The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide

Seize The Hour: When Nixon Met Mao

Margaret MacMillan · 384 pages

In 1972 Nixon amazed the world by going to China. The first trip ever by a US President marked the end of deep freeze in Sino-American relations. Was Nixon the supplicant to the Middle Kingdom? Has the US been at a disadvantage ever since? Will the 21st century see co-operation or China challenging American dominance?

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

Michael Dobbs · 464 pages

In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear conflict over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. In this hour-by-hour chronicle of those tense days, veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs reveals just how close we came to Armageddon.Here, for the first time, are gripping accounts of Khrushchev's plan to destroy the

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power

Robert Dallek · 752 pages

With the publication of his magisterial biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life, Robert Dallek cemented his reputation as one of the greatest historians of our time. Now, in this epic joint biography, he offers a provocative, groundbreaking portrait of a pair of outsize leaders whose unlikely partnership dominated the world stage and changed the course of history.More than thirty years af

The Untold History of The United States

Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick · 750 pages

A companion to the ten-part documentary series outlines provocative arguments against official American historical records to reveal the origins of conservatism and the obstacles to progressive change.

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Robert F. Kennedy

Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War

John Lewis Gaddis · 458 pages

When Strategies of Containment was first published, the Soviet Union was still a superpower, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, and the Berlin Wall was still standing. This updated edition of Gaddis' classic carries the history of containment through the end of the Cold War. Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt's postwar plans, Gaddis provides a thorough critical analysis of George

Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine

Eugene Finkel · 336 pages

Truman

David McCullough · 1,120 pages

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

Samantha Power · 656 pages

""A Problem from Hell" is a path-breaking interrogation of the last century of American history. Samantha Power poses a question that haunts our nation's past: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to marhsal the will and the might to stop genocide? She provides the answer in the form of the suspenseful story of courageous individuals who risked their careers and lives in a

One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein

Whitney Alyse Webb · 544 pages

Diplomacy

Henry Kissinger · 912 pages

In this controversial and monumental book - arguably his most important - Henry Kissinger illuminates just what diplomacy is. Moving from a sweeping overview of his own interpretation of history to personal accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Kissinger describes the ways in which the art of diplomacy and the balance of power have created the world we live in, and shows how Americans,

Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938

Stephen E. Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley · 420 pages

Incorporating the most recent scholarship, this eighth revised edition of "Rise to Globalism" now in paperback offers a concise and informative overview of the evolution of American foreign policy from 1938 to the present. Ambrose also wrote bestsellers "Undaunted Courage" and "D-Day."

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made

Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas · 853 pages

A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces six close friends who shaped the role their country would play in the dangerous years following World War II. They were the original best and brightest, whose towering intellects, outsize personalities, and dramatic actions would bring order to the postwar chaos and leave a legacy that dominates American policy to

Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David

Lawrence Wright · 396 pages

A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day. With his hallmark insight into the forces at play in the Middle East and his acclaimed journalistic skill, Lawrence Wright takes us thr

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

James D. Bradley · 387 pages

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. Roosevelt's glamorous twenty-one year old daughter Alice served as mistress of the cruise, which included senators and congressmen. On this trip, Taft concluded secret agreements in Roosevelt's name.In 2005, a centu

The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia changed the balance of power in the Middle East

Andrew Scott Cooper · 530 pages

This is an account of an era we thought we knew: how the US decision in the mid-1970s to choose Saudi Arabia as the dominant oil power in the Mideast ultimately led to the Islamic revolution in Iran, and how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs. The author draws on newly declassified documents and interviews with some key figures of the time to show how Nixon, Ford, Kissing

Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Jon Meacham · 518 pages

America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975

George C. Herring · 354 pages

The author portrays American participation in the Vietnam War as the logical culmination of the containment policy that began under Harry Truman in the late 1940's. Also his portrayal of the complex challenge that Vietnam posed for the United States and the varied responses it evoked from American people & leaders.

Embers Of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

Fredrik Logevall · 839 pages

A history of the four decades leading up to the Vietnam War offers insights into how the U.S. became involved, identifying commonalities between the campaigns of French and American forces while discussing relevant political factors.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

William L. Shirer · 1,264 pages

The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman & the Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1941-45

Michael R. Beschloss · 377 pages

As Allied soldiers fought the Nazis, Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Harry Truman fought in private with Churchill and Stalin over how to ensure that Germany could never threaten the world again. Eleven years in the writing, drawing on newly opened American, Soviet and British documents as well as private diaries, letters and secret audio recordings, Michael Beschloss's gripping narrative lets us e

The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future

Victor Cha · 552 pages

Looks at the nation of North Korea, its history, social conditions, and place in world politics as it stands today and where it is likely to end up in the future. In this book the author, pulls back the curtain on provocative, isolationist North Korea, providing our best look yet at its history and the rise of the Kim family dynasty and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them. He illumin

King Leopold's Ghost

Adam Hochschild · 375 pages

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian.

Berlin 1961

Frederick Kempe · 640 pages

Based on a new documents and interviews, this work is a look at the Berlin Crisis of 1961, with powerful applications for the present. In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called it "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War, and more pe