United States Military

This is a story about a not-so-heroic military veteran facing a world where the government squanders the hard-earned gains of Middle East effort, virtue is simply virtue signaling, nobody seems to be reliable, honesty is ephemeral, and most civilians do not care. Garth Ericson is a Marine Corps infantry veteran with years of service. He’s recovering from the wounds of a friendly-fire accident in Iraq. His wife has left him for another man, and he is grappling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Law scholar and Witness to Guantánamo founder Peter Jan Honigsberg uncovers a haunting portrait of life at the military prison and its toll, not only on the detainees and their loved ones but also on its military and civilian personnel and the journalists who reported on it. Honigsberg conducted 158 interviews across 20 countries so that the people who lived and worked there could tell their heartbreaking, inspirational stories. These are a few of them.

Among the piles of obsolete farm and household implements, haystacks, dust, and debris abandoned in her historic barn, Katie Aldridge discovered a box containing the Civil War letters of Charles Freeman Biddlecom. Painstakingly transcribing and lightly editing more than 100 letters written by the soldier to his wife during his service, Ms. Aldridge resurrected the voice of the Civil War combat soldier. The tone and character of "Charlie's" detailed accounts of the war compelled Ms. Aldridge to find out more.

Washington was born and raised among Blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both Black and White troops, Washington's attitudes began to change.

Buried deep in the US defense and special forces architecture is an elite, ultra-black unit created expressly to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of terrorists and rogue regimes. Their covert, surgical strikes eliminate grave threats so the rest of America can sleep without fear. Until now. After returning from a successful operation in Pakistan, the entire team is assassinated within 48 hours. Only their leader, Michael Garin, survives.

Almost 10 times as many men died in the Civil War prison camps of the North and South as were killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. One such camp was Andersonville, where Union soldiers like Brigade Quartermaster John L. Ransom of the Ninth Michigan Cavalry, were subjected to hunger, disease, cruelty, and despair. Captured in November 1863, Ransom kept his spirits and courage up enough to survive and record this compelling true account of his experiences.

Born to a well-to-do, connected family in 1816, Montgomery C. Meigs graduated from West Point as an engineer. He helped build America's forts and served under Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigation improvements on the Mississippi River. As a young man, he designed the Washington aqueducts in a city where people were dying from contaminated water. He built the spectacular wings and the massive dome of the brand-new US Capitol.

The Nazi Spy Ring in America tells the story of Hitler's attempts to interfere in American affairs by spreading anti-Semitic propaganda, stealing military technology, and mapping US defenses. This fast-paced history provides essential insight into the role of espionage in shaping American perceptions of Germany in the years leading up to US entry into World War II. Fascinating and thoroughly researched, The Nazi Spy Ring in America sheds light on a now-forgotten but significant episode in the history of international relations and the development of the FBI.

Renowned historian Phillip Thomas Ticker, PhD, recounts the little-known story of the Battle of Pell's Point and the heroism of Colonel John Glover with the care and attention-to-detail for which he is known.

In building a railroad, there is only one decisive spot - the end of the track. Nothing like this great work had ever been seen in the world when the last spike, a golden one, was driven in Promontory Peak, Utah, in 1869, as the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific tracks were joined. Ambrose writes with power and eloquence about the brave men - the famous and the unheralded, ordinary men doing the extraordinary - who accomplished the spectacular feat that made the continent into a nation.

The long-awaited biography of the frontier Founding Father whose heroic actions and neglected writings inspired an entire generation, from Paine to Madison. On May 10, 1775, in the storm-tossed hours after midnight, Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary firebrand, was poised for attack. With only two boatloads of his scraggly band of Vermont volunteers having made it across the wind-whipped waters of Lake Champlain, he was waiting for the rest of his Green Mountain boys to arrive....

The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the United States, among them California and the present-day Southwest. When gold was discovered in California in the great Gold Rush of 1849, the population swelled, and settlers petitioned for admission to the Union. But the U.S. Senate was precariously balanced with 15 free states and 15 slave states. Up to this point, states had been admitted in pairs, one free and one slave, to preserve that tenuous balance in the Senate.

In The Icarus Syndrome, Peter Beinart tells a tale as old as the Greeks—a story about the seductions of success. Beinart describes Washington on the eve of three wars—World War I, Vietnam, and Iraq—three moments when American leaders decided they could remake the world in their image. Each time, leading intellectuals declared that history was over, and the spread of democracy was inevitable. Each time, a president held the nation in the palm of his hand.

Native American of the Blackfeet Nation, Lani Running Bear ends her service in the Army Military Police corps, and returns to the reservation to help her people as a law enforcement officer. When members of her tribe turn up dead, she doesn't know who she can trust, and calls on a man she’d busted while deployed. A man with the one qualification that would allow him to live on the reservation with her. Fresh out of the Army, and new to Brotherhood Protectors, Zachariah Jones is prime for his first assignment as the undercover fiancé of a tribal officer.

George Washington came to be known as father of his country. In his role as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, George Washington defeated the British in the American Revolution and established the United States of America. Through his extraordinary military leadership, he guaranteed that the American Republic would move forward in its revolutionary experiment. So how was Washington able to win this seemingly unwinnable war? This compelling 15-lecture audio course answers this and many more questions about one of the most foundational figures in American history.

Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress - Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham - Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history.

1775: Overlooked Heroines focuses entirely on ordinary women who broke away from their social constraints to become soldiers, spies, and heroines in the American Revolutionary War. These women physically fought for America to be free from colonial imperialism, but yet society fails to recant their names. 1775: Overlooked Heroines fills in the gaps of history and places these women back into the historical narrative, whose names are less celebrated and are overshadowed or misattributed simply because they are women.

Step into history and relive the exhilarating saga of the American Revolution. Experience the thrill of rebellion, the birth of a nation, and the courage that ignited change. This meticulously crafted book brings to life the riveting battles, visionary leaders, and the spirit that forged the United States.

Molly’s story is a memoir. It is an account of a first-generation immigrant who came from Eastern Europe through Paris to America. We see the world, lovingly and playfully through the eyes of an innocent child, and then more reflective as an older adult. Her story is intermingled with those of her aunts and uncles who remained in Paris, and witnessed the horrors of Nazi occupation during World War II.

From lesser-known state figures to the ancestors of Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman, and James Meredith, Mississippi Zion brings the voices and experiences of everyday people to the forefront and reveals a history dictated by people rather than eras. Author Evan Howard Ashford, a native of the county, examines how African Americans in Attala County, after the Civil War, shaped economic, social, and political politics as a non-majority racial group. At the same time, Ashford provides a broader view of Black life occurring throughout the state during the same period.