Catalog Search Results
Author
Description
When America declared war on Germany in 1917, the United States had only 200,000 men under arms, a twentieth of the German army's strength, and its planes were no match for the German air force. Less than a century later, the United States today has by far the world's largest military budget and provides over 40% of the world's armaments.In American Arsenal Patrick Coffey examines America's military transformation from an isolationist state to a world...
Author
Formats
Description
"Ten years in the research and writing, Presidents of War, is a fresh, magisterial, intimate look at a procession of American leaders as they took the nation into conflict and mobilized their country for victory. It brings us into the room as they make the most difficult decisions that face any President, at times sending hundreds of thousands of American men and women to their deaths. From James Madison and the War of 1812 to recent times, we see...
Author
Description
"The creation of the first weapon in history that can stalk and kill an enemy on the other side of the globe was far more than clever engineering. As Richard Whittle shows in Predator, it was the most profound development in military and aerospace technology since the intercontinental ballistic missile. Once considered fragile toys, drones were long thought to be of limited utility. The Predator itself was resisted at nearly every turn by the military...
Author
Description
"The New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot chronicles another thrilling chapter in American aviation history: the race to break the sound barrier. In the aftermath of World War II, the United States accelerated the development of technologies that would give it an advantage over the Soviet Union. Airpower, combined with nuclear weapons, offered a formidable check on Soviet aggression. In 1947, the United States Air Force was established....
Author
Formats
Description
"An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world's most critical resource--microchip technology--with the United States and China increasingly in conflict. You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil--the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything--from missiles to microwaves,...
Author
Formats
Description
Joining the ranks of Unbroken, Band of Brothers, and Boys in the Boat, the little-known saga of young German Jews, dubbed The Ritchie Boys, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, came of age in America, and returned to Europe at enormous personal risk as members of the U.S. Army to play a key role in the Allied victory.In 1942, the U.S. Army unleashed one of its greatest secret weapons in the battle to defeat Adolf Hitler: training nearly 2,000 German-born...
Author
Description
"Worlds collide in this true story of weather control in the Cold War era and the making of Kurt Vonnegut In the mid-1950s, Kurt Vonnegut takes a job in the PR department at General Electric in Schenectady, where his older brother, Bernard, is a leading scientist in its research lab--or "House of Magic." Kurt has ambitions as a novelist, and Bernard is working on a series of cutting-edge weather-control experiments meant to make deserts bloom and...
9) Countdown 1945: the extraordinary story of the atomic bomb and the 116 days that changed the world
Author
Formats
Description
"Propulsive." --Time * "Reads like a tense thriller." --The Washington Post * "The most exciting book I've read all year." --Admiral William H. McRaven From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, comes an electrifying behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima.April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President...
10) 12 seconds of silence: how a team of inventors, tinkerers, and spies took down a Nazi superweapon
Author
Description
"The riveting story of the American scientists, tinkerers, and nerds who solved one of the biggest puzzles of World War II-and developed one of the most powerful weapons of the war."--
Author
Description
In this insightful and revelatory new book, the author of the highly acclaimed, award-winning international bestseller Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla delves deeper into the groundbreaking ideas and astonishing mind of one of the greatest geniuses of modern times. The culmination of more than four decades of research, Tesla: Wizard at War explores the historical impact of Tesla’s particle beam weapon and other brilliant work—and how...
Author
Description
Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they were during World War II. In the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were so alarmed to learn that the Nazis were outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research, they assembled a motley crew of geniuses -- dubbed the Alsos Mission -- and sent them careening into Axis territory. Thrust into the dark world of international espionage,...
Author
Formats
Description
"On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure? While influenza is now often thought of as a common and mild disease, it still kills over...
Author
Formats
Description
Surprise... your target. Kill... your enemy. Vanish... without a trace. From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky...
Author
Description
This book provides a definitive account of the dramatic story of smallpox by a leading expert on biological and chemical weapons. The author traces the history of the smallpox virus from its first recorded outbreak around 3700 B.C. through its use as the first biological warfare agent in human history, and draws some decisively important lessons for the future. In a timely debate, he addresses the ever-growing concerns about the proliferation of the...
Author
Description
"Ten years into researching a book about the possibility that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, Nicholson Baker was frustrated and disheartened. In the course of his research, he had become deeply disillusioned with the process of FOIA requests. He has been forced to wait years in some cases, while other requests have been answered only with documents rendered inscrutable, or even illegible, by copious redactions. Rather...
Author
Description
Shortly after the first Sputnik launch in 1957, an American scientific team proposed Project Orion, an enormous interplanetary spaceship propelled by exploding hundreds of nuclear bombs. The project commenced during the golden age of support for U.S. scientific research, but the team struggled to find ongoing funding. Civilian NASA found Orion unpalatable because of its inextricable link with nuclear weapons, while the military regarded the team's...
Author
Description
Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as "a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter," takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's "Tank" in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories-based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents-of how America's presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely...