War Diplomacy

In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations during the Civil War, from both European and American perspectives, Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict between North and South reached far beyond American soil.

The Cold War seemingly ended in a decisive victory for the West. But now, Noah Feldman argues, we are entering an era of renewed global struggle: the era of Cool War. Just as the Cold War matched the planet’s reigning superpowers in a contest for geopolitical supremacy, so this new age will pit the United States against a rising China in a contest for dominance, alliances, and resources. Already visible in Asia, the conflict will extend to the Middle East (U.S.-backed Israel versus Chinese-backed Iran), Africa, and beyond.

In Mission Failure, Michael Mandelbaum, one of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, provides an original, provocative, and definitive account of the ambitious but deeply flawed post-Cold War efforts to promote American values and American institutions throughout the world.

Russia and China are increasingly revisionist in their regions. The Middle East appears to be unraveling. And many Americans question why the United States ought to lead. What will great power competition look like in the decades ahead? What impact will geopolitics have on globalization? And what strategy should the United States pursue to succeed in an increasingly competitive world? In this book, Thomas Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other.

In Marching Toward Hell, Scheuer offers a scathing and frightening look at how the Iraq war has contributed to the enemy's strength and fundamentally changed the geopolitical landscape in a way that is harmful to U.S. interests and security concerns. Scheuer will examine the ways in which the war has widened the conflict by almost every measure, made America less secure, and increasingly vulnerable to attack.

Churchill's Legacy describes how Churchill wielded his influence in postwar politics to enable the restoration of Europe through two key speeches in 1946. Having first helped bring victory to the Allies in 1945, Churchill went on to preserve the freedom of the world by gaining the support of the United States in the restoration of Europe. In Fulton, Missouri, Churchill alerted America to the reality of 'Uncle Joe' - a tyrant determined to dominate Europe at any cost.

Christopher Meyer was Ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2003, during which time he was an eyewitness to and participant in the events following 9/11 and the preparations for the Iraq war. Never before has there been such a riveting and candid memoir of life behind the diplomatic scenes. Meyer's is an honest account of what he saw, what he heard, and how he felt.

Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East distills eleven years of expert reporting for the New York Times, Reuters, and The Atlantic into a clarion call for change. Here Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Rohde exposes how a dysfunctional Washington squandered billions on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, neglected its true allies in the war on terror and failed to employ its most potent nonmilitary weapons: American consumerism, technology, and investment.

The unlikely man at the roiling center of this intrigue was Robert Bunch, an American-born Englishman who had maneuvered his way to the position of British consul in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew to loathe slavery and the righteousness of its practitioners. Bunch used his unique perch and boundless ambition to become a key player, sending reams of dispatches to the home government and eventually becoming the Crown's best secret source on the Confederacy.

In The Puzzle Palace, James Bamford revealed the existence of the NSA, the largest, most secretive, and best-financed intelligence organization in the world. In Body of Secrets, he took readers inside the ultra-secret agency, charting its deeds and misdeeds. Now Bamford applies his relentless investigative drive and unparalleled access to intelligence sources to produce a headline-making book about the most pressing issues of the present day.

This is the true story of an unknown American politician who played a critical role in ending centuries of conflict in Northern Ireland. Without the president's permission, and breaking every conventional rule about how to deal with terrorists, former congressman Bruce Morrison helped end a conflict that most observers thought would continue indefinitely.

When Congress originally created the National Security Council in 1947, it was intended to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II. Nearly an afterthought, a small administrative staff was established to help keep its papers moving. President Kennedy was, as John Gans documents, the first to make what became known as the NSC staff his own, selectively hiring bright young aides to do his bidding.

Before Pearl Harbor, before the Nazi invasion of Poland, America teetered between the desire for isolation and the threat of world war. May 1938. Franklin Delano Roosevelt - recently reelected to a second term as president - sat in the Oval Office and contemplated two possibilities: the rule of fascism overseas, and a third term.

The Sit Room brings you inside the secretive Situation Room of the White House, the most important deliberative room in the world, during the early 1990s when the author was one of the policymakers who framed the Clinton Administration's policy toward the bloody Balkans War. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and his own notes, David Scheffer, who later became America's first Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, weaves the true story of how policy options were debated in the Sit Room among the highest national security officials.

First published in the early days of the Iraq War, Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about the American quest for empire that still carries weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration's words and actions, Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor: "Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered.... To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad."