The leader of a team of U.S. Navy SEALs sent to northern Afghanistan to capture an al Qaeda leader chronicles the events of the battle that killed his teammates and offers insight into the training of this elite group of soldiers.

"In the spring of 1862, many Americans still believed that the Civil War, 'would be over by Christmas.' The losses in Virginia at Bull Run the previous summer, with nearly 5,000 casualties, had been shocking enough, but suddenly came word of an appalling battle in the wildernesses of Southwest Tennessee, Shiloh, that cost 24,000 lives, most of them during a single day. This was more casualties than from all previous U.S. wars combined, including the...

One of the most important, and controversial, Confederate generals during the Civil War was Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Robert E. Lees old warhorse. Longstreet was Lee's principal subordinate for most of the war, ably managing a corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Longstreet was instrumental in Confederate victories at Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chickamauga, while he was also effective at Antietam and the Battle of the Wilderness,...

"Yash Raje, California's first Indian-American gubernatorial candidate, has always known exactly what he wants-and how to use his privileged background to get it. He attributes his success to a simple mantra: control your feelings and you can control theworld. But when a hate crime at a rally critically injures his friend, Yash's easy life suddenly feels like a lie, his control an illusion. When he tries to get back on the campaign trail, he blacks...

Junger, author of "The Perfect Storm," turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat in this on-the-ground account that follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.

Although the assault on Utah Beach ultimately became one of the most successful military operations of World War II, its outcome was anything but certain. Not only was Utah the most isolated of the five D-Day beaches, but the airborne assault was of unprecedented size and complexity. Despite the perils, American troops confidently cascaded into that far corner of Normandy and contributed decisively to the Allied triumph on D-Day. With verve and authority,...

After the British establish a fort on the Penobscot River, the Massachusetts patriots--among them General Peleg Wadsworth and Colonel Paul Revere--mount an expedition to oust the redcoats.

"Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. This book takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant...

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. The true story of D-Day, as Ambrose relates it, is about the citizen soldiers - junior officers and enlisted men - taking the initiative to act on their own to

...

Bryan Caplan is associate professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the coeditor of the Weblog EconLog. The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually...