“A maddening, essential study in misinformation, jingoism, bad intelligence, and other hallmarks of the recent American past.”—Kirkus (starred review)Anyone who experienced the attacks on September 11 cannot forget the imagery: the smoking, falling towers, the Pentagon smoldering, the Shanksville crash site, the first responders.But there is an invisible story hidden in the wreckage, one that required years of patient investigation and the piecing ...

The definitive book about America’s perpetual wars and how to end them from bestselling author, military expert, and award-winning journalist William M. Arkin.The first rule of perpetual war is to never stop, a fact which former NBC News analyst William M. Arkin knows better than anyone, having served in the Army and having covered all of America’s wars over the past three decades. He has spent his career investigating how the military throws around the word “war” ...

Unmanned is an in-depth examination of why seemingly successful wars never seem to end. The problem centers on drones, now accumulated in the thousands, the front end of a spying and killing machine that is disconnected from either security or safety.Drones, however, are only part of the problem. William Arkin shows that security is actually undermined by an impulse to gather as much data as possible, the appetite and the theory both skewed towards the notion that no amoun...

The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger. In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous size...

The definitive book about America’s perpetual wars and how to end them from bestselling author, military expert, and award-winning journalist William M. Arkin.The first rule of perpetual war is to never stop, a fact which former NBC News analyst William M. Arkin knows better than anyone, having served in the Army and having covered all of America’s wars over the past three decades. He has spent his career investigating how the military throws around the word “war” ...

Unmanned is an in-depth examination of why seemingly successful wars never seem to end. The problem centers on drones, now accumulated in the thousands, the front end of a spying and killing machine that is disconnected from either security or safety.Drones, however, are only part of the problem. William Arkin shows that security is actually undermined by an impulse to gather as much data as possible, the appetite and the theory both skewed towards the notion that no amoun...

The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger. In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous size...

A stunning exploration of the subtle erosion of freedom in an age of concocted fear and de facto military authority.When we think of a military coup, the first image that comes to mind is a general, standing at a podium with a flag behind him, declaring the deposing of elected leaders and the institution of martial law.Think again. In American Coup, William Arkin reveals the desk-bound takeover of the highest reaches of government by a coterie of "...

In Days of Fire, Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, takes us on a gripping and intimate journey through the eight years of the Bush and Cheney administration in a tour-de-force narrative of a dramatic and controversial presidency.Theirs was the most captivating American political partnership since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger: a bold and untested president and his seasoned, relentless vice president. Confront...

Afghanistan, 2008. After their eighteen-month epic tour of Helmand Province, the troops of 3 Para are back. This time, the weight of experience weighs heavily on their shoulders.In April 2006 the elite 3 Para Battle Group was despatched to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on a tour that has become a legend. All that summer the Paras were subjected to relentless Taliban attacks in one of the most gruelling campaigns fought by British troops in modern times.Two years later the ...

Kurt Eichenwald—New York Times bestselling author of Conspiracy of Fools and The Informant—recounts the first 500 days after 9/11 in a comprehensive, fly on the wall, compelling page-turner as gripping as any thriller.In 500 Days, master chronicler Kurt Eichenwald lays bare the harrowing decisions, deceptions, and delusions of the eighteen months that changed the world forever, as leaders raced to protect their citizens in the wa...

**See how and why Washington is not functioning.Bob Woodward’s freshly reported, thirty-five-page Afterword to his national bestseller, The Price of Politics, provides a detailed, often verbatim account of what happened in the dramatic “fiscal cliff” face-off at the end of 2012 between President Obama and the Republicans.**Now it’s happening again. In fall 2013, Washington faces a new round of budget and fiscal wars that could derail the American and global economi...