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By Changiz Lahidji, Ralph Pezzullo. 2018
Over 100 combat missions, 24 years as a Green Beret—Full Battle Rattle tells the legend of a soldier who served…
America in every war since Vietnam.Master Sergeant Changiz Lahidji served on Special Forces A teams longer than anyone in history, completing over a hundred combat missions in Afghanistan. Changiz is a Special Forces legend. He also happens to be the first Muslim Green Beret. Changiz served this country starting with Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when he entered Tehran on a one-man mission to spy on Iranian soldiers guarding the US Embassy where 52 US diplomats were being held hostage. Three years later, he was in Beirut, Lebanon when a suicide car bomb exploded in front of the US Embassy killing 83 people. Weeks after that, he was shot by Hezbollah terrorists on a night mission. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, he led a convoy that was ambushed on its way to Fallujah. He was clearing houses in Mogadishu, Somalia on October, 1993 when a US Black Hawk helicopter was shot down 50 feet away from him in the incident that inspired Black Hawk Down. In 2002, he dressed as a farmer and snuck into Eastern Afghanistan and located Osama Bin Laden for the CIA. Along the way, Changiz earned numerous commendations, including the Special Forces Legion of Merit, Purple Hearts, and many others. Last year he was nominated for induction in Military Intelligence Hall of Fame and cited as “the finest noncommissioned officer to ever serve in Special Forces.” His story is an amazing tale of perseverance and courage, of combat and one man’s love of his adopted country.By Gregory L. Vistica. 2003
The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey is an incredible story and a modern morality tale about a man of compassion and…
promise trapped by a horrible secret.On the night of February 25, 1969, an inexperienced, 25-year-old lieutenant, Bob Kerrey, led a commando raid on an isolated hamlet called Thanh Phong in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. While witnesses and official records give varying accounts, one thing is certain: around midnight, Kerrey and his men killed nearly two dozen unarmed women and children. What happened that night and why? It's a terrible secret that Kerrey has borne for more than thirty years. Kerrey went on to do heroic things in Vietnam and later as a politician. Since World War II, he is only Medal of Honor winner to sit as a member of Congress. In many ways, Kerrey's life following that tragic mission has been a struggle for redemption.So is Bob Kerrey a war hero or war criminal? Gregory L. Vistica, who uncovered the Thanh Phong atrocities in a widely-praised cover story for The New York Times Magazine, searches the entire span of Kerrey's life to answer that question.. From his rural boyhood in Nebraska, to his gut wrenching Navy SEAL training, to his aborted run for President, Kerrey's life will become a vehicle for understanding the Vietnam generation shaped in the 50s and sharpened by the tumultuous 60s.Operation Dark Heart tells the story of what really went on—and what went wrong—in Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer led…
a black-ops team on the forefront of the military efforts to block the Taliban's resurgence.For a moment he saw us winning the war. Then the military brass got involved. He witnessed firsthand the tipping point, when what seemed like certain victory turned into failure.This wasn't the first time he had seen bureaucracy stand in the way of national security. He had participated in Able Danger, the aborted intelligence operation that identified many of the future 9/11 terrorists but failed to pursue them. His attempt to reveal the truth to the 9/11 Commission would not go over well with the higher-ups.Operation Dark Heart made headlines when the Department of Defense bought the entire unredacted first printing. The book's revised second printing includes redactions, which, according to The New York Times, "offer a rare glimpse behind the bureaucratic veil that clocks information the government considers too important for public airing." But most importantly, Operation Dark Heart remains a stirring indictment against military bureaucracy and a culture of cover-ups.By Dominic Streatfeild. 2007
Vivid and disturbing, Brainwash is essential insight into the modern practice of interrogation and torture. With access to formerly classified…
documentation and interviews from the CIA, U.S. Army, MI5, MI6, and British Intelligence Corps, Dominic Streatfeild traces the evolution of mind control from its origins in the Cold War to the height of today's war on terror. Behind the front lines of every war in the world, prisoners are forced to sit for interrogation: manipulated, coerced, and sometimes tortured--often without ever being touched. Brainwash is a history of the methods intended to destroy and reconstruct the minds of captives, to extract information, convert dissidents, and lead peaceful men to kill and be killed.The New York Times bestseller Kill Bin Laden is an explosive first-hand account of a Delta Force commando's hunt for…
the world's most wanted man. The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world—an operation of such magnitude that it couldn't be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America's supersecret counterterrorist unit formally known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the elite and mysterious unit Delta Force. Told by senior ranking military officer Dalton Fury, this is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden, how close U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing him, and exactly why he slipped through our fingers. Lastly, this is an extremely rare inside look at the shadowy world of Delta Force and a detailed account of these warriors in battle.By John J. Fialka. 2003
Sisters is the first major history of the pivotal role played by nuns in the building of American society. Nuns…
were the first feminists, argues Fialka. They became the nation's first cadre of independent, professional women. Some nursed, some taught, and many created and managed new charitable organizations, including large hospitals and colleges. In the 1800s nuns moved west with the frontier, often starting the first hospitals and schools in immigrant communities. They provided aid and service in the Chicago fire, cared for orphans and prostitutes in the California Gold Rush and brought professional nursing skills to field hospitals run by both armies in the Civil War. Their work was often done in the face of intimidation from such groups as the Know Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan.In the 1900s they built the nation's largest private school and hospital systems and brought the Catholic Church into the civil rights movement. As their numbers began to decline in the 1970s, many sisters were forced to take professional jobs as lawyers, probation workers, managers and hospital executives because their salaries were needed to support older nuns, many of whom lacked a pension system. Currently there are about 75,000 sisters in America, down from 204,000 in 1968. Their median age is sixty-nine. In Sisters, Fialka reveals the strength of the spiritual capital and the unprecedented reach of the caring institutions that religious women created in America.By Mick Conefrey. 2011
• Which explorer found the lost site of Jesus' first miracle?• Who was first to the top of the highest…
mountain in Peru?• Who was the first Westerner to visit the Ottoman harem in Constantinople?• Who held the world record as the only person to fly from Britain to Australia for 44 years? You'll find the answers to these questions and more in Mick Conefrey's charming new book (a hint: none of them had beards). In 1870, New York mountaineer Meta Brevoort climbed Mt. Blanc in a hoop skirt. Pausing at the summit only long enough to drink a glass of champagne and dance the quadrille with her alpine guides, she marched back down the mountain and into history as one of the first female mountain explorers. Here, Mick Conefrey weaves together tips, how-tos, anecdotes, and eccentric lists to tell the amazing stories of history's great female explorers—women who were just as fascinating and inspiring as all the Shackletons, Mallorys, and Livingstones. Most were brave, some were reckless, and all were fascinating. From Fanny Bullock Workman, who was photographed on top of a mountain pass in the Karakoram, holding up a banner calling for "Votes for Women" to Mary Hall, the Victorian world traveler, whose motto was, "take every precaution and abandon all fear," How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt is uproariously funny and occasionally downright strange.By Andrew Harding. 2016
"This is a triumph of a book: surprising, informative, and humane." —Alexander McCall Smith"Stunning." —Foreign Affairs"Pieces together Nur's astonishing biography…
and follows him when he became mayor in 2010 and tried to restore confidence and bring back investment to the battered Somali capital." —NPR“Part on-the-ground war reporting, part investigative biography, Harding’s book captures both the fragile hopes and the appalling violence of Somalia . . . .” —The New York Times**A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2017****One of Book Concierge's Best Books of 2016**In The Mayor of Mogadishu, one of the BBC’s most experienced foreign correspondents, Andrew Harding, reveals the tumultuous life of Mohamoud “Tarzan” Nur - an impoverished nomad who was abandoned in a state orphanage in newly independent Somalia, and became a street brawler and activist. When the country collapsed into civil war and anarchy, Tarzan and his young family became part of an exodus, eventually spending twenty years in north London.But in 2010 Tarzan returned, as Mayor, to the unrecognizable ruins of a city now almost entirely controlled by the Islamist militants of Al Shabab. For many in Mogadishu, and in the diaspora, Tarzan became a galvanizing symbol of courage and hope for Somalia. But for others, he was a divisive thug, who sank beneath the corruption and clan rivalries that continue, today, to threaten the country’s revival.The Mayor of Mogadishu is a rare an insider’s account of Somalia’s unraveling, and an intimate portrayal of one family’s extraordinary journey.By James Wyllie. 2019
Nazi Wives is a fascinating look at the personal lives, psychological profiles, and marriages of the wives of officers in…
Hitler's inner circle.Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, Hess, Bormann—names synonymous with power and influence in the Third Reich. Perhaps less familiar are Carin, Emmy, Magda, Margaret, Lina, Ilse and Gerda... These are the women behind the infamous men—complex individuals with distinctive personalities who were captivated by Hitler and whose everyday lives were governed by Nazi ideology. Throughout the rise and fall of Nazism these women loved and lost, raised families and quarreled with their husbands and each other, all the while jostling for position with the Fuhrer himself. Until now, they have been treated as minor characters, their significance ignored, as if they were unaware of their husbands' murderous acts, despite the evidence that was all around them: the stolen art on their walls, the slave labor in their homes, and the produce grown in concentration camps on their tables.James Wyllie's Nazi Wives explores these women in detail for the first time, skillfully interweaving their stories through years of struggle, power, decline and destruction into the post-war twilight of denial and delusion.By Richard M. Ketchum. 1974
Richard M. Ketchum recounts the early developments of the American Revolution in Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill.Boston, 1775:…
A town occupied by General Thomas Gage's redcoats and groaning with Tory refugees from the Massachusetts countryside. Besieged for two months by a rabble in arms, the British decided to break out of town. American spies discovered their plans, and on the night of June 16, 1775, a thousand rebels marched out onto Charlestown peninsula and began digging a redoubt (not on Bunker Hill, which they had been ordered to fortify, but on Breeds Hill, well within cannon shot of the British batteries and ships). At daybreak, HMS Lively began firing. It was the opening round of a battle that saw unbelievable heroism and tragic blunders on both sides (a battle that marked a point of no return for England and her colonies), the beginning of the Revolutionary War.By Thomas Morris. 2017
An eye-opening and heroic story of pioneering heart surgeons, structured around eleven operations.For thousands of years the human heart remained…
the deepest of mysteries; both home to the soul and an organ too complex to touch, let alone operate on. Then, in the late nineteenth century, medics began going where no one had dared go before. The following decades saw the mysteries of the heart exposed, thanks to pioneering surgeons, brave patients and even sacrificial dogs. In eleven landmark operations, Thomas Morris tells us stories of triumph, reckless bravery, swaggering arrogance, jealousy and rivalry, and incredible ingenuity: the trail-blazing ‘blue baby’ procedure that transformed wheezing infants into pink, healthy children; the first human heart transplant, which made headline news around the globe. And yet the heart still feels sacred: just before the operation to fit one of the first artificial hearts, the patient’s wife asked the surgeon if he would still be able to love her.The Matter of the Heart gives us a view over the surgeon’s shoulder, showing us the heart’s inner workings and failings. It describes both a human story and a history of risk-taking that has ultimately saved millions of lives.By Christopher Heaney. 2011
In 1911, a young Peruvian boy led an American explorer and Yale historian named Hiram Bingham into the ancient Incan…
citadel of Machu Picchu. Hidden amidst the breathtaking heights of the Andes, this settlement of temples, tombs and palaces was the Incas' greatest achievement. Tall, handsome, and sure of his destiny, Bingham believed that Machu Picchu was the Incas' final refuge, where they fled the Spanish Conquistadors. Bingham made Machu Picchu famous, and his dispatches from the jungle cast him as the swashbuckling hero romanticized today as a true Indiana Jones-like character. But his excavation of the site raised old specters of conquest and plunder, and met with an indigenous nationalism that changed the course of Peruvian history. Though Bingham successfully realized his dream of bringing Machu Picchu's treasure of skulls, bones and artifacts back to the United States, conflict between Yale and Peru persists through the present day over a simple question: Who owns Inca history?In this grand, sweeping narrative, Christopher Heaney takes the reader into the heart of Peru's past to relive the dramatic story of the final years of the Incan empire, the exhilarating recovery of their final cities and the thought-provoking fight over their future. Drawing on original research in untapped archives, Heaney vividly portrays both a stunning landscape and the complex history of a fascinating region that continues to inspire awe and controversy today.By James Brady. 2005
A memoir from the New York Times bestselling author of Warning of War and Marines of Autumn, James Brady's The…
Scariest Place in the World. Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound taps for a generation. It's been years since Brady first wrote of Korea in The Coldest War, drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and The New York Times, which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was." In the spring of 2003, Brady and Pulitzer Prize–winning combat photographer Eddie Adams flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served. Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war," the Yanks who fought there long ago, or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world." The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heartbreaking, and this Brady memoir proves as powerful as his first.By Greg King, Penny Wilson. 2020
In the tradition of Erik Larson's Dead Wake comes The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria, about the sinking of…
the glamorous Italian ocean liner, including never-before-seen photos of the wreck today.In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the tragedy of the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster of the modern age. Audiences witnessed everything that ensued after the unthinkable collision of two modern vessels equipped with radar: perilous hours of uncertainty; the heroic rescue of passengers; and the final gasp as the pride of the Italian fleet slipped beneath the Atlantic, taking some fifty lives with her. Her loss signaled the end of the golden age of ocean liner travel.Now, Greg King and Penny Wilson offer a fresh look at this legendary liner and her tragic fate. Andrea Doria represented the romance of travel, the possibility of new lives in the new world, and the glamour of 1950s art, culture, and life. Set against a glorious backdrop of celebrity and La Dolce Vita, Andrea Doria's last voyage comes vividly to life in a narrative tightly focused on her passengers – Cary Grant's wife; Philadelphia's flamboyant mayor; the heiress to the Marshall Field fortune; and many brave Italian emigrants – who found themselves plunged into a desperate struggle to survive. The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria follows the effect this trauma had on their lives, and brings the story up-to-date with the latest expeditions to the wreck.Drawing on in-depth research, interviews with survivors, and never-before-seen photos of the wreck as it is today, The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria is a vibrant story of fatal errors, shattered lives, and the triumph of the human spirit.By Gene Allen Smith. 2013
A sweeping and original look at American slavery in the early nineteenth century that reveals the gamble slaves had to…
take to surviveImages of American slavery conjure up cotton plantations and African American slaves locked in bondage until the Civil War. Yet early on in the nineteenth century the state of slavery was very different, and the political vicissitudes of the young nation offered diverse possibilities to slaves. In the century's first two decades, the nation waged war against Britain, Spain, and various Indian tribes. Slaves played a role in the military operations, and the different sides viewed them as a potential source of manpower. While surprising numbers did assist the Americans, the wars created opportunities for slaves to find freedom among the Redcoats, the Spaniards, or the Indians. Author Gene Allen Smith draws on a decade of original research and his curatorial work at the Fort Worth Museum in this fascinating and original narrative history. The way the young nation responded sealed the fate of slaves for the next half century until the Civil War. This drama sheds light on an extraordinary yet little known chapter in the dark saga of American history.By Gordon Cucullu, Chris Fontana. 2011
For the first time ever, author Gordon Cucullu gives readers an explosive inside look at modern military police units and…
their role in defending our freedom.America has been at war on several fronts since the 9/11 attack. While public attention has focused on Marines, conventional Army units, and Special Operations Forces, a lion's share of the war-fighting has been done, under media radar, by Military Police units. These squad and platoon-sized units patrol dangerous urban streets, build up local police units to improve neighborhood stability, and conduct civic action missions. On many occasions they have rushed into a vicious firefight to come to the assistance of infantry units in desperate straits. They keep villages Taliban-free, monitor balloting sites, and interdict drug shipments. In detention centers at Camp Bucha, Iraq, Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, Cuba they guard some of the most dangerous terrorists in history.The story is told by the soldiers themselves, recounting what they have seen and experienced, along with historical context and first-hand field observations by the author team who were provided with unique inside access. Warrior Police takes readers into the bloody streets of Iraq, the dangerous back-country of Afghanistan, and wherever our Military Police are needed.By Richard M. Ketchum. 1973
The Winter Soldiers is the story of a small band of men held together by George Washington in the face…
of disaster and hopelessness, desperately needing at least one victory to salvage both cause and country. In the fall of 1776 the British delivered a crushing blow to the Revolutionary War efforts. New York fell and the anguished retreat through New Jersey followed. Winter came with a vengeance, bringing what Thomas Paine called "the times that try men's souls."Richard M. Ketchum tells the tale of unimaginable hardship and suffering that culminated in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Without these triumphs, the American Revolution that had begun so bravely could not have gone on.By John G. Miles Jr., David B. Richardson, Anthony E. Scudellari. 2024
The Law Officer’s Pocket Manual is a handy, pocket-sized, spiral-bound manual that highlights basic legal rules for quick reference and…
offers examples showing how those rules are applied. The manual provides concise guidance based on U.S. Supreme Court rulings on constitutional law issues and other legal developments, covering arrest, search, surveillance, and other routine as well as sensitive areas of law enforcement. It includes more than 100 examples drawn from leading cases to provide guidance on how to act in a wide variety of situations. The 2023 edition is completely updated to reflect recent court decisions. This book helps you keep track of everything in a readable and easy-to-carry format. Routledge offers tiered discounts on bulk orders of 5 or more copies: For more information, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/collections/16268By James A. Warren. 2013
An in-depth look at the strategy and tactics of the visionary commander who beat the United States in the Vietnam…
War.General Vo Nguyen Giap was the commander in chief of the communist armed forces during two of his country's most difficult conflicts—the first against Vietnam's colonial masters, the French, and the second against the most powerful nation on earth, the United States. After long and bloody conflicts, he defeated both Western powers and their Vietnamese allies, forever changing modern warfare. In Giap, military historian James A. Warren dives deep into the conflict to bring to life a revolutionary general and reveal the groundbreaking strategies that defeated world powers against incredible odds. Synthesizing ideas and tactics from an extraordinary range of sources, Giap was one of the first to realize that war is more than a series of battles between two armies and that victory can be won through the strength of a society's social fabric. As America's wars in the Middle East rage on, this is an important and timely look at a man who was a master at defeating his enemies even as they thought they were winning.Few stories in the annals of American counterculture are as intriguing or dramatic as that of the Brotherhood of Eternal…
Love.Dubbed the "Hippie Mafia," the Brotherhood began in the mid-1960s as a small band of peace-loving, adventure-seeking surfers in Southern California. After discovering LSD, they took to Timothy Leary's mantra of "Turn on, tune in, and drop out" and resolved to make that vision a reality by becoming the biggest group of acid dealers and hashish smugglers in the nation, and literally providing the fuel for the psychedelic revolution in the process.Just days after California became the first state in the union to ban LSD, the Brotherhood formed a legally registered church in its headquarters at Mystic Arts World on Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, where they sold blankets and other countercultural paraphernalia retrieved through surfing safaris and road trips to exotic locales in Asia and South America. Before long, they also began to sell Afghan hashish, Hawaiian pot (the storied "Maui Wowie"), and eventually Colombian cocaine, much of which the Brotherhood smuggled to California in secret compartments inside surfboards and Volkswagen minibuses driven across the border.They also befriended Leary himself, enlisting him in the goal of buying a tropical island where they could install the former Harvard philosophy professor and acid prophet as the high priest of an experimental utopia. The Brotherhood's most legendary contribution to the drug scene was homemade: Orange Sunshine, the group's nickname for their trademark orange-colored acid tablet that happened to produce an especially powerful trip. Brotherhood foot soldiers passed out handfuls of the tablets to communes, at Grateful Dead concerts, and at love-ins up and down the coast of California and beyond. The Hell's Angels, Charles Mason and his followers, and the unruly crowd at the infamous Altamont music festival all tripped out on this acid. Jimi Hendrix even appeared in a film starring Brotherhood members and performed a private show for the fugitive band of outlaws on the slope of a Hawaiian volcano.Journalist Nicholas Schou takes us deep inside the Brotherhood, combining exclusive interviews with both the group's surviving members as well as the cops who chased them. A wide-sweeping narrative of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (and more drugs) that runs from Laguna Beach to Maui to Afghanistan, Orange Sunshine explores how America moved from the era of peace and free love into a darker time of hard drugs and paranoia.