A look at the Russian leader's successful use of hard military and economic power and soft psychological power through information warfare, or "fake news."Vladimir Putin has tightly ruled Russia since 31 December 1999, and will firmly assert power from the Kremlin for the foreseeable future. Many fear and loath him for his brutality, for ordering opponents imprisoned on trumped up charges and even murdered. Yet most Russians adore him for rebuilding the economy, st...

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...

As William Nester asserts in The Age of Jackson, it takes quite a leader to personify an age. A political titan for thirty-three years (1815-1848), Andrew Jackson possessed character, beliefs, and acts that dominated American politics. Although Jackson returned to his Tennessee plantation in March 1837 after serving eight years as president, he continued to overshadow American politics. Two of his proteges, Martin "the Magician" van Buren and James "Young Hickory" Polk, followed him...

A detailed analysis of Adolf Hitler’s rise, ideology, tyranny, and the devastating consequences of his rule in Europe.Adolf Hitler may be history’s most notorious tyrant. Surely no one’s name is more often evoked to epitomize evil and the deliberate infliction of suffering on vulnerable individuals and groups?Through exceptional will and luck Hitler struggled up through the ranks of political power until he became Germany’s master. He then sought to dominat...

The first study to explore all Britain's key land and sea campaigns from 179–1815 and the two military geniuses who vanquished France.The art of power consists of getting what one wants. That is never more challenging than when a nation is at war. Britain fought a nearly nonstop war against first revolutionary then Napoleonic France from 1793 to 1815. During those twenty-two years, the government formed, financed, and led seven coalitions against France. The French ...

Scholar William Nester explores Franklin D. Roosevelt's character, personality, and presidential power. After their independence and civil wars, Americans never faced a greater threat than the sixteen years of global depression followed by global war from 1929 to 1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president for the last dozen of those years, during which he led the nation first to alleviate the Great Depression then led an international alliance that vanquished the fascist powers duri...

Examines the American West's complex legacy, blending traditional and revisionist perspectives on its myths, conflicts, and injustices.The American West evokes powerful imagery—warriors on horseback, cowboys in saloons, and pioneers in wagons heading westward. It symbolizes freedom, reinvention, and the American Dream. However, this idealized image obscures the complex, often violent history of the West, which is as unjust as it is inspiring.Historians deba...

Haunted Victory: The American Crusade to Destroy Saddam and Impose Democracy on Iraq explores the dynamic trajectory of beliefs, actions, and their consequences in what will forever be debated as among the most controversial and costly operations in U.S. history in terms of security, power, wealth, and honor. While many others have written about the Iraq War, William Nester unveils the moral dilemmas that entangled the George W. Bush administration and the American public t...

Explores how Stalin’s regime exemplified authoritarian power, its methods, and enduring global influence.Joseph Stalin and the Art of Tyranny examines authoritarian rule, revealing how tyrants sustain power through a mix of comfort, terror, love, and fear, often convincing their subjects of their divine purpose. Such leaders build systems of loyalists and subservient institutions, enabling unchecked authority.Joseph Stalin exemplifies this tyranny. As Sovie...

The Jeffersonian Vision, 1801–1815 reveals how the nation's leaders understood and asserted power during those crucial years between Thomas Jefferson's inauguration as the third president and the firing of the last shots at the battle of New Orleans. Seeking to overcome the bitter political animosities that had plagued the years leading up to his presidency, Jefferson declared in his inaugural address that we are all Federalists, we are all Republicans. His words proved to be presci...

The French and Indian War was the world’s first truly global conflict. When the French lost to the British in 1763, they lost their North American empire along with most of their colonies in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa. In The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France, the only comprehensive account from the French perspective, William R. Nester explains how and why the French were defeated. He explores the fascinating personalities and epic events that shaped...

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...