Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

Robert S. McNamara, Brian VanDeMark · 414 pages

1776

David McCullough · 393 pages

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789

Robert Middlekauff · 736 pages

Recounts the events leading up to the Revolution and discusses the major leaders, campaigns, and battles of the war.

Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

H.R. McMaster · 464 pages

Dereliction of Duty makes a unique, groundbreaking contribution toward clarifying what happened, why, and who was responsible for the decisions that led to direct U.S. military intervention in the Vietnam War. Based on more than five years of painstaking research, it includes startling revelations from previously classified transcripts of crucial meetings, many of which were obtained by the autho

Lincoln and His Generals

T. Harry Williams · 363 pages

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

A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico

Amy S. Greenberg · 344 pages

A critical assessment of the Mexican-American war and its divisive role in U.S. politics also evaluates its impact on the careers of James Polk, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln and how it set the stage for the American Civil War.

War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals

David Halberstam · 544 pages

"More than twenty-five years ago Halberstam told the riveting story of the men who conceived and executed the Vietnam War. Today the author has written another chronicle of Washington politics, this time exploring the complex dynamics of foreign policy in post-Cold War America.". "Halberstam evokes the internecine conflicts, the untrammeled egos, and the struggles for dominance among the key figu

The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War

H.W. Brands · 480 pages

"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about t

The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942

Nigel Hamilton

Empire Of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, The Epic Battle For The Americas, And The Catastrophe That Ended The Outlaws' Bloody Reign

Stephan Talty · 344 pages

He challenged the greatest empire on earth with a ragtag bunch of renegades--and brought it to its knees. Empire of Blue Water is the real story of the pirates of the Caribbean.Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, crossed the Atlantic in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the next three decades, his exploits in the Caribbean in the service of the English became legendary. His daring

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Erik Larson · 464 pages

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President

Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean, 1521-1580

Roger Crowley · 368 pages

"Empires of the Sea" shows the Mediterranean as a majestic and bloody theatre of war. Opening with the Ottoman victory in 1453, it is a breathtaking story of military crusading, Barbary pirates, white slavery and the Ottoman Empire - and the larger picture of the struggle between Islam and Christianity. Coupled with dramatic set piece battles, a wealth of riveting first-hand accounts, epic momentu

Grant

Jean Edward Smith · 781 pages

"Ulysses S. Grant was the first four-star general in the history of the United States Army and the only president between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to serve eight consecutive years in the White House. As general in chief, Grant revolutionized modern warfare. Rather than capture enemy territory or march on Southern cities, he concentrated on engaging and defeating the Confederate armies in

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy

Ian W. Toll · 592 pages

Starting in the Adams administration and continuing through to the end of the War of 1812, *Six Frigates* is a well researched and very readable history of the Navy of the United States. Begun in the shadow of the British Royal Navy that was thought to be unbeatable, the American Navy faced challenges of every kind. The navy grew as the country grew, by fits and starts, by rising to challenges (Th

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

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

Ronald C. White Jr. · 845 pages

In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the "Trinity of Great American Leaders." But the battlefield commander–turned–commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. Based on seven years of research with prim

1861: The Civil War Awakening

Adam Goodheart · 481 pages

As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began. 1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents' faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in

A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent

Robert W. Merry · 576 pages

In a one-term presidency, Polk completed the story of America's Manifest Destiny -- extending its territory across the continent, from sea to sea, by threatening England and manufacturing a controversial and unpopular two-year war with Mexico that Abraham Lincoln, in Congress at the time, opposed as preemptive. Robert Merry tells this story through powerful debates and towering figures. - Jacket f

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

James M. McPherson · 340 pages

James McPherson, a bestselling historian of the Civil War, illuminates how Lincoln worked with—and often against— his senior commanders to defeat the Confederacy and create the role of commander in chief as we know it. Though Abraham Lincoln arrived at the White House with no previous military experience (apart from a couple of months spent soldiering in 1832), he quickly established himself as th

The Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln · 32 pages

The most famous speech in American history. President Lincoln gave this very brief one-page address at the dedication of the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, PA on November 19, 1863, four months after the battle. This publication contains the final speech and a transcription of one of the several known early drafts.

1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History

Charles Bracelen Flood · 521 pages

Historian-biographer Charles Bracelen Flood brings to life the drama of Lincoln's final year, in which he oversaw the last campaigns of the Civil War, was reelected as president, and laid out his majestic vision for the nation's future in a reunified South and in the expanding West. In that crucial year, the Civil War was far from won: as the year began, Lincoln had yet to appoint Ulysses S. Grant

Grant: A Biography

William S. McFeely · 608 pages

The story of the Ohioan who became the leader of the Union Army and later the president.

This Hallowed Ground: The story of the Union Side of the Civil War

Bruce Catton · 437 pages

This history deals with the entire scope of the Civil War--from the months of unrest and hysteria that led to Fort Sumter through the Union victory.