and the EU governments among them -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is no more than a terrorist organization.  Moreover, they claim that the FARC is only engaged in criminal activities and no longer maintains an ideology.  But does this tell the whole story? Or can terrorism be a strategy for furthering ideological objectives -- irrespective of how the terrorist actions may appear to contradict stated political and ideological beliefs? As the UN's special envoy to Colombia noted in 2003, it would be "a mistake to think that the FARC members are only drug traffickers and terrorists." Part of Zed's groundbreaking Rebels series, Garry Leech has written the definitive introduction to the FARC, examining the group's origins, aims and ideology, and looking at its organizational and operational structures. The book also investigates the FARC's impact on local, regional and global politics and explores its future direction. As someone who reported from the frontline in Colombia for many years and was himself kidnapped by the FARC, Leech offers an unparalled insight into one of the world's most high-profile armed revolutionary organizations.

    wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong.Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost — but we didn’t have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.

    A vivid and eloquent book." --Stephen W. Sears, author of Gettysburg"Little Round Top has become iconic in Civil War literature and American memory. In the emotional recollection of our great war, if there was one speck on the landscape that decided a battle and the future of a nation, then surely this was it. The story of the July 2, 1863 struggle for that hill outside Gettysburg goes deeper into our consciousness than that, however. The men who fought for it then and there believed it to be decisive, and that is why they died for it. Glenn W. LaFantasie's Twilight at Little Round Top addresses that epic struggle, how those warriors felt then and later, and their physical and emotional attachment to a piece of ground that linked them forever with their nation's fate. This is military and social history at its finest." --W.C. Davis, author of Lincoln's Men and An Honorable Defeat"Few military episodes of the Civil War have attracted as much attention as the struggle for Little Round Top on the second day of Gettysburg. This judicious and engaging book navigates confidently through a welter of contradictory testimony to present a splendid account of the action. It also places events on Little Round Top, which often are exaggerated, within the broader sweep of the battle. All readers interested in the battle of Gettysburg will read this book with enjoyment and profit." --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War"In his beautifully written narrative, Glenn LaFantasie tells the story of the battle for Little Round Top from the perspective of the soldiers who fought and died in July 1863. Using well-chosen quotes from a wide variety of battle participants, TWILIGHT puts the reader in the midst of the fight--firing from behind boulders with members of the 4th Alabama, running up the hillside into battle with the men of the 140th New York, and watching in horror as far too many men die. This book offers an elegy to the courage of those men, a meditation on the meaning of war, and a cautionary tale about the sacrifices nations ask of their soldiers and the causes for which those sacrifices are needed." --Amy Kinsel, Winnrer of the 1993 Allan Nevins Prize for From These Honored Dead: Gettysburg in American Culture

    Theirs is the only book that fuses the populist right and populist left to explain the rise of the Trump and Sanders movements. The authors curate an essential collection of their biting commentary, stunning predictions, media critiques, and reveal their vision for a working-class centered politics. No establishment media or political figure goes unscathed. This book reveals the white-hot core of The Hill Rising's meteoric rise in the alternative media space.We are living through chaotic, nerve-wracking, and occasionally terrifying times, but we hope you will find this book both hopeful and helpful. Nothing has made us more hopeful than our work together on Rising, watching what unfolds, laughing at the absurdities, and joining in our outrage at the often bipartisan rituals of manipulating our fellow citizens and viewing them with contempt. People are often confused by our politics and how much we end up in agreement. Ultimately, we have largely different policy prescriptions and beliefs. However, we do share a central diagnosis of the rot in this country, of how we got to this place, and a deep skepticism of power. It's amazing how far you can get when you start in the same place with a shared understanding of reality. It's a hell of a lot further than the shallow, fake civility politics that the forces of the status-quo say you must embrace-'Keep quiet and hold still while they rip you to shreds.' We take the opposite view. Speak up. Make people uncomfortable. Don't let the "experts" convince you that better isn't possible.

    Called the "Bob Gates of his generation," Michael Morell is a top CIA officer who saw it all--the only person with President Bush on 9/11/01 and with President Obama on 5/1/11 when Usama Bin Laden was brought to justice. Like Ghost Wars, See No Evil, and At the Center of the Storm, THE GREAT WAR OF OUR TIME will be a vivid, newsmaking account of the CIA, a life of secrets and a war in the shadows.

    She knows just how much this war has cost the Afghan people, and how much damage can be traced to Pakistan and its duplicitous government and intelligence forces. Now that American troops are withdrawing, it is time to tell the full history of how we have been fighting the wrong enemy, in the wrong country.Gall combines searing personal accounts of battles and betrayals with moving portraits of the ordinary Afghans who endured a terrible war of more than a decade. Her firsthand accounts of Taliban warlords, Pakistani intelligence thugs, American generals, Afghan politicians, and the many innocents who were caught up in this long war are riveting. Her evidence that Pakistan fueled the Taliban and protected Osama bin Laden is revelatory. This is a sweeping account of a war brought by well-intentioned American leaders against an enemy they barely understood, and could not truly engage.

    The storm broke on September 11th 2001. Since then much of the world has seen invasions, bombings, battles and riots. Hundreds of thousands of people have died.Jason Burke, a first hand witness of many of the conflict's key moments, has written the definitive account of its course. At once investigation, reportage and contemporary history, it is based on hundreds of interviews with participants including desperate refugees and senior intelligence officials, ministers and foot-soldiers, active militants and their victims. Burke reveals the true nature of contemporary Islamic militancy and the inside story of the fight against it. He cuts through the myth and propaganda of all sides to reveal the reality behind well-known - and lesser known - episodes, and brings characters, voices and a sense of place to a gripping narrative.The 9/11 Wars is an essential book for understanding the dangerous and unstable twenty-first century. Whether reporting on the riots in France or the killing of Bin Laden, suicide bombers in Iraq or British troops fighting in Helmand, Jason Burke tells the story of a world that changed forever when the hijacked planes flew out of the brilliant blue sky above Manhattan on September 11th 2001.

    Since 2002, Mohamedou Slahi has been imprisoned at the detainee camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In all these years, the United States has never charged him with a crime. Although he was ordered released by a federal judge, the U.S. government fought that decision, and there is no sign that the United States plans to let him go. Three years into his captivity Slahi began a diary, recounting his life before he disappeared into U.S. custody and daily life as a detainee. His diary is not merely a vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a deeply personal memoir -- terrifying, darkly humorous, and surprisingly gracious. Published now for the first time, Guantanamo Diary is a document of immense historical importance.

    Few military feats stir the imagination like the image of a pair of riflemen waiting quietly in a building, a bomb crater, or a mountain pass for a Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter to walk into their crosshairs.Sniper presents real-life tales from the military's frontline snipers—their hits and their misses, the anguish of loss, and the anxiety of the first kill. Authors Gina Cavallaro and Matt Larsen provide riveting accounts of American soldiers and marines on the battlefield, and take a rare look at how Rangers and Special Forces snipers train and operate, and how the war on terror has changed the role of military snipers.

    We go into the homes of suicide bombers and into street-to-street fighting with a battalion of marines. We meet Iraqi insurgents, an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days, and a young soldier from Georgia on a rooftop at midnight reminiscing about his girlfriend back home. A car bomb explodes, bullets fly, and a mother cradles her blinded son.Like no other book, The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America’s wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

    Taylor Jr. and his brother Marines are assembled into a new reaction force that is immediately tested in the fire of a bloody conflict known as Operation Beaver Cage. After a traumatic first fight, they push through back-to-back operations with little time to rest or reflect. Those who survive will return home ensnared by everlasting memories of a real, but entirely surreal nightmare. Now after more than fifty years of holding everything in, Taylor shares his experience in explicit and often horrific detail and with a reverent honor for those Marines who did not live to tell the tale.Taylor reveals what it truly means to walk the path of a warrior, to sacrifice, and to live a lifetime with the memories of a war—seeking answers to the question, “Was it worth it?"

    Digging up reams of documents marked ?secret? and ?confidential,? Palast provides the latest lowdown on Bush?s secret plans to seize Iraq?s oil, the fix planned for the 2008 election, who drowned New Orleans, and the horror and the humor of the War on Terror. With diligent detective work, moral outrage, and a keen sense of the absurd, Palast takes on the ?armed and dangerous clowns that rule us? as only he can.

    Combining original research with her personal story, it is a deeply thoughtful meditation on war as it is being waged around the world against millions of civilians -- primarily women and children. Samantha's boundless energy, dedication, and compassion shine through on every page as she lays out real, lasting solutions to these problems and shows how to move beyond outdated notions of charity towards a more progressive, inclusive, and respectful world view.

    But once the Cold War between the superpowers waned, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein provided that chance with his invasion of Kuwait. Finally the new US M1A1 tank would see how it fared against the vaunted Soviet-built T-72.On the morning of August 2, 1990, Iraqi armored divisions invaded the tiny emirate of Kuwait. The Iraqi Army, after its long war with Iran, had more combat experience than the U.S. Army. Who knew if America’s untested forces could be shipped across the world and thence contest the battle-hardened Iraqis on their home ground? The Kuwaitis had collapsed easily enough, but the invasion drew fierce condemnation from the UN, which demanded Saddam’s withdrawal. Undeterred by the rhetoric, the Iraqi dictator massed his forces along the Saudi Arabian border and dared the world to stop him. In response, the U.S. led the world community in a coalition of 34 nations in what became known as Operation Desert Storm – a violent air and ground campaign to eject the Iraqis from Kuwait. Leading this charge into Iraq were the men of Eagle Troop in the US Army’s 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment.Commanded by then-Captain HR McMaster, Eagle Troop was the lead element of the US VII Corps’ advance into Iraq. On February 26, 1991, Eagle Troop encountered the Tawakalna Brigade of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard. By any calculation, the 12 American tanks didn’t stand a chance. Yet within a mere 23 minutes, the M1A1 tanks of Eagle Troop destroyed more than 50 enemy vehicles and plowed a hole through the Iraqi front. History would call it the Battle of 73 Easting.Based on hours of interviews and archival research by renowned author Mike Guardia, this minute-by-minute account of the U.S. breakthrough reveals an intimate, no-holds-barred account of modern warfare.

    missteps: a Taliban commander, a U.S.-backed warlord, and a housewife trapped in the middle of the fighting. With its intimate accounts of life in small Afghan villages, and harrowing tales of crimes committed by Taliban leaders and American-supported provincial officials alike, No Good Men Among the Living lays bare the workings of America’s longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony. A thoroughly original exposé of the conflict that is still being fought, it shows just how the American intervention went so desperately wrong.