Jungle: The Alamo Scouts Behind Japanese Lines in World War II

By Larry Alexander


Drawing on personal interviews with and recollections by veterans, the author of Biggest Brother chronicles the exploits of the Alamo Scouts, members of an elite Army reconnaissance unit during World War II, a group that spent weeks behind enemy lines to gather much needed intelligence for Allied forces in the Pacific.

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Monday, June 15, 2009

Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946

By Deborah Dwork & Robert Jan Van Pelt

Most Holocaust studies understandably focus on the plight of the victims in death camps and those who suffered the outrages committed by special SS units as the Wehrmacht rampaged across Eastern Europe. Here, the authors shed light on Jews who attempted to escape the fate that their tormentors planned. Beginning with the Nazi ascension to power in 1933, many German Jews saw the writing on the wall. Their emigration was surprisingly orderly, and was facilitated by "cooperative" German officials. The fortunate ones found refuge in Britain, the U.S., and Palestine. Others, like the family of Anne Frank, fled to soon-to-be occupied nations, including the Netherlands and France. As Dwork and van Pelt chillingly recount, orderly emigration soon gave way to panicky flight as Nazi persecution increased and windows closed in various nations that had seemed receptive. There are heroes here, including Gentiles who sheltered and smuggled Jews, and villains who knowingly denied Jews a safe haven and condemned them to certain extinction. This is an excellent examination of a rarely emphasized aspect of the Holocaust.
(Check Catalog)

Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler

By Anne Nelson

Hitler and the Nazi Party never achieved total political and social control over Germany. Even after the onset of World War II, a few brave voices continued clandestine but active opposition. The best known were the group of military and religious figures led by Klaus von Stauffenburg and the White Rose organization centered around university students and siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. Nelson, a playwright and foreign correspondent, has examined the personalities and activities of another tiny and courageous group. Dubbed the Red Orchestra by the Gestapo and led by young Germans and German American members, the group was remarkably successful at serving in government positions while gathering intelligence, disseminating anti-Nazi information, and saving the lives of Jews. Nelson effectively conveys the sense of determination and tension that characterized members, particularly as the Gestapo closed in on them. A large percentage of the group was captured and executed. Nelson plays down the pro-Soviet views of many members, but this is still a worthy tribute to their courage and dedication.
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The Lions of Iwo Jima

By Major General Fred Haynes and James A. Warren

Combat Team 28, one of the greatest units fielded in the history of the U.S. Marines, landed on the black sands of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. The unit, 4,500 men strong, plunged immediately into ferocious combat, and by the time the battled ended, 70 percent of the men in the team’s three assault battalions were killed or seriously wounded. The stories told here, many for the first time, will seem too cruel, too heartbreaking to be believed. As one veteran remarked, “Each day we learned a new way to die.” Major General Fred Haynes, then a young captain, is the last surviving office in CT 28 who was intimately involved in planning and coordinating all phases of the team’s fight on Iwo Jima. In this astonishing narrative, Haynes and James A. Warren recapture in riveting detail what the Marines experienced, drawing on a wealth of previously untapped documents, personal narratives, letters, and interviews with survivors to offer fresh interpretations of the fight for Suribachi, the iconic flag-raising photograph, and the nature of the campaign as a whole.
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Sealing Their Fate: The Twenty-Two Days That Decided World War II

By David Downing


As the Japanese fleet prepared to sail from Japan to Pearl Harbor, the German army was launching its final desperate assault on Moscow, while the British were planning a decisive blow against Rommel in North Africa. The British conquered the desert, the Germans succumbed to Moscow’s winter, and the Japanese awakened the sleeping giant of American might. In just three weeks, from November 17 to December 8, the course of World War II was decided and the fate of Germany and Japan was sealed.

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A safe haven : Harry S. Truman and the founding of Israel

by Allis Radosh. The alliance between the U.S. and Israel, which now appears indivisible, is actually of fairly recent vintage. In fact, American support for the partition of Palestine and the recognition of an independent Jewish state in 1948 was no sure thing. It happened primarily due to the sympathy and decision of President Truman. While he had Jewish friends, Truman was not free of common American prejudices concerning Jews. He had no particular emotional commitment to the Zionist goal of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, and he often bristled at the relentless stridency of Zionist lobbying. The authors illustrate the equally intense pressures applied upon Truman by State Department professionals, most of whom were sympathetic to Arab goals in Palestine. In most cases, Truman leaned heavily upon the advice of the secretary of state regarding foreign policy, and George Marshall was intensely opposed to partition. The authors assert that Truman was moved by his awareness of Jewish suffering and the plight of hundreds of thousands of Jews still languishing in DP camps. This is an excellent examination of a presidential decision that has had immense historical consequences. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Friday, June 5, 2009

Mission, Black List #1: The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein - As Told by the Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture

By Eric Maddox with Davin Seay

A behind-the-scenes chronicle of the search for Saddam Hussein offers a moment-by-moment narrative account that also profiles the author's non-violent, psychological interrogation method.

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Thursday, June 4, 2009

To the End of the Earth: Our Epic Journey to the North Pole and the Legend of Peary and Henson

By Tom Avery

April 2009 is the one-hundredth anniversary of perhaps the greatest controversy in the history of exploration. Did U.S. Naval Commander Robert Peary and his team dogsled to the North Pole in thirty-seven days in 1909? Or, as has been challenged, was this speed impossible, and was he a cheat? In 2005, polar explorer Tom Avery and his team set out to recreate this 100-year-old journey, using the same equipment as Peary, to prove that Peary had indeed done what he had claimed and discovered the North Pole. Navigating treacherous pressure ridges, deadly channels of open water, bitterly cold temperatures, and traveling in a similar style to Peary’s with dog teams and replica wooden sledges bound together with cord, Avery tells the story of how his team covered 413 nautical miles to the North Pole in thirty-six days and twenty-two hours—some four hours faster than Peary. Weaving fascinating polar exploration history with thrilling extreme adventure, this is Avery’s story of how he and his team nearly gave their lives proving Peary told the truth.
(Check Catalog)