On the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, Eisenhower biographer and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944, had to be abandoned before the first shot was fired.

In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in WW II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa. The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great...

"In his new work, years in the making, historian Howard Coffin takes readers through every town in the Green Mountain State as he documents some 2,500 extant sites that were in some way touched by the Civil War. They are everywhere--on back roads, in busy downtowns, on islands, in remote woods, and in farm fields, on village greens, college campuses, and even on mountaintops."--Dust jacket.

'Beau Geste' is a rollicking adventure story of the French Foreign Legion. Set in the period before World War I it has captured the imagination of generation after generation.

Rome, the Eternal City. It is a hugely popular tourist destination with a rich history, famed for such sites as the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, St. Peter’s, and the Vatican. In no other city is history as present as it is in Rome. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity. This is all the more remarkable...

This acclaimed bestseller brilliantly illuminates a hidden piece of World War II history as it tells the harrowing true story of nine American airmen shot down in the Pacific. One of them, George H. W. Bush, was miraculously rescued. What happened to the other eight remained a secret for almost 60 years. After the war, the American and Japanese governments conspired to cover up the shocking truth, and not even the families of the airmen were informed...

With this magisterial history of Europe since 1453 shows how struggles over the heart of the continent have shaped the world we live in today. Whoever controls the core of Europe controls the entire continent, and whoever controls Europe can dominate the world. Over the past five centuries, a rotating cast of kings, conquerors, presidents, and dictators have set their sights on the European heartland, desperate to seize this pivotal area or at least...

The saga of the Marine Corps during World War II.

From New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, the twelth installment in the world-renowned Sharpe series, chronicling the rise of Richard Sharpe, a Private in His Majesty's Army at the siege of Seringapatam. Quartered in a crumbling Portuguese fort, Richard Sharpe and his men are attacked by an elite French unit, led by an old enemy of Sharpe's, and suffer heavy losses. The army's high command blame Sharpe for the disaster and his military...

Bacevich takes stock of the separation between Americans and their military, tracing its origins to the Vietnam era and exploring its pernicious implications: a nation with an abiding appetite for war waged at enormous expense by a standing army demonstrably unable to achieve victory. Rather than something for "other people" to do, Bacevich argues that national defense should become the business of "we the people."