American Military History

In 1932, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend's flight lesson. It changed her life. In less than a year, a girl with a wicked sense of humor, a newfound love of flying, and a tough can-do attitude earned her pilot's license and headed for China to help against invading Japanese forces. In time, Hazel would become the first Asian American to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. As thrilling as it may have been, it wasn't easy.

Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower was arguably the single most important military figure of World War II. Crusade in Europe tells the complete story of the war as he planned and executed it. Through Eisenhower's eyes the enormous scope and drama of the war—strategy, battles, moments of great decision—become fully illuminated in all their fateful glory. Penned before his Presidency, this account is deeply human and helped propel him to the highest office.

Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed.

Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.

The bloody two-day battle of Shiloh changed the course of the American Civil War. The conflagration at Shiloh had its roots in the strong Union advance that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. The offensive collapsed General Albert S. Johnston's advanced line in Kentucky and forced him to withdraw to northern Mississippi. Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border.

At the dawn of the 19th century, the great powers of Western Europe treated the United States like a disobedient child. America's complaints were ignored, until President James Madison declared a second war on Great Britain. British forces would descend on the United States, but America rallied and survived. With stunning detail on land and naval battles, the role Native Americans played in the hostilities, and the larger backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, this is the story of the turning points of this strange conflict, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Since the Wright brothers made their famed flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, aviation has emerged as the indispensable arm of American military power. In this detailed and informative history, Charles J. Gross traces its development from the technological antecedents of the Wright brothers' triumph through the air war for Kosovo. Drawing on examples from all periods and all service branches, he explains the roles of politics, economics, and technology in shaping air power in the US armed forces and assesses the actual impact of military aviation.

Franklin Roosevelt awoke on September 1, 1939 to the news that Germany invaded Poland, signaling the start of World War II. The president warned for years that Hitler's fascist regime posed an existential threat to democracy, but the American public remained stubbornly isolationist as fascist sympathizing groups, egged on by right wing media stars promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, plotted to overthrow the president. The situation was dire, and Roosevelt found himself facing an unexpected adversary: Charles Lindbergh.

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America faced a crisis. The new nation was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly, but its merchant ships were under attack. Pirates from North Africa's Barbary coast routinely captured American sailors and held them as slaves, demanding ransom and tribute payments far beyond what the new country could afford.

In March 1906, American soldiers on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines surrounded and killed 1000 local men, women, and children, known as Moros, on top of an extinct volcano. The so-called ‘Battle of Bud Dajo’ was hailed as a triumph over an implacable band of dangerous savages, a “brilliant feat of arms” according to President Theodore Roosevelt. Some contemporaries, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Mark Twain, saw the massacre for what it was, but they were the exception and the U.S. military authorities successfully managed to bury the story.

To create more trade and to expand the Empire of Britain, Queen Elizabeth established colonies in North America. By 1732, the 13 colonies that belonged to England were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. In 1754, Benjamin Franklin made a drawing called “Join, or Die”. It showed a snake divided into parts which meant that the 13 colonies should unite against any enemies.

Although many books on Gettysburg have addressed the role played by Brig. Gen. John Buford and his First Cavalry Division troops, there is not a single book-length study devoted entirely to the critical delaying actions waged by Buford and his dismounted troopers and his horse artillerists on the morning of July 1, 1863. Award-winning Civil War historian Eric J. Wittenberg rectifies this glaring oversight with The Devil’s to Pay.

Joan of Arc was born in a small French village during the worst period of the Hundred Years' War. For generations, France had been besieged by the British. At age 11, Joan began to see religious visions telling her to join forces with the King of France. By the time she was a teenager, she was leading troops into battle in the name of her country. Though she was captured and executed for her beliefs, Joan of Arc became a Catholic saint and has since captured the world's imagination.

This prize-winning and critically acclaimed history uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's dramatic rise from 13 disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower.

The epic story of the engineers and rail workers who ensured Allied victory in World War Two, published to coincide with the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, by an award-winning expert on trains and transportation.

“O say can you see” begins one of the most recognizable songs in the US. Originally a poem by Francis Scott Key, the national anthem tells the story of the American flag rising high above a fort after a night of intense battle during the War of 1812. But there is much more to the story than what is sung at ball games. What was this battle about? Whose bombs were bursting, and why were rockets glaring? Who sewed those broad stripes and bright stars? Why were free Black soldiers fighting on both sides? Who was Francis Scott Key anyway, and how did he end up with such a close view?

Now a spry 94 years old, Frank Sisson looks back at his life and his service in the Third Army. Born in rural Oklahoma, Frank grew up fatherless during the Great Depression. In 1944, at age 18, he enlisted and was deployed to France where he marched with Patton, taking part in many of the key Allied movements of the war. Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge, nearly died crossing the Rhine with Patton, and was among the first American soldiers who liberated the notorious Dachau concentration camp.

Lincoln found the solace and tactics he needed to deal with the nation’s worst crisis in the “coping strategies” he had developed over a lifetime of persevering through depressive episodes and personal tragedies. With empathy and authority gained from his own experience with depression, Shenk crafts a nuanced, revelatory account of Lincoln and his legacy. Based on careful, intrepid research, Lincoln’s Melancholy unveils a wholly new perspective on how our greatest president brought America through its greatest turmoil.

Based on previously unavailable documents and interviews with more than 100 key players, including General David Petraeus, The Insurgents unfolds against the backdrop of two wars waged against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one led at home by a new generation of officers - including Petraeus, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and H. R. McMaster - who were seized with an idea on how to fight these kinds of "small wars" and who adapted their enemies' techniques to overhaul their own army.

George Wilson has garnered much acclaim for this shattering and enlightening memoir. Detailing his odyssey from July, 1944 until the following summer, If You Survive is a startling first-person account of the final year of World War II. Wilson was the only man from his original company to finish the war. As a Second Lieutenant, he went ashore at Utah Beach after the D-Day invasion amidst burned vehicles, sunken landing craft, and broken fortifications.