American Military

On June 4, 1944, the course of World War II was forever changed. That day, a US Navy task force achieved the impossible—capturing a German U-Boat. Called Operation Nemo, it was the first seizure of an enemy ship in battle since the War of 1812, one of the greatest achievements of the US Navy and a victory that shortened the duration of the war. A deeply researched, fast-paced World War II narrative for the ages, Charles Lachman’s white-knuckled war saga and thrilling cat-and-mouse game is told through the eyes of the men on both sides of Operation Nemo.

In sixteenth-century New Spain, witchcraft is punishable by death, indigenous temples have been destroyed, and tales of mythical creatures that once roamed the land have become whispers in the night. Hidden behind a mask, Pantera uses her magic and legendary swordplay skills to fight the tyranny of Spanish rule. To all who know her, Leonora de las Casas Tlazohtzin never leaves the palace and is promised to the heir of the Spanish throne. The respectable, law-abiding Lady Leonora faints at the sight of blood. No one suspects that Leonora and Pantera are the same person.

Jeff Shaara, America's premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of the 10 Civil War battlefields every American should visit: Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, New Market, Chickamauga, the Wilderness/Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg/Appomattox. Shaara explores the history, the people, and the places that capture the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict.

Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle, and he propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination and the disastrous brief presidency of Andrew Johnson, America turned to Grant again to unite the country, this time as president. In Brands' sweeping, majestic full biography, Grant emerges as a heroic figure who was fearlessly on the side of right.

Crafted by some of the greatest minds in history, in this audiobook, you’ll find work by arguably the most famous Founding Fathers and Presidents of the United States, including Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson.

The 1856 presidential race was the most violent peacetime election in American history. War between proslavery and antislavery settlers raged in Kansas, a congressman shot an Irish immigrant at a Washington hotel, and another congressman beat a US senator senseless on the floor of the Senate. But amid all the violence, the campaign of the new Republican Party, headed by famed explorer John C. Fremont, offered a ray of hope: a major party dedicated to limiting the spread of slavery.

Loss and Redemption at St Vith closes a gap in the record of the Battle of the Bulge by recounting the exploits of the 7th Armored Division in a way that no other study has. Most accounts of the Battle of the Bulge give short-shrift to the interval during which the German forward progress stopped and the American counterattack began. This narrative centers on the 7th Armored Division for the entire length of the campaign, in so doing reconsidering the story of the whole battle through the lens of a single division and accounting for the reconstitution of the Division while in combat.

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.

Master storyteller and best-selling historian H. W. Brands narrates the epic struggle over slavery as embodied by John Brown and Abraham Lincoln - two men moved to radically different acts to confront our nation’s gravest sin. The Zealot and the Emancipator is acclaimed historian H. W. Brands' thrilling account of how two American giants shaped the war for freedom.

Megan Kate Nelson “expands our understanding of how the Civil War affected Indigenous peoples and helped to shape the nation” (Library Journal, starred review), reframing the era as one of national conflict - involving not just the North and South, but also the West.

Today, Germantown is a busy neighborhood in Philadelphia. On October 4, 1777, it was a small village on the outskirts of the colonial capital whose surrounding fields and streets witnessed one of the largest battles of the American Revolution. The bloody battle represented George Washington's attempt to recapture Philadelphia but has long been overshadowed by better-known events like Brandywine, Saratoga, and Valley Forge.

Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity.

The American war in Vietnam has left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny area bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. That small region saw the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, the massive use of toxic chemicals, and the heaviest casualties on both sides.

Many Americans, argues Michael C. C. Adams, tend to think of the Civil War as more glorious, less awful, than the reality. In Living Hell, Adams tries a different tack, clustering the voices of myriad actual participants on the firing line or in the hospital ward to create a virtual historical reenactment. Neither film nor reenactment can fully capture the hard truth of the four-year conflict. Living Hell presents a stark portrait of the human costs of the Civil War and gives listeners a more accurate appreciation of its lasting consequences.

An unforgettable and moving story of tragedy, heroism, resilience, and redemption that is sure to become an enduring document of American history, All the Brave Men is a sailor's moment-by-moment eyewitness account of the Japanese surprise attack that decimated the US Pacific Fleet in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and his inspiring return to active duty to carry on the Allied fight in the Pacific.

Here is a recording of a War Department pamphlet aimed at U.S. Servicemen in Britain in 1942. The jovial tone of the document and its advice about how NOT to offend the British make for a nostalgic - and in places humorous - relic of World War II.

New York Times best-selling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”. When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre”, a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams.

A profound new rendering of the struggle by African Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.

Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff, with the photos hung on his bedroom wall to prove it. Decades later, Ferguson's latent buffdom is reignited. In Land of Lincoln, he embarks on a curiosity-fueled coast-to-coast journey through contemporary Lincoln Nation, encountering everything from hatred to adoration to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between.

Robert Howard grew up in poverty in a small town in Alabama, with a strong sense of faith and determination. When he enlisted in the army at age seventeen, his Granny Callie’s words echoed in his head, and he pledged to follow them to the bitter end. In the most dire of combat experiences, Howard ran directly toward his opponents, sacrificing his body to protect others and to complete the mission above all else. Time and time again, he survived battles that should have claimed his life, suffering countless bullets, a spinal injury, and shrapnel and blast wounds.