Modern Iraq

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY New York Times Christian Science Monitor NPR Seattle Times St. Louis Dispatch National Book Critics Circle Finalist -- American Library Association Notable Book A thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and...

We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival. Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin...

You Just Survive is a combat veteran memoir that pulls no punches. These modern war stories from Iraq and Afghanistan sit beside plain spoken accounts of PTSD and trauma recovery, raw combat moments and the quiet battles that follow when the uniform comes off. This is not a sanitized war book. It is a combat veteran memoir told hour by hour, from turret scans in Ramadi and Marjah to patrols that ended with IEDs, mortars, and decisions you carry forever. If you search for modern war stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, you will find the real, unfiltered scenes that define this book. The book ...

The definitive history of Iran, from the ancient Persian empires to today. “Michael Axworthy’s deft untangling of the country’s history, from the advent of Zoroastrianism to the 1979 revolution, is a stunning achievement.” ―Guardian Iran is a land of contradictions. It is an Islamic...

John Keegan, whom the New York Review of Books calls "the best historian of our day", now brings his extraordinary expertise to bear on perhaps the most controversial war of our time. In exclusive interviews with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, John Keegan has gathered information about the war that adds immeasurably to our grasp of its causes, complications, costs, and consequences.

A “can’t-miss for anyone interested in current military affairs,” On Killing Remotely reveals and explores the costs—to individual soldiers and to society—of the way we wage war today (Kirkus Reviews, starred). Throughout history society has determined specific rules of engagement...

This audiobook is compellingly read by the author, Jeremy Bowen. A Spectator and New Statesman Book of the Year 'An illuminating and riveting read’ – Jonathan Dimbleby Jeremy Bowen, the International Editor of the BBC, has been covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to...

American wars in Iraq were a defining feature of global politics for almost thirty years. The Gulf War of 1991, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the campaign against the Islamic State beginning in 2014 each had their own logic. Each occurrence was a distinct conflict; however they must not only be considered in isolation. The United States spent the 1990s trying but failing to implement the Gulf War's cease fire agreement. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, American leaders decided to settle the open-ended aftermath of the Gulf War by launching the Iraq War of 2003.

Following World War II America made a bold stand against the ambitions of an aspiring USSR. Taking the lead with the recently formed NATO and UN in resisting Communist incursions, the US found itself entrenched in the Korean War, fighting the North Koreans, Chinese and Russians simultaneously. Soon afterward America once again assumed the role of resisting Communist expansion, becoming involved in the quagmire of Vietnam. With a new century approaching and the ever changing worldwide political situation resulting in the relative collapse of Communism around the world, the US was to find ...

John Spencer was a new second lieutenant in 2003 when he parachuted into Iraq leading a platoon of infantry soldiers into battle. During that combat tour he learned how important unit cohesion was to surviving a war, both physically and mentally. He observed that this cohesion developed as the soldiers experienced the horrors of combat as a group. In Connected Soldiers, Spencer delivers lessons learned about effective methods for building teams in a way that overcomes the distractions of home and the outside world, without reducing the benefits gained from connections to family.

Brought to you by Penguin. In March 2022, Michael Palin travelled the length of the River Tigris through Iraq to get a sense of what life is like in a region of the world that once formed the cradle of civilisation, but that in recent times has witnessed turmoil and appalling bloodshed. It was a...

'One of the greatest storytellers of our time' - Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing From the multi-million copy number one bestselling author of The Women, The Nightingale and The Four Winds, Home Front is a provocative and timely portrait of hope, honour, loss, forgiveness and the...

A brief, unnerving, and exceptionally hard-hitting novel about time and loss as only the bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of White Noise and Underworld can tell it. In this potent and beautiful novel, the writer The New York Times calls “prophetic about 21st-century...

In a dramatic three-week campaign beginning March 20, 2003, U.S. and British forces, along with several other countries in a coalition, destroyed the Iraqi army, defeating Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime. Over the coming months and years, former regime members, along with some armed anti-American forces from outside Iraq, started a long and bitter armed resistance.

Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. What troubles him as he...

An inside look at today's special operations sniper and an in depth look at the career of Chris Kyle from those who knew him and fought alongside him. Most people think of snipers as shooters perched in urban hides, dealing out death unseen from a considerable distance. But this description...

At age 25, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a 21st-century reporter: cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, and translators.

In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for the unique challenges of modern warfare, where it is charged with everything from providing security to supporting reconstruction to establishing basic governance - all while stabilizing conquered territory and engaging with local populations.

Follow Jason as he takes us from the training grounds of Fort Bragg, NC, to the mountains of Afghanistan, to the mean streets of Phoenix as a police officer. And from the earthquake remains of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to the beaches of Hawaii to being wounded in the line of duty and left crippled and homeless.

America is at an important turning point. Remote warfare is not just a mainstay of post–9/11 wars, it is a harbinger of what lies ahead—a future of high-tech, artificial intelligence–enabled, and autonomous weapons systems that raise a host of new ethical questions. Most fundamentally, is...