Profiles of twenty US military leaders—unsung heroes whose accomplishments have been too little acknowledged and too seldom celebrated.The military history of the United States is replete with examples of leaders whose singular leadership is now little remembered or forgotten completely. This volume covers more than twenty leaders "in the shadows" during the four major conflicts the United States engaged in from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle years...

Profiles of unsung American battlefield commanders—from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War. "A pleasure to read" (Raymond E. Franck, Brig. Gen., USAF, retired).History plays tricks sometimes. During the course of America's experience, it has enshrined an exceptional few military leaders in our collective consciousness as "great," while ignoring others often equally as deserving. For example, few of the thousands who pass by the traffic square between Fifth...

Beyond the pantheon of Patton, Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Nimitz lies an untold story of military genius — the innovative commanders who stepped from their shadows to shape modern warfare from the Cold War to the War on Terror.From the general who made the impossible Berlin Airlift succeed to the mastermind behind the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Taking Command unveils the remarkable stories of twenty-four unsung military leaders who transformed Ameri...

Around 1863, William “Candy” Cummings discovered he could make clamshells curve when thrown—a skill he transferred to baseball as a pitcher for the New York Excelsiors. In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first team in baseball to place all of their players on salary. And in 1945, the St. Louis Browns recruited a one-armed outfielder to the majors. These stories and much more are brought to life in Touching All the Bases: Baseball in 101 Fascinating Stories, an all-encompassin...

Black soldiers first entered the regular army of the United States in the summer of 1866. While their segregated regiments served in the American West for the following three decades, the promise of Reconstruction gave way to the repressiveness of Jim Crow. But black men found a degree of equality in the service: the army treated them no worse than it did their white counterparts.The Black Regulars uses army correspondence, court-martial transcripts, and pension applicatio...

A New York Times bestseller from the author of Band of Brothers: The biography of two fighters forever linked by history and the battle at Little Bighorn.On the sparkling morning of June 25, 1876, 611 men of the United States 7th Cavalry rode toward the banks of Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory, where three thousand Indians stood waiting for battle. The lives of two great warriors would soon be forever linked throughout history: Crazy Horse,...

The first full-length biography of the half-barbarian emperor.Maximinus was a Thracian tribesman of frightening appearance and colossal size” who could smash stones with his bare hands and pull fully laden wagons unaided. Such feats impressed the emperor Severus who enlisted Maximinus into the imperial bodyguard whereupon he embarked on a distinguished military career. Eventually he achieved senior command in the massive Roman invasion of Persia in 232 AD, and thr...

A "wonderfully written account of America in the '30s," the follow-up to Only Yesterday examines Black Tuesday through the end of the Depression ( The New York Times).Wall Street Journal BestsellerOpening on September 3, 1929, in the days before the stock market crash, this information-packed volume takes us through one of America's darkest times all the way to the light at the end of the tunnel.Following Black Tue...

Main Selection of the History Book ClubThe Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War’s turning point, produced over 57,000 casualties, the largest number from the entire war that was itself America’s bloodiest conflict. On the third day of fierce fighting, Robert E. Lee’s attempt to invade the North came to a head in Pickett’s Charge. The infantry assault, consisting of nine brigades of soldiers in a line that stretched for over a mile, resulted in casualties of over 50 percent for the C...

A biography of the two gifted Civil War commanders from a New York Times–bestselling author: "A great story . . . History at its best" ( Publishers Weekly).Their names are forever linked in the history of the Civil War, but Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant could not have been more dissimilar. Lee came from a world of Southern gentility and aristocratic privilege while Grant had coarser, more common roots in the Midwest. As a young officer trained...

A fresh account of some of history's greatest warriors.The Vikings had an extraordinary and far-reaching historical impact. From the eighth to the eleventh centuries, they ranged across Europe-raiding, exploring, colonizing-and their presence was felt as far away as Russia and Byzantium. They are most famous as warriors, yet perhaps their talent for warfare is too little understood. Philip Line, in this scholarly and highly readable study of the Viking age, uses or...

New York Times Bestseller: A "virtually faultless" account of the last weeks of WWII in the Pacific from both Japanese and American perspectives ( The New York Times Book Review).By midsummer 1945, Japan had long since lost the war in the Pacific. The people were not told the truth, and neither was the emperor. Japanese generals, admirals, and statesmen knew, but only a handful of leaders were willing to accept defeat. Most were b...