Still vivid in many Americans' memories are the 444 days of 1979 when Islamic militants held U.S. diplomatic personnel hostage in Iran. Though their story has been told before, never has it been related from such a perspective. Unique among the hostages, the author was an officer for the Central Intelligence Agency serving at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Once his CIA connection was discovered, Bill Daugherty became a special target of his captors and was subjected to extraordinarily harsh t...

New York Times bestseller: The true behind-the-scenes story of the manhunt for the 9/11 mastermind is "a page-turner" ( Minneapolis Star-Tribune).From the author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968, this is a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Mark Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded.After mastermind...

A powerful memoir from the late former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald RumsfeldWith the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history.Rumsfeld addresses the challenges and controversies of his illus...

The world watched with fear in November 1979, when Iranian students infiltrated and occupied the American embassy in Tehran. As the city exploded in a fury of revolution, few knew about the six American embassy staff who escaped into hiding. For three months, Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador to Iran—along with his wife and embassy staffers—concealed the Americans in their homes, terrified that Ayatollah Khomeini would find out and exact deadly consequences.January 28, 2010, mark...

George Friedman delivers the geopolitical story that the mainstream media has been unable to uncover — the startling truth behind America’s foreign policy and war effort in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond**.**Friedman, founder of Stratfor, one of the world’s most respected private global intelligence firms, and Geopolitical Futures, has an unmatched ability to provide clear perspective on the current geopolitical map. In America's Secret War, George Friedman identifies the United Sta...

“Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state—a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can’t get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?”In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA’s efforts to fight ...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A searing reassessment of U.S. military policy in the Middle East over the past four decades from retired army colonel and New York Times bestselling author Andrew J. BacevichFrom the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift?...

**"An important and timely book that should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States and Iran went from close allies to enduring enemies." —The Washington Post"Deserves a spot on the short list of must-read books on United States-Iran relations." —The New York TimesThe dramatic secret history of the undeclared, ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran — the story behind the headlines.**The United States and Iran...

“How we got to where we are in Afghanistan.”—Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street JournalThis definitive account of the American experience in Afghanistan “[zeroes] in on what went awry after America’s successful routing of the Taliban in late 2001” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times) to explain how a growing sanctuary for insurgents in Pakistan and a collapsing government in Kabul catalyzed the Taliban resurgence. Examining what has worked thus far—and what hasn’t—Jones ...

Oil Kings offers the first inside look at how an oil crisis was manipulated by Alan Greenspan, Donald Rumsfeld, and President Ford (hoping to secure his re-election), helping to precipitate the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. Andrew Scott Cooper reveals the fatal struggle between the "oil kings", both Middle-Eastern and American, as they jockeyed for power, playing games that led directly to the rise of Iran's radical anti-American theocracy, which still exists today. An intrepid investi...

The relationship between America and Pakistan is based on mutual incomprehension and always has been. Pakistan -- to American eyes -- has gone from being a quirky irrelevance, to a stabilizing friend, to an essential military ally, to a seedbed of terror. America -- to Pakistani eyes -- has been a guarantee of security, a coldly distant scold, an enthusiastic military enabler, and is now a threat to national security and a source of humiliation.The countries are not merely at odds....

Even as the view of America as a rogue state consolidates abroad, Americans appear largely bystanders at the spectacle of their government running amok. People forget the myriad instances of their government's flouting of the Constitution and international legal norms-- if ever they were aware of them in the first place--accepting to live in the increasingly pernicious "new normal" with little protest. This remarkable anthology of columns documents and reminds us of the extraordinary devel...