No one in history has provoked more controversy than Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he an enlightened ruler or brutal tyrant? Was he an insatiable warmonger or a defender of France against the aggression of the other great powers? Was he kind or cruel, farsighted or blinkered, a sophisticate or a philistine, a builder or a destroyer?One thing is certain, if the art of leadership is about getting what one wants, then Napoleon was among history's greatest masters. War was the medium through...

Insurgencies are like the hydra, the many-headed beast of Greek mythology. Once one begins, the measures a government takes to eliminate militantsùto cut off the insurgencyÆs headùcan provoke countless others to join the enemy ranks. Tactical victories often breed strategic de¼feats. Traditional ôsearch, destroy, and withdrawö missions that rely on firepower to wipe out reb¼els frequently destroy the livelihoods and loved ones of innocent people caught in the cross fire. U.S. troops have seen...

“Nester brings out clearly the features of Patton’s buoyant dynamic leadership… an important addition to the stock of modern military biographies.” – The NYMAS ReviewFor General George S. Patton, “Leadership is the thing that wins battles. I have it—but I’ll be damned if I can define it. Probably it consists in knowing what you want to do and then doing it and getting mad if anyone steps in the way. Self-confidence and leadership are twin brothers.”Indeed, ...

Many indeed, are the biographies of Winston Churchill, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. But what was that influence and how did he use it in the furtherance of his and his country's ambitions? For the first time, Professor William Nestor has delved into the life and actions of Churchill to examine just how skillfully he manipulated events to place him in positions of power.His thirst for power stirred political controversy wherever he intruded. Those wh...

This deep dive into the mind of the complex, controversial political and military leader is "a great addition to the field of Napoleonics" ( Journal of Military History).No historical figure has provoked more controversy than Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he an enlightened ruler or brutal tyrant? An insatiable warmonger or a defender of France against the aggression of the other great powers? Kind or cruel, farsighted or blinkered, a sophisticate...

America’s colonial era began and ended dramatically, with the founding of the first enduring settlement at Jamestown on May 14, 1607 and the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. During those 169 years, conflicts were endemic and often overlapping among the colonists, between the colonists and the original inhabitants, between the colonists and other imperial European peoples, and between the colonists and the mother country. As conflicts were endemic, so too were st...

A New York Times bestsellerNow also an Oscar-nominated documentaryIn Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater, takes us inside America's new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies.Dra...

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...

FROM INSIDE OBAMA’S SITUATION ROOM . . . THE CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE COVERT WAR AGAINST IRAN, THE STRUGGLES TO DEAL WITH A RECALCITRANT PAKISTAN AND ITS FAST-GROWING NUCLEAR ARSENAL, THE TENSIONS WITH THE AMERICAN MILITARY OVER AFGHANISTAN AND WITH ALLIES SWEPT UP IN THE CHAOS OF THE ARAB SPRINGThree and a half years ago, David Sanger’s book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power described how a new American preside...

In 9-11, published in November 2001 and arguably the single most influential post 9-11 book, internationally renowned thinker Noam Chomsky bridged the information gap around the World Trade Center attacks, cutting through the tangle of political opportunism, expedient patriotism, and general conformity that choked off American discourse in the months immediately following. Chomsky placed the attacks in context, marshaling his deep and nuanced knowledge of American foreign policy to trace t...

An E-book to beat the bombing - Expose the Big Lie in time to stop the war. Syria's situation is truly serious, under ruthless attack by enemies within and without. The so-called Syrian uprising is actually a cynical US-engineered plot using mercenaries, wahhabi fanatics and corrupt NGO's. They are determined to smash this independent Arab socialist state where oil wealth is spent on human welfare, like Libya before it was torn apart in the same way. Neighboring nations move in for the kil...

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...