American Military History

Born in Slavery is a collection of the expression of former slaves. Having described the slavery from which they were emancipated, they then speak of a new slavery of exclusion and hatred.

From the acclaimed author of The Dead and Those About to Die comes a sweeping narrative of six decades of combat, and an eye-opening account of the evolution of the American infantry. From the beaches of Normandy and the South Pacific Islands to the deserts of the Middle East, the American soldier has been the most indispensable - and most overlooked - factor in wartime victory.

Throughout the devastating years of the Civil War, the Union Army of the Potomac seldom marched in step. In this provocative book, acclaimed historian and award-winning author Stephen W. Sears takes a fascinating look at some of the intriguing Union generals and the controversies that swirled around them. Delving into historical documents and the personal papers of military officers, Sears shares the compelling stories of oft-maligned Generals McClellan and Hooker, the shocking court-martial of patriotic General Stone, the failed plots to kidnap Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and more.

They came from one street, but death found them in many places: in a distant jungle, a frozen forest, and trapped in the flaming wreckage of a bomber blown from the sky. One died going over a fence during the greatest paratrooper assault in history. Another fell in the biggest battle of World War II. Yet another, riddled with bullets in an audacious act of heroism during a decisive onslaught a world, and a war, away.

The Civil War conjures images of blood-soaked battlefields in the United States. Few are aware of the equally important diplomatic and intelligence contest that raged between the North and South in Europe. While the Confederacy sought Great Britain as a strategic ally, the Union utilized diplomacy and espionage to avert both the construction of a Confederate navy and the threat of war with England.

George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one. Daniel Boone created a legend with one. Abraham Lincoln shot them on the White House lawn. And Teddy Roosevelt had his specially customized. Now, in this first-of-its-kind audiobook, historian Alexander Rose delivers a colorful, engrossing biography of an American icon: the rifle.

Abraham Lincoln began his presidency admitting that he knew "but little of ships," but he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada to that time, not eclipsed until World War I. Naval historian Craig L. Symonds' Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history.

Historian David Williams has written the first account of the American Civil War as viewed though the eyes of ordinary people - foot soldiers, slaves, women, prisoners of war, draft resisters, Native Americans, and others. Richly illuminated with little-known anecdotes and firsthand testimony, this path-breaking narrative moves beyond presidents and generals to tell a new and powerful story about America's most destructive conflict.

A rousing and meticulously researched account of the notorious Battle of Little Big Horn and its unforgettable cast of characters from Sitting Bull to Custer himself.

History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. Many Americans of his own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, not to mention a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but that it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. Gravely ill throughout much of the Civil War, Davis nevertheless shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy—the quest for independent nationhood—with clarity and force.

With the 100th anniversary of his birth on September 7, 2015, Dick Cole has long stood in the powerful spotlight of fame that has followed him since his B-25 was launched from a Navy carrier and flown toward Japan just four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In recognition the tremendous boost Doolittle’s Raid gave American morale, members of the Tokyo Doolittle Raiders were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in May 2014. Doolittle’s Raid was only the opening act of Cole’s flying career during the war.

The Battle of the Rosebud may well be the largest Indian battle ever fought in the American West. The monumental clash on June 17, 1876, along Rosebud Creek in southeastern Montana, pitted George Crook and his Shoshone and Crow allies against Sioux and Northern Cheyennes under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. It set the stage for the battle that occurred eight days later when, just 25 miles away, George Armstrong Custer blundered into the very same village that had outmatched Crook.

When the United States was founded in 1776, its citizens didn’t think of themselves as “Americans.” They were New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians. It was decades later that the seeds of American nationalism—identifying with one’s own nation and supporting its broader interests—began to take root. But what kind of nationalism should Americans embrace? The state-focused and racist nationalism of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson? Or the belief that the US Constitution made all Americans one nation, indivisible, which Daniel Webster and others espoused?

Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States. Moving from the shtetls of Russia and the ports of Hamburg to the mansions of New York’s Upper East Side and the picket lines outside of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, The Last Ships from Hamburg is a history that unfolds on both an intimate and epic scale. Ujifusa’s story offers original insight into the American experience, and delivers crucial insight into the burgeoning refugee crisis of our own time.

The Underground Railroad was the passage to freedom for many slaves, but it was rife with dangers. There were dedicated conductors and safe houses, but also arduous nights in the mountains and days in threatening towns. For those who made it to Midnight (the code name given to Detroit), the Detroit River became a River Jordan and Canada became their land of Canaan - the Promised Land where they could live freely in black settlements under the protection of British law.

As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day - but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history.

Based on the true story of the celebrated Nancy Hart Rifles, The Cotillion Brigade is a sweeping epic of the Civil War’s ravages on family and love, the resilient bonds of sisterhood amid devastation, and the miracle of reconciliation between bitter enemies. 1856. Sixteen-year-old Nannie Colquitt Hill makes her debut in the antebellum society of the Chattahoochee River plantations. A thousand miles to the north, a Wisconsin farm boy, Hugh LaGrange, joins an Abolitionist crusade to ban slavery in Bleeding Kansas.

US leaders need accurate information to make important decisions. They turn to the CIA to get it. Around the clock, members of the CIA are hard at work. As covert officers secretly gather intelligence, analysts are busy studying it. CIA scientists develop high-tech spy gear. But no matter their job, CIA members share a common goal of keeping the country safe.

Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincoln’s penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis. Allen C. Guelzo, one of America’s foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president’s firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history.

The fighting prowess of United States Marines is second to none, but few know of the Corps' humble beginnings and what it achieved during the early years of the American Revolution. That oversight is fully rectified by Jason Bohm's eye-opening Washington's Marines: The Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution, 1775-1777.