Military History Nonfiction

What if the battles that shaped history weren't won by the greatest armies — but lost by the ones that made the last mistake? Not the textbook sweep of campaigns and commanders, but the three-day delay that cost an empire, the ammunition box that wouldn't open, the cavalry charge that changed nothing, the general who read the wrong map. This book tells the stories of one hundred battles that turned the world — and exactly why they turned the way they did. From the Athenians who ran toward the Persian archers at Marathon, to the drone strikes that ended an armored convoy in forty-five ...

World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. "Total war" emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict.

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The shocking true story of the USS Houston, FDR’s legendary lost cruiser, and the epic saga of the survivors who faced one of World War II’s most brutal ordeals—from the acclaimed author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors “Captivating [and]...

September 11, 2001, did not represent the first aerial assault against the American mainland. The first came on July 17,1996, with the downing of TWA Flight 800. This book looks in detail at what people saw and heard on this fateful night. First Strike explains how a determined corps of ordinary...

NOW A BLOCKBUSTER MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD—NOMINATED FOR SIX ACADEMY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly...

History’s Biggest Oops: The Blunders That Changed the World A witty, eye-opening journey through the most surprising mistakes that made history. What do global superpowers, billion-dollar companies, genius inventors, and well-meaning leaders all have in common? At some point, they all got it spectacularly wrong. This laugh-out-loud and deeply curious collection explores the unexpected missteps, miscalculations, and “what were they thinking?” moments that ended up shaping the world in strange and powerful ways. Blending sharp insight with irreverent humor, this book offers a guided ...

Storm Clouds over the Pacific begins the story long before Pearl Harbor, showing how the war can only be understood if ancient hatreds and long-standing geopolitics are taken into account. Harmsen demonstrates how Japan and China's ancient enmity led to increased tensions in the 1930s, which, in turn, exploded into conflict in 1937.

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents...

Want to know what Vietnam was really like? A 3-Volume BOX SET with 200 veteran interviews, 688 Photos, 1,236 pages, and 4.6 Stars on 2,270 Amazon Reviews for the individual books, at half price! Real stories told by real people in their own words, men and women, caught up in an all too real war. From the Delta to the DMZ, come walk in their boots. If you were there, you'll understand. If you weren't, grab a copy and you will, because they’re like Doritos. Try a few and you won't be able to stop. The Vietnam War dominated my generation and affected so many lives in so many different ways. ...

World War 2 for Kids: Amazing Facts, Heroic Stories & Real History Brought to LifeDiscover the incredible true stories, daring missions, and unbelievable facts that shaped the modern world! Packed with over 40 real photographs, World War 2 for Kids is a fun, fact-filled adventure through one of history’s most important chapters — perfect for children, students, and even adults who love learning something new. 👉 Inside you'll explore: The causes of World War 2 and how one event set the world on fire. The major battles and turning points — from D-Day to the Pacific. The rise and fall...

With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE An epic, authoritative, gripping account of the years when a new wave of revolutionaries seized the skies and the streets to hold the world for ransom In the 1970s, an unprecedented wave of international terrorism broke out around the world. More...

Cuba is not facing a temporary crisis. It is facing the end of a system. In early 2026, the lights are going out across the island. Fuel has disappeared. The economy has collapsed. More than a million Cubans have fled in just a few years. For the first time since 1959, there is no foreign patron left to keep the revolutionary state alive. The question is no longer whether Cuba will change, but how. Cuba: Revolution 2026 is a serious, unsentimental examination of how Cuba reached this moment and what comes next. It strips away nostalgia, propaganda, and wishful thinking to confront the hard ...

World War II was the most destructive war in history. Millions upon millions of people died, including innocent civilians. Both sides—the Allies and Axis Powers—pursued secret plans, tactics, and weapons to destroy each other resulting in horrors on a scale never before seen. Secrets of World War II reveals little-known stories of the people, weapons, and battles that have affected the maps on our walls and the allegiances in our hearts.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The exhilarating true story of the U.S. Navy’s improbable victory at the Battle of Samar—“a dire survival-at-sea saga” (Denver Post) from the acclaimed author of Neptune’s Inferno “A critically acclaimed, blow-by-blow look at a small American force...

“This beautifully braided story...reveals the best and worst of humanity. A magnificent work of narrative nonfiction, true to the past and essential for the present.”—Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of Lost in Shangri-La and 13 Hours An epic true story of the triumph of...

One of the most acclaimed books of our time—the definitive Vietnam War exposé and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and...

“A lost world, man-eating tribesmen, lush andimpenetrable jungles, stranded American fliers (one of them a dame withgreat gams, for heaven's sake), a startling rescue mission. . . . This is atrue story made in heaven for a writer as talented as Mitchell Zuckoff. Whew—what an utterly...