Sabra And Shatila: September 1982

By Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout

The book covers the history of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which took place over three bloody days in the Lebanese capital Beirut. It was committed against Palestinian refugees by Lebanese militias, aided and supervised by the Israeli Army, which had encircled the district.Now available for the first time in English, this classic book is the most comprehensive, authoritative account of what happened and who was responsible. The author, Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout, was a Professor at the Lebanese University at the time. Driven by the horror of what occurred, she interviewed survivors and set up an oral history project immediately after the massacre to preserve testimonies. This book is the result. Following a general introduction, the first part contains interviews mainly with victims' families. The second part analyses statistical data and attempts to determine the number of victims. The conclusion, 'Who Was Responsible?', sheds light on the various parties responsible. Over five-hundred pages long, illustrated with photographs and maps, unrivalled in detail and scope, this book is a courageous attempt to make sense of what happened and an important political document in its own right.

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The Arabs: A History

 By Eugene Rogan



Rogan, an Oxford University lecturer, comments that Western intellectuals and leaders have an inadequate grasp of how Arabs understand their own history, which generates many grievances. He accordingly offers this political history of Arab lands since 1517, the year the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt, adopting as his theme the response of Arabs to foreign rule or influence. In succession, Rogan presents the imperial structures of the Ottomans, then those of colonizing European powers, and his discussion of their evolution is guided by narratives of the numerous revolts and wars that punctuated the era of colonization. With that era's passing in the wake of World War II, leaving a legacy of boundaries drawn by the former empires, Rogan then focuses on the creation of Israel in 1948 as a point of protest for Arab leaders—though his accounts of intra-Arab wars and dictatorial governments underscore sources of conflict that have nothing to do with Israel. Framing modern history as viewed from the Arab world, Rogan eruditely furnishes Western readers with a background to current events.

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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

Unlike historians who have spotlighted the titans MacArthur and Wainwright, Yamashita and Homma, who matched strategies in the Philippines in 1942, the Normans focus on the ordinary soldiers who bore the brunt of the wartime savagery. At the center of this searing narrative stands Ben Steele, a Montana cowboy remarkable for the fortitude that sustains him through fierce combat, humiliating surrender, and then the infamous Bataan Death March into imprisonment: four years of unrelenting slave labor, starvation, torture, beatings, and disease. Because Steele went on in his postwar life to capture his wartime ordeal in harrowing drawings (here reproduced), readers confront in both image and word the brutality of war and the desperation of captivity. Readers learn how news of Japanese atrocities inflamed an American passion for vengeance and justified horrific bombing raids, incendiary and then nuclear, against Japanese cities. But readers will find it hard to view such raids as fitting punishment of a bestial enemy after reading the Normans' chronicle of the bitter experiences of very human and often guilt-wracked Japanese soldiers. The narrative even humanizes the anguished Japanese commanders condemned by a victors' justice that held them accountable for offenses of out-of-control subordinates.

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Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution

By Joel Richard Paul

More than 200 years ago, three very different men found themselves with something in common. Silas Deane, a Connecticut merchant and politician; Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont (better known as Chevalier d'Eon), a top-level French spy; and Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a French watchmaker and writer: these strange bedfellow were important, even vital, to the success of the American Revolution. It's a bit of a labyrinthine story, its details no doubt unfamiliar to many readers, its players forgotten or remembered for other things. Beaumarchais, for example, is best known these days as the author of The Barber of Seville and other plays. Paul traces the life of the three up to their coming together in 1776 and then follows them as they carried out a plan as complex and dangerous as any spy-novel plot, at one point, success hinged on d'Eon successfully passing himself off as a woman (luckily, he did that a lot, apparently). A rip-roaring account of the American Revolution, told from a fresh, and undeniably offbeat, perspective.

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War in the Pacific: 1941-1945

By Richard Overy

Examines the war against Japan in the Pacific Islands, starting with Pearl Harbor and the attacks on the US bases on Guam and Wake Island, and the battles fought in Guadalcanal, the Philippines, and the seas of the Pacific.

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Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security-from World War II to the War on Terrorism

 By Julian E. Zelizer

Written by a university professor, this history tracks the post World War II electoral competition on foreign policy between the Democratic and Republican parties. Zelizer focuses on every national political campaign since 1946, outlining the two parties' struggle (and that between factions within the parties) for advantage as an outgrowth of the constitutional tension between the Congress and the president for control of foreign affairs, pure partisanship, and each party's intuition about voters' attitudes toward the national-security apparatus. Favoring the Democrats in the 1940s, the electorate's switch to Republicans in 1952, reversion to the Democrats in 1960, and general preference from 1968 to 2008 for Republican leadership on national security guide the author's discussion. Foreign policy, as such, lies beyond the book's scope; instead, it is the domestic ramifications of events overseas, such as the draft and war casualties that characterize this detailed and evenhanded account. Covering election campaigns, election winners' interpretation of the results, and votes on Capitol Hill, Zelizer makes the case to general-interest readers that American politics have never stopped at the water's edge.

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Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II

By J. Todd Moye

Moye draws on records from the Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project while recalling the intense political negotiations behind the group's origins and development. Rather than focusing on their much-lauded combat achievements in Europe, he recounts how individuals were selected for training and their all-too-frequent encounters with racism in the Deep South. In several particularly moving passages, veterans recall the heavy load they carried to attain not only personal success but also achievement for their entire race. They knew the world was watching. Although readers may find the general history familiar, the personal nature of the examples Moye cites make it a far deeper and richer narrative then typical WWII fare. The expected framework from the NAACP to Eleanor Roosevelt is present, but so are dozens of names and events far beyond traditional mention. As both civil rights and U.S. military history, the Tuskegee Airmen comprise a worthy subject, while the author's friendly style should open the title up to even casual readers. Copious endnotes and a full bibliography add value.

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Crisis and Command: The History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush

By John Yoo

Using a popular technique for ranking American presidents, Yoo refracts their historical status through the lens of Article II of the Constitution. George Washington rates number one in Yoo's book for setting precedents: all his successors have the power to remove officials, to wage war, and to invoke executive privilege (keep secrets from Congress) none of which is explicit in Article II because of Washington. Yoo rates Lincoln and FDR second and third, respectively, for reasons familiar to history readers. Readers will learn about Supreme Court decisions that have pertained to the president's powers, along with Yoo's expansive interpretation thereof. Addressing criticism that the power pendulum has historically swung too far from Congress, Yoo rebuts with arguments that the legislature could, but rarely does, reclaim powers it has delegated to the executive. This will appeal to the core audience for constitutional law but will also draw interest based on the author's frequent TV appearances and his notoriety many critics regarded his legal advice to the Bush administration as anathema.

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The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

B

By James Bradley

Bradley's first books, Flags of Our Fathers (2000) and Flyboys (2003), were sensationally popular World War II combat stories. His new one, about U.S.-Japanese diplomacy in 1905, represents a departure. Asserting a causal connection between diplomatic understandings reached then and war 36 years later, Bradley dramatizes his case with a delegation Theodore Roosevelt dispatched to Japan in the summer of 1905. Led by Secretary of War William Taft and ornamented by the president's quotable daughter Alice, it sailed while TR hosted the peace conference between victorious Japan and defeated Russia. As he recounts the itinerary of Taft's cruise, Bradley discusses attitudes of social Darwinism and white superiority that were then prevalent and expressed by TR and Taft. They modified their instincts, Bradley argues, in dealing with nonwhite Japan, and secretly conceded it possession of Korea. This is what Bradley asserts was a prerequisite to Pearl Harbor in 1941, a dubious thesis when the tensions of the 1930s stemmed from general Japanese aggressiveness, not its control of Korea per se. Bradley does fine on 1905 but falters when predicting the future.

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