Lee's retreat through Pennsylvania and escape across the Potomac. Award-winning historian Craig L. Symonds recounts the events of three hot, brutal days in July when Americans struggled battled one another across a dozen square miles of rolling Pennsylvania countryside. Symonds details the military strategy of both sides, including the Confederate decision to invade the North, the cat-and-mouse game in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and, finally, the terrible clash of arms on the hills and fields of Gettysburg. Firsthand accounts humanize generals and individual soldiers of the Blue and Gray who fought for their lives, their homes, and their convictions. This is the story of Gettysburg as it has never been told before.

    From Dallas nightclub reporter Tony Zoppi, who found himself carrying the president's casket; Secret Service agent Clint Hill beating his hands in despair on the trunk of the limousine as he watches Kennedy die; Howard Brennan, a construction worker on a lunch break watching a man take aim on the motorcade with a rifle; reporter Hugh Aynesworth with only an electricity bill on which to write notes for the scoop of his career; DJ John Peel a few feet from Oswald as he's questioned by the press; to Robert Kennedy sitting in the dark in the back of an empty army truck, waiting for his brother's body to arrive. 'The Assassination of JFK: Minute by Minute' is pure chronological narrative, giving a blow by blow account of the terrible events as they unfolded.

    Beach, planned a routine shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic. Two weeks before the scheduled cruise, however, Beach was summoned to Washington and told of the immediate necessity to prove the reliability of the Rickover-conceived submarine. His new secret orders were to take the Triton around the world, entirely submerged the total distance. This is Beach's gripping firsthand account of what went on during the 36,000 nautical-mile voyage whose record for speed and endurance still stands today. It brings to life the many tense events in the historic journey: the malfunction of the essential fathometer that indicated the location of undersea mountains and shallow waters, the sudden agonizing illness of a senior petty officer, and the serious problems with the ship's main hydraulic oil system. Intensely dramatic, Beach's chronicle also describes the psychological stresses of the journey and some touching moments shared by the crew. A skillful story teller, he recounts the experience in such detail that readers feel they have been along for the ride of a lifetime.

    Foreign Policy offers a conceptual and historical overview of American foreign relations from the founding to the present. Kaufman begins the book with a thorough explanation of major themes, concepts, and actors in international relations that gives students a solid foundation on which to analyze U.S. foreign policy. Subsequent chapters explore how these theories and concepts apply to political and historical actions, placing the evolution of foreign policy decisions within the context of the international situations and domestic priorities. Kaufman concludes with a look forward to the twenty-first century and uses case studies to encourage students to form their own ideas about American foreign policy.

    Along the way, they answer the questions most nuclear tourists don't get to ask: Are nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert? Is there such a thing as a suitcase nuke? Is Iran really building the bomb? Together, Weinberger and Hodge visit top-secret locations like the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility in Iran, the United States' Kwajalein military outpost in the Marshall Islands, the Y-12 facility in Tennessee, and "Site R," a bunker known as the "Underground Pentagon," rumored to be Vice President Cheney's personal "undisclosed location" of choice. Their atomic road trip reveals plans to revitalize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, even as the United States pushes other countries to disarm. Weaving together travel writing with world-changing events, A Nuclear Family Vacation unearths unknown—and often quite entertaining—stories about the nuclear world.

    It is both a story of a changing era and of an extraordinary team on a championship quest. Very few institutions in American sports can match the enduring excellence of the University of Alabama football program. Across a wide swath of the last century, the tradition-rich Crimson Tide has claimed twelve national championships, captured twenty-five conference titles, finished thirty-four times among the country's top ten, and played in fifty-three bowl games.Especially dominant during the era of the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant, the larger-than-life figure who towered over the landscape like no man before or since, Alabama entered the 1966 season with the chance to become the first college football team to win three consecutive national championships. Every aspect of Bryant's grueling system was geared around competing for the big prize each and every year, and in 1966 the idea of the threepeat tantalized the players, pushing them toward greatness. Driven by Bryant's enthusiasm, dedication, and perseverance, players were made to believe in their team and themselves. Led by the electrifying force of quarterback Kenny "Snake" Stabler and one of the most punishing defenses in the storied annals of the Southeastern Conference, the Crimson Tide cruised to a magical season, finishing as the nation's only undefeated, untied team. But something happened on the way to the history books.The Missing Ring is the story of the one that got away, the one that haunts Alabama fans still, and native Alabamian Keith Dunnavant takes readers deep inside the Crimson Tide program during a more innocent time, before widespread telecasting, before scholarship limitations, before end-zone dances. Meticulously revealing the strategies, tactics, and personal dramas that bring the overachieving boys of 1966 to life, Dunnavant's insightful, anecdotally rich narrative shows how Bryant molded a diverse group of young men into a powerful force that overcame various obstacles to achieve perfection in an imperfect world.Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the still-escalating Vietnam War, and a world and a sport teetering on the brink of change in a variety of ways, The Missing Ring tells an important story about the collision between football and culture. Ultimately, it is this clash that produces the Crimson Tide's most implacable foe, enabling the greatest injustice in college football history. "Keith Dunnavant has written yet another fabulous book about the fabled Alabama football program. You will be amazed at how one of the great injustices in the history of college football cost them their rightful place in history. And you just thought the system was screwed up now." ---Jim Dent, author of The Junction Boys "Keith Dunnavant nails it: all the sacrifices the 1966 Alabama team made to win three national championships in a row, and how we were robbed at the ballot box."---Jerry Duncan, one of the boys of 1966 "Dunnavant infuses reportage and passion into a tale that every Alabamian of a certain age knows: For all the crying about Penn State in 1969, Penn State in 1994, or Auburn in 2004, no team ever got shafted the way the 1966 Crimson Tide did. It's all here: the churning legs, the churning stomachs, and the dreaded gym classes where Bear Bryant's boys made the sacrifices he demanded in order to become champions. They conquered their opponents on the field, but proved to be no match for the politics of the day off the field. The '66 Tide is still waiting for the Missing Ring. Thanks to Dunnavant, we don't have to." ---Ivan Maisel, senior writer, ESPN.com, and co-author of A War in Dixie "Absolutely stunning. The Missing Ring left me breathless. Keith Dunnavant has proven again why he is one of America's greatest sports authors and historians. With so much having been written about Bryant and Alabama, I had my doubts going into this book that there was something I didn't know or hadn't read. Yet Dunnavant has managed to strike gold with The Missing Ring in every way and shape imaginable. His quiet prose goes down as effortlessly as bourbon and branch water. Fans of college football will marvel at his painstaking research. Dunnavant turned the clock back forty years and it was 1966 all over again. The pain and the glory, the pride and the prejudice, all brought to life in the pages of this extraordinary book." ---Paul Finebaum, Paul Finebaum Radio Network

    In July 1863 the regiment's eight-hundred-plus troops--young men from North Carolina's mountains, farmlands, and hamlets--were thrust into the firestorm of Gettysburg, the greatest battle ever fought in North America. By the time the fighting ended, the 26th North Carolina had suffered what some authorities would calculate to be the highest casualties of any regiment in the Civil War.Following a bone-wearying march into Pennsylvania with the rest of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, the soldiers of the 26th found themselves in ferocious, almost face-to-face combat with some of the hardest-fighting troops in the Federal army--the heralded Iron Brigade. The bloody contest on McPherson's Ridge produced some of Gettysburg's fiercest fighting, and the troops involved--men from North Carolina, Michigan, and Indiana--established an enduring legacy of American fortitude and will.On Gettysburg's third day of battle, the 26th North Carolina was placed in the front ranks of Pickett's Charge. Following a massive artillery barrage, the tattered regiment was commanded to go the distance in what would prove to be the most famous assault of the war. At one point, as he watched the men of the 26th in battle, Brigadier General James J. Pettigrew dispatched a message to the regiment's commander: "Tell him his regiment haas covered itself with glory today."The story of the 26th North Carolina at Gettysburg is an American saga of duty performed in the worst of warfare. It unfolds through the lives of key characters--the regiment'stwenty-one year old commander, Colonel Henry K. Burgwyn, Jr.; its second-in-command, twenty-six-year-old farmer-turned-lieutenant colonel John R. Lane; twenty-two-year-old Major John Jones, who had abandoned his college studies to join the army; and common soldiers like Private Jimmie Moore, a North Carolina mountain boy who had gone to war at the age of fifteen."Covered In Glory is an intensely personal narrative based on exhaustive research into the diaries, letters, memoirs, and official records of the men who struggled on the bloody field at Gettysburg. It is a powerful, moving account of American courage and sacrifice.

    With April 12, 2011, set to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, the time is ripe for a new assessment of the conflict

    Who was he, and what caused him to disappear? Was he simply a physicist, or also a spy and communist radical? A protege of Enrico Fermi, Pontecorvo was one of the most promising nuclear physicists in the world. He spent years hunting for the Higgs boson of his day -- the neutrino -- a nearly massless particle thought to be essential to the process of particle decay. His work on the Manhattan Project helped to usher in the nuclear age, and confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist. Why, then, would he disappear as he stood on the cusp of true greatness, perhaps even the Nobel Prize? In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvo's life, based on unprecedented access to Pontecorvo's friends and family and the Russian scientists with whom he would later work. Close takes a microscope to Pontecorvo's life, combining a thorough biography of one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century with the drama of Cold War espionage. With all the elements of a Cold War thriller -- classified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a possible kidnapping by Soviet operatives -- Half-Life is a history of nuclear physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb. Physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.

    Smith. But, thanks to the determination of a powerful senator, he would soon find himself at the agency’s helm. A Birkenstocks-wearing physics PhD, Jaczko was unlike any chairman the agency had ever seen: he was driven by a passion for technology and a concern for public safety, with no ties to the industry and no agenda other than to ensure that his agency made the world a safer place. And so Jaczko witnessed what outsiders like him were never meant to see—an agency overpowered by the industry it was meant to regulate and a political system determined to keep it that way. After an emergency trip to Japan to help oversee the frantic response to the horrifying nuclear disaster at Fukushima in 2011, and witnessing the American nuclear industry’s refusal to make the changes he considered necessary to prevent an equally catastrophic event from occurring here, Jaczko started saying aloud what no one else had dared. Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator is a wake-up call to the dangers of lobbying, the importance of governmental regulation, and the failures of congressional oversight. But it is also a classic tale of an idealist on a mission whose misadventures in Washington are astounding, absurd, and sometimes even funny—and Jaczko tells the story with humor, self-deprecation, and, yes, occasional bursts of outrage. Above all, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator is a tale of confronting the truth about one of the most pressing public safety and environmental issues of our time: nuclear power will never be safe.

    As huge as the Pantheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 of an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the perfect machine" a stirring chronicle of the birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars.

    From the New York Times-bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered comes the blockbuster story of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome--17 days that helped define the modern world.

    But America’s imperial identity was actually shaped much closer to home. In a brilliant excavation of long-obscured history, Empire’s Workshop shows how Latin America has functioned as a proving ground for American strategies and tactics overseas. Historian Greg Grandin follows the United States’ imperial operations from Jefferson’s aspirations for an “empire of liberty” in Cuba and Spanish Florida to Reagan’s support for brutally oppressive but U.S.-friendly regimes in Central America. He traces the origins of Bush’s current policies back to Latin America, where many of the administration’s leading lights first embraced the deployment of military power to advance free market economics and enlisted the evangelical movement in support of their ventures.With much of Latin America now in open rebellion against U.S. domination, Grandin asks: If Washington failed to bring prosperity and democracy to Latin America—its own backyard “workshop”—what are the chances it will do so for the world?

    Now reaching its four hundredth anniversary, it remains one of the most frequently used Bibles in the English-speaking world, especially in America. Lavishly illustrated with reproductions from early editions of the KJB, Bible: The Story of the King James Version offers a vivid and authoritative history of this renowned translation, ranging from the Bible's inception to the present day. Gordon Campbell, a leading authority on Renaissance literatures, tells the engaging and complex story of how this translation came to be commissioned, who the translators were, and how the translation was accomplished. Campbell does not end with the printing of that first edition, but also traces the textual history from 1611 to the establishment of the modern text by Oxford University Press in 1769, shedding light on the subsequent generations who edited and interacted with the text and bringing to life the controversies surrounding later revisions. In addition, the author examines the reception of the King James Version, showing how its popularity has shifted through time and territory, ranging from adulation to deprecation and attracting the attention of a wide variety of adherents. Since the KJB is more widely read in America today than in any other country, Campbell pays particular attention to the history of the KJB in the United States. Finally, the volume includes appendices that contain short biographies of the translators and a guide to the 74-page preliminaries of the 1611 edition. A fitting tribute to the enduring popularity of the King James Version, Bible offers an illuminating history of this most esteemed of biblical translations.

    In twenty-four seasons pitcher Roger Clemens put together one of the greatest careers baseball has ever seen. Seven Cy Young Awards, two World Series championships, and 354 victories made him a lock for the Hall of Fame. But on December 13, 2007, the Mitchell Report laid waste to all that. Accusations that Clemens relied on steroids and human growth hormone provided and administered by his former trainer, Brian McNamee, have put Clemens in the crosshairs of a Justice Department investigation.Why did this happen? How did it happen? Who made the decisions that altered some lives and ruined others? How did a devastating culture of drugs, lies, sex, and cheating fester and grow throughout Major League Baseball's clubhouses? The answers are in these extraordinary pages.American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime is about much more than the downfall of a superstar. While the fascinating portrait of Clemens is certainly at the center of the action, the book takes us outside the white lines and inside the lives and dealings of sports executives, trainers, congressmen, lawyers, drug dealers, groupies, a porn star, and even a murderer—all of whom have ties to this saga. Four superb investigative journalists have spent years uncovering the truth, and at the heart of their investigation is a behind-the-scenes portrait of the maneuvering and strategies in the legal war between Clemens and his accuser, McNamee.This compelling story is the strongest examination yet of the rise of illegal drugs in America’s favorite sport, the gym-rat culture in Texas that has played such an important role in spreading those drugs, and the way Congress has dealt with the entire issue. Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, and Chuck Knoblauch are just a few of the other players whose moving and sometimes disturbing stories are illuminated here as well. The New York Daily News Sports Investigative Team has written the definitive book on corruption and the steroids era in Major League Baseball. In doing so, they have managed to dig beneath the disillusion and disappointment to give us a stirring look at heroes who all too often live unheroic shadow lives.