A former Navy SEAL examines the most important American firearms, using these guns as a window on United States history to prove that the American story has been tied to and shaped by the gun.

The twentieth century is usually seen as "the century of total war." But as the historian David A. Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the era of muskets, cannons, and sailing ships-in the age of Napoleon. In a sweeping, evocative narrative, Bell takes us from campaigns of "extermination" in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European...

This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct. In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage-in all its forms-as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you'll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations,...

"A masterful achievement...[Carroll's] prose is elegant, his viewpoint bold." -Howard Zinn, author of The People's History of the United States "One cannot understand the impact of the Pentagon on US foreign policy. . . without reading James Carroll's House of War." -Lawrence Korb, former Undersecretary of Defence under Ronald Reagan From the National Book Award–winning author of An American Requiem and Constantine's Sword comes a sweeping yet...

"Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska's Ladd Field on a test flight. Only one ever returned: Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with little more than a parachute on his back when he bailed from his B-24 Liberator before it crashed into the Arctic. Alone in subzero temperatures, Crane managed to stay alive in the dead of the Yukon winter for nearly twelve weeks and, amazingly, walked out of the ordeal intact. 81 Days...