American Military History

The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon - but only after a stay of nearly two decades.

In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.

Signed on September 2, 1945 by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional". Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress.

Hidden among the photographs, uniforms, revolvers, and war medals of the Civil War are the remarkable stories of some of the most unlikely heroes: women. This audiobook brings to light the incredible stories of women from the Civil War that remain relevant to our nation today. Each woman's experience helps us see a truer, fuller, richer version of what really happened in this country during this time period.

In the gold rush era of Virginia City, Montana, crime was afoot and justice shaky. Lawlessness ran amok in the form of gamblers, saloonkeepers, miners, dance hall girls, and road agents - outlaws who ambushed travelers on the road for a chance to steal precious gold. Of all the road agents, Henry Plummer was their king and elected sheriff. Plummer’s notorious road-agent band terrorized the highways until a group of ordinary citizens resolved to take the responsibility of social governance into their hands.

Scouting for Grant and Meade is comprised of the popular recollections of Judson Knight, former chief scout of the Army of the Potomac from August 1864 to June 1865. Originally beginning as a serialized column in the armed forces service paper National Tribune, Knight’s column "Fighting Them Over Again" offers a rare glimpse into the comings and goings of scouts behind enemy lines during the American Civil War.

In January 1944, 16 Black enlisted men gathered at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois to begin a cram course that would turn them into the US Navy's first African American officers on active duty. Years later, these pioneers came to be known as the Golden Thirteen, but at the outset they were treated more as pariahs than pioneers. This book collects their stories.

To the original text of what has become a classic of American historical literature, Bernard Bailyn adds a substantial essay, "Fulfillment", as a postscript. Here he discusses the intense nationwide debate on the ratification of the Constitution, stressing the continuities between that struggle over the foundations of the national government and the original principles of the Revolution.

For the first time ever, the intimate thoughts and political decisions of Abraham Lincoln’s entire presidency - day by day. In a startlingly innovative format, journalist Stephen A. Wynalda has constructed a painstakingly detailed day-by-day breakdown of president Abraham Lincoln’s decisions in office - including his signing of the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862; his signing of the legislation enacting the first federal income tax on August 5, 1861; and more personal incidents like the day his 11-year-old son, Willie, died.

During World War II, U.S. forces had to keep battle plans and other top secret information out of the enemy's hands. Coded messages were often used, but secret codes could be broken. To solve this problem, the U.S. military turned to an unexpected source to create an unbreakable code. The Navajo people spoke a complex language that few outsiders knew how to speak. Several Navajo soldiers were recruited to develop a code based on the Navajo language.

For more than three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France. It became the longest siege in British history, and the obsession with saving Gibraltar was blamed for the loss of the American colonies in the War of Independence.

An important look at how America has won its wars in the past and how it can continue winning in the future. Is there a recipe for military success? In No Substitute for Victory, author David Rigby grapples with this issue and determines that, in the case of the United States, there are a number of different strategies that have brought victory in battle to American forces over the years.

One of the most important and memorable events of the United States' westward push across the frontier came with the discovery of gold, in the lands that became California, in January 1848. Located thousands of miles away from the country's power centers on the East Coast at the time, the announcement came a month before the Mexican-American War ended. It brought an influx of an estimated 90,000 "Forty-Niners" to the region in 1849, hailing from other parts of America and even as far away as Asia.

Mortally wounded in battle when he was only 31, the dashing J. E. B. Stuart, the South's "plumed warrior knight", stands with Stonewall Jackson as one of the Confederacy's most revered martyrs. Union General John Sedgwick called him "the greatest cavalryman ever foaled in America". Jeffry D. Wert, however, offers a more balanced assessment in this comprehensive biography.

US leaders need accurate information to make important decisions. They turn to the CIA to get it. Around the clock, members of the CIA are hard at work. As covert officers secretly gather intelligence, analysts are busy studying it. CIA scientists develop high-tech spy gear. But no matter their job, CIA members share a common goal of keeping the country safe.

Journalist Michael J. Mooney reveals the life story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the American Sniper, from his Texas childhood up through his death in February 2013. A brutal warrior but a gentle father and husband, Kyle led the life of an American hero and legend. His heroism and reputation in the military service earned him the nickname "the devil" among insurgents and the nickname The Legend among his SEAL brethren, but his impact extended beyond that after he came home, through his work with fellow veterans.

This sweeping biography about the man who was the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is an epic tale of courage and bravery in the face of unimaginable trials. The Road to Dawn tells the improbable story of Josiah Henson - a dynamic, driven man with exceptional intelligence and unyielding principles, who overcame incredible odds to escape from slavery and improve the lives of hundreds of freedmen throughout his long life. He was immortalized by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Despite the abundance of books on the Civil War, not one has focused exclusively on what was in fact the determining factor in the outcome of the conflict: differences in union and southern strategy. In The Grand Design, Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified their political goals and worked with their generals to craft the military means to achieve them - or how they often failed to do so.

When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.

History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. Many Americans of his own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, not to mention a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but that it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. Gravely ill throughout much of the Civil War, Davis nevertheless shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy—the quest for independent nationhood—with clarity and force.