George Washington's First War: His Early Military Adventures

By David A. Clary.

What Washington, who secured his first military appointment at 21, lacked in experience he made up for in ambition. Yet one of the untested officer's first assignments was to confront French traders over their claim to Ohio River Valley land. Some deemed it "extraordinary," he would reflect, "that so young and inexperienced a person should have been employed on a negotiation with which subjects of the greatest importance were involved." In well over his head, Washington got his diplomatic party into a messy military skirmish that fueled the start of the Seven Year's War. Despite this, an appetite for adventure won Washington an opportunity to return to the wilderness (where on his second assignment he and his men surrendered to the French after becoming trapped). Clary expertly chronicles how Washington navigated command layers and adaptedor failed to adaptto the wild American terrain, revealing that these early military failures shaped Washington to become a versatile commander, capable of leading not only a revolution, but a country.--Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War

By Megan K. Stack.

As a 25-year-old correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Stack covered Afghanistan in the days immediately following 9/11, then traveled to other outposts in the war on terror, from Iraq to Iran, Libya, and Lebanon. In a disquieting series of essays, Stack now takes readers deep into the carnage where she was exposed to the insanity, innocence, and inhumanity of wars with no beginning, middle, or end. Her soaring imagery sears itself into the brain, in acute and accurate tales that should never be forgotten by the wider world, and yet always are. Stack grew increasingly demoralized with each new outburst of hostilities, and clearly covering the violence took its emotional toll: the uncomfortable hypocrisy of Abu Ghraib, the unconscionable confusion over womens subjugation, the unfathomable intricacies of tribal allegiances. Anyone wishing to understand the Middle East need only look into the faces of war that Stack renders with exceptional humanity the bombers as well as the bureaucrats, the rebels and the refugees, the victors and the victims.--Booklist (Check Catalog)

The long walk : the true story of a trek to freedom

 by Slavomir Ravicz.

In 1939, Rawicz was arrested by the Russians as a spy and sent to a labor camp in Siberia. He escaped with six other prisoners, heading south to India, across the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas. British actor John Lee's forceful narration, perfectly matched to the text's pace, expresses the strength and defiance that kept Rawicz alive. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)