On October 3, 1993, about a hundred U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into a teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia, to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord. The action was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they spent a long and terrible night fighting thousands of armed Somalis. By morning, eighteen Americans were dead, and more than seventy badly injured. Mark Bowden’s gripping narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern war ever written–a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage and brutality of battle.
Books similar to Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
A harrowing, adrenaline-charged account of America's worst naval disaster — and of the heroism of the men who, against all odds, survived. Interweaving the stories of survivors, Doug Stanton has brought this astonishing human drama to life in a narrative that is at once immediate and timeless. The definitive account of a little-known chapter in World War II history, In Harm's Way is destined to become a classic tale of war, survival, and extraordinary courage.
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine. An estimated 300 men were killed upon impact; close to 900 sailors were cast into the Pacific Ocean, where they remained undetected by the navy for nearly four days and nights. Battered by a savage sea, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, and dementia. The captain's subsequent court-martial left many questions unanswered: How did the navy fail to realize the Indianapolis was missing? And perhaps most amazing of all, how did these 317 men manage to survive?
Former UN Ambassador Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning analysis of America's repeated failure to stop genocides around the world
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of the last century of American history, Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Power, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern killing fields to provide the answer. "A Problem from Hell" shows how decent Americans inside and outside government refused to get involved despite chilling warnings and tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act. A modern classic, "A Problem from Hell" has forever reshaped debates about American foreign policy.
Written on the front lines in Vietnam, Dispatches became an immediate classic of war reportage when it was published in 1977.
From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.
Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.
The news-breaking book that has sent shockwaves through the Bush White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeda's evolution. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of Bin Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.
As good a rifle company as any, Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, US Army, kept getting tough assignments--responsible for everything from parachuting into France early DDay morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. In "Band of Brothers," Ambrose tells of the men in this brave unit who fought, went hungry, froze & died, a company that took 150% casualties & considered the Purple Heart a badge of office. Drawing on hours of interviews with survivors as well as the soldiers' journals & letters, Stephen Ambrose recounts the stories, often in the men's own words, of these American heroes. Foreword "We wanted those wings"; Camp Toccoa, 7-12/42 "Stand up & hook up"; Benning, Mackall, Bragg, Shanks, 12/42-9/43 "Duties of the latrine orderly"; Aldbourne, 9/43-3/44 "Look out, Hitler! Here we come!"; Slapton Sands, Uppottery, 4/1-6/5/44 "Follow me"; Normandy, 6/6/44 "Move out!"; Carentan, 6/7-7/12/44 Healing wounds & scrubbed missions; Aldbourne, 7/13-9/16/44 "Hell's highway"; Holland, 9/17-10/1/44 Island; Holland, 10/2-11/25/44 Resting, recovering & refitting: Mourmelon-le-Grand, 11/26-12/18/44 "They got us surrounded-the poor bastards"; Bastogne, 12/19-31/44 Breaking point; Bastogne, 1/1-13/45 Attack; Noville, 1/14-17/45 Patrol: Haguenau, 1/18-2/23/45 "Best feeling in the world": Mourmelon, 2/25-4/2/45 Getting to know the enemy: Germany, 4/2-30/45 Drinking Hitler's champagne; Berchtesgaden, 5/1-8/45 Soldier's dream life; Austria, 5/8-7/31/45 Postwar careers; 1945-91 Acknowledgments & Sources Index
WAS THE JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR INEVITABLE?
It’s November 1941. Japan and the US are teetering on a knife-edge as leaders on both sides of the Pacific strive to prevent war between them. But failed diplomacy, foiled negotiations, and possible duplicity in the Roosevelt administration thwart their attempts.
Drawing on now-declassified original documents, Diplomats & Admirals reveals the inside story of one fateful year, including:
• How the hidden agendas of powerful civilian and military leaders pushed the two nations toward war • The miscommunications, misjudgments, and blunders that doomed efforts at peace • China’s role in the US ultimatum that triggered the attack on Pearl Harbor • Why the carrier-to-carrier showdown at Coral Sea proved a fatal mistake for Japan • How courageous US navy pilots snatched victory from defeat at the Battle of Midway
The defining events of WWII could have ended very differently. Combining perspectives from both military and civilian leaders, Diplomats & Admirals uncovers new insights into the Pacific naval battles that shaped the world—and the men behind them.
The Proud Tower, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Guns of August, and The Zimmerman Telegram comprise Barbara W. Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era
In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players, Tuchman’s magnum opus is a classic for the ages.
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