The War of 1812 and the Rise of the U.S. Navy

Written by Mark Collins Jenkins and David Taylor
Foreword by Douglas Brinkley

Format: Hardcover, 280 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: March 27, 2012
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0933-8 (1-4262-0933-9)

Discover the epic naval story of the war that threatened to undo our nation in 1812. Riveting firsthand accounts enliven this official sea-level view of the conflict that proved American naval prowess a force to be reckoned with. Explore historic documents, letters, ephemera, and artifacts, including fascinating finds from the Navy’s... Read more >

The Last Ridge
The Epic Story of America's First Mountain Soldiers and the Assault on Hitler's Europe
Written by Mckay Jenkins

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: November 9, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75951-2 (0-375-75951-4)

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United... Read more >

Kelly
More Than My Share of It All
Written by Clarence L. Johnson

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: December 17, 1989
Price: $21.95
ISBN: 978-0-87474-491-0 (0-87474-491-1)

Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson led the design of such crucial aircraft as the P-38 and Constellation, but he will be more remembered for the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes. His extraordinary leadership of the Lockheed “Skunk Works” cemented his reputation as a legendary figure in American aerospace management.

“Reads like the autobiography... Read more >

Tex Johnston
Jet-Age Test Pilot
Written by A.M. Johnston

Format: Trade Paperback, 274 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: December 17, 2000
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-931-8 (1-56098-931-9)

One of America’s most daring and accomplished test pilots, Tex Johnston flew the first US jet airplanes and, in a career spanning the 1930s through the 1970s, helped create the jet age at such pioneering aerospace companies as Bell Aircraft and Boeing.

“There seem to be two Tex Johnstons: the one who... Read more >

Knight
The Warrior and World of Chivalry
Written by Robert Jones

Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
On Sale: October 18, 2011
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-84908-312-6 (1-84908-312-6)

From a life-long student of the medieval long sword and medieval history comes a comprehensive overview of the Age of the Knights. Jones shows that behind the popular image of the knight in shining armor lies a world that is both more complex and more fascinating. Were knights glory-seeking, bloodthirsty thugs... Read more >

Acceptable Loss
An Infantry Soldier's Perspective
Written by Kregg P. Jorgenson

Format: Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Presidio Press
On Sale: September 23, 1991
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 978-0-8041-0792-1 (0-8041-0792-0)

The true-to-life story of a Ranger who volunteered to serve on a Blue Team in the Air Cavalry, racing to the aid of soldiers who faced the same dangers he had barely survived in the jungles of Vietnam. Read more >

On the Origins of War
And the Preservation of Peace
Written by Donald Kagan

Format: Trade Paperback, 624 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: January 1, 1996
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-42375-5 (0-385-42375-6)

War has been a fact of life for centuries on end. By lucidly revealing the common threads that connect the ancient confrontations between Athens and Sparta and between Rome and Carthage with the two calimitous world wars of the twentieth century and the Cuban Missile Crisis, renowned historian Donald Kagan reveals... Read more >

Dangerous Nation
America's Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
Written by Robert Kagan

Format: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 6, 2007
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72491-6 (0-375-72491-5)

Most Americans believe the United States had been an isolationist power until the twentieth century. This is wrong. In a riveting and brilliantly revisionist work of history, Robert Kagan, bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power, shows how Americans have in fact steadily been increasing their global power and influence from... Read more >

Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts
The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground
Written by Robert D. Kaplan

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 9, 2008
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3458-1 (1-4000-3458-2)

In Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, acclaimed journalist Robert D. Kaplan continues his exploration of the American military's challenging and varied commitments around the world.

From protecting sea lanes, to providing disaster relief, to preparing for potential military confrontation with North Korea and Iran, Kaplan describes the astonishing, vital, and often... Read more >

Imperial Grunts
On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond
Written by Robert D. Kaplan

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 12, 2006
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3457-4 (1-4000-3457-4)

In this landmark book, Robert D. Kaplan, veteran correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and author of Balkan Ghosts, shows how American imperialism and the Global War on Terrorism are implemented on the ground, mission by mission, in the most exotic landscapes around the world.

Given unprecedented access, Kaplan takes us from... Read more >

A History of Warfare

Written by John Keegan

Format: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 1, 1994
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-73082-8 (0-679-73082-6)

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize 1993

One of the world' s foremost military historians offers a sweeping view of the place of warfare in civilization. Probing the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war throughout history, John Keegan suggests why, in 2,000 years, humanity has not advanced far beyond the acceptance of... Read more >

Intelligence in War
The value--and limitations--of what the military can learn about the enemy
Written by John Keegan

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 12, 2004
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70046-0 (0-375-70046-3)

John Keegan, whose many books, including classic histories of the two world wars, have confirmed him as the premier miltary historian of our time, here presents a masterly look at the value and limitations of intelligence in the conduct of war.

Intelligence gathering is an immensely complicated and vulnerable endeavor. And it... Read more >

The Iraq War
The Military Offensive, from Victory in 21 Days to the Insurgent Aftermath
Written by John Keegan

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 24, 2005
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7920-9 (1-4000-7920-9)

The 2003 Iraq war remains among the most mysterious armed conflicts of modernity. In The Iraq War, John Keegan offers a sharp and lucid appraisal of the military campaign, explaining just how the coalition forces defeated an Iraqi army twice its size and addressing such questions as whether Saddam Hussein ever... Read more >

War and Our World

Written by John Keegan

Format: Trade Paperback, 112 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 15, 2001
Price: $10.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70520-5 (0-375-70520-1)

John Keegan, widely considered the greatest military historian of our time and the author of acclaimed volumes on ancient and modern warfare--including, most recently, The First World War, a national bestseller--distills what he knows about the why’s and how’s of armed conflict into a series of brilliantly concise essays.

Is war a... Read more >

Engineers of Victory
The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War
Written by Paul Kennedy

Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: January 29, 2013
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6761-9 (1-4000-6761-8)

Paul Kennedy, award-winning author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers and one of today’s most renowned historians, now provides a new and unique look at how World War II was won. Engineers of Victory is a fascinating nuts-and-bolts account of the strategic factors that led to Allied victory... Read more >

Tales of a Helicopter Pilot

Written by Richard C. Kirkland

Format: Hardcover, 192 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: January 17, 2002
Price: $21.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-952-3 (1-56098-952-1)

Richard Kirkland is legendary for his P-38 Lightning missions in the South Pacific theater during WWII. After the war, he realized the potential of Igor Sikorsky’s new flying machine, and he traded in his fighter-pilot wings for rotors. The nerve-racking chopper missions he has flown are the stuff of legend: scrambling... Read more >

Wine and War
The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Written by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: April 30, 2002
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-7679-0448-3 (0-7679-0448-6)

When France fell to the Nazis, almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Wine and War tells the harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles... Read more >

Where Men Win Glory
The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Written by Jon Krakauer

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: July 27, 2010
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-38604-5 (0-307-38604-X)

Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and became an icon of post-9/11 patriotism. When he was killed in Afghanistan two years later, a legend was born. But the real Pat Tillman was much more remarkable, and considerably more complicated than the public knew...

A stunning... Read more >

Where Men Win Glory
The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Written by Jon Krakauer

Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
On Sale: September 15, 2009
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-52226-7 (0-385-52226-6)

The bestselling author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven delivers a stunning, eloquent account of a remarkable young man’s haunting journey.

Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In... Read more >

Dead Center
A Marine Sniper's Two-Year Odyssey in the Vietnam War
Written by Ed Kugler

Format: Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: May 29, 1999
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 978-0-8041-1875-0 (0-8041-1875-2)

Straightforward, raw, and powerful, Ed Kugler's account of his two years as a Marine scout-sniper in Vietnam vividly captures his experiences there--the good, the bad, and the ugly. After enlisting in the Marines at seventeen, then being wounded in Santo Domingo during the Dominican crisis, Kugler arrived in Vietnam in early... Read more >

No Greater Glory
The Four Immortal Chaplains and the Sinking of the Dorchester in World War II
Written by Dan Kurzman

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: August 9, 2005
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-6609-1 (0-8129-6609-0)

The sinking of the Dorchester in the icy waters off Greenland shortly after midnight on February 3, 1942, was one of the worst sea disasters of World War II. It was also the occasion of an astounding feat of heroism—and faith.

As water gushed through a hole made by a German torpedo... Read more >

Rethinking Cold War Culture

Written by Peter J. Kuznick and James Gilbert

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: June 22, 2010
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-895-3 (1-56098-895-9)

This anthology of essays questions many widespread assumptions about the culture of postwar America. Illuminating the origins and development of the many threads that constituted American culture during the Cold War, the contributors challenge the existence of a monolithic culture during the 1950s and thereafter. They demonstrate instead that there was... Read more >

The First Clash
The Miraculous Greek Victory at Marathon and Its Impact on Western Civilization
Written by Jim Lacey

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Bantam
On Sale: April 9, 2013
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-553-38575-5 (0-553-38575-5)

“A compelling and provocative read . . . With a soldier’s eye, Jim Lacey re-creates the battle of Marathon in all its brutal simplicity.”—Barry Strauss, author of Masters of Command

Marathon—one of history’s most pivotal battles. Its name evokes images of almost superhuman courage, endurance, and fighting spirit. In this eye-opening book... Read more >

Helmet for My Pillow
From Parris Island to the Pacific
Written by Robert Leckie

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Bantam
On Sale: February 2, 2010
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-553-59331-0 (0-553-59331-5)

Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris... Read more >

The Fall of the House of Dixie
The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South
Written by Bruce Levine

Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: January 8, 2013
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6703-9 (1-4000-6703-0)

To read the author’s essay about The Fall of the House of Dixie: Ammending Civil War Narrative and request a free review copy of the book, go to: http://tiny.cc/u1rqrw

In this major new history of the Civil War, Bruce Levine tells the riveting story of how that conflict upended the economic, political... Read more >