The torrent all but swept away the conservative order that had kept peace on the continent since Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815—but which in many countries had also suppressed dreams of national freedom. Political events so dramatic had not been seen in Europe since the French Revolution, and they would not be witnessed again until 1989, with the revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe.In 1848, historian Mike Rapport examines the roots of the ferment and then, with breathtaking pace, chronicles the explosive spread of violence across Europe. A vivid narrative of a complex chain of interconnected revolutions, 1848 tells the exhilarating story of Europe’s violent “Spring of Nations” and traces its reverberations to the present day.

    It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of Bin Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.

    "A Problem from Hell" shows how decent Americans inside and outside government refused to get involved despite chilling warnings and tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act. A modern classic, "A Problem from Hell" has forever reshaped debates about American foreign policy.

    Massie has written a richly textured and gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race. Massie brings to vivid life, such historical figures as the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young, ambitious, Winston Churchill, the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, and many others. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tratedy in his powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, DREADNOUGHT is history at its most riveting.

    Should the United States attack North Korea and Iran or negotiate with them? What are the implications of climate change and what should be done about it? Are tariffs a good idea? What do we owe refugees and others who want to enter our country? Should democratic countries promote democracy and human rights elsewhere? What can be done to stop terrorism? Are the United States and China heading for a second cold war--and, if so, what can be done to head it off?The World is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks needed to answer these and other critical questions for themselves. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Readers will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments and to hold elected representatives to account. Those who read The World will be less vulnerable to being misled by politicians and others claiming to be experts.In short, this book will make readers more globally literate. Global literacy--knowing how the world works--is a must, as what goes on outside a country matters enormously to what happens inside. Although the United States is bordered by two oceans, those oceans are not moats. And the so-called Vegas rule--what happens there stays there--does not apply in today's globalized world to anyone anywhere. U.S. foreign policy is uniquely American, but the world Americans seek to shape is not.The tectonic plates of international relations are moving. This is a critical time for high school and college students and others to understand what is taking place around the world, why it is taking place, and how it will affect our lives. Toward these ends, The World focuses on essential history, what makes each region of the world tick, the many challenges globalization presents, and the most influential countries, events, and ideas. Explaining complex ideas with wisdom and clarity, Richard Haass's The World is an evergreen book that will remain relevant and useful even as history continues to unfold.

    diplomatic and intelligence outposts in Benghazi, Libya On the night of September 11, 2012, the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya, came under ferocious attack by a heavily armed group of Islamic terrorists. The prolonged firefight, and the attack hours later on a nearby CIA outpost, resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, the Information Officer, Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, working for the Central Intelligence Agency.After the fall of Qaddafi, Benghazi was transformed into a hotbed of fundamentalist fervor and a den of spies for the northern half of the African continent. Moreover, it became the center of gravity for terrorist groups strategically situated in the violent whirlwinds of the Arab Spring. On the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks against the United States, a group of heavily armed Islamic terrorists had their sights set on the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence presence in the city.Based on the exclusive cooperation of eyewitnesses and confidential sources within the intelligence, diplomatic, and military communities, Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz reveal for the first time the terrifying twelve-hour ordeal confronted by Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, his Diplomatic Security (DS) contingent, and the CIA security specialists who raced to rescue them.More than just the minute-by-minute narrative of a desperate last stand in the midst of an anarchic rebellion, Under Fire is an inspiring testament to the bravery and selflessness of the men and women who put their country first while serving in one of the most dangerous regions in the world.

    It reveals how, from as early as 1990, the political, military and administrative leadership of Rwanda became involved in planning the complete extermination of the Tutsi population. A vicious hate campaign filled the media, urging Hutus to kill; a network of roadblocks was devised to prevent any escape; civil-defence groups were established throughout the country, with eventually every third Hutu being armed; half a million machetes and other agricultural tools were imported, and 85 tons of munitions were distributed country-wide, in the year leading up to the genocide.In an outstanding example of investigative journalism, Linda Melvern reveals the full story behind the conspiracy, detailing the involvement of world governments whose responses ranged from complicity to apathy. She shows how the killers outmanoeuvred the Security Council and led UN peacekeepers into a steady trap; how the French military trained the killers and how their 'humanitarian intervention' in June 1994 enabled many of those killers to escape justice; how the John Major government ignored warnings and then proceeded to mislead the British Parliament about what was really happening; how the US is still withholding wiretap and satellite evidence showing that the genocide had begun; and how significant was the knowledge of then Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

    Their mutual-admiration club also draws on models from the past. Vladimir Putin rehabilitates Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin, Donald Trump praises Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi, Jair Bolsonaro admires Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan invokes Adolf Hitler as the model of an efficient leader.Ruth Ben-Ghiat covers a century of authoritarianism to explain why strongman rulers in Africa, Europe, and Latin America, drawing from a common playbook of machismo, propaganda, violence, and corruption, have found popular support even as they bring ruin to their countries. The fruit of decades of research, Strongmen gives readers insight into how such rulers think, who and what they depend on, and how they can be opposed.

    From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world's oceans from the admiral's chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destiny of nations, and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today, and will shape the world we live in tomorrow.Not least, Sea Power is marvelous naval history, giving us fresh insight into great naval engagements from the battles of Salamis and Lepanto through to Trafalgar, the Battle of the Atlantic, and submarine conflicts of the Cold War. It is also a keen-eyed reckoning with the likely sites of our next major naval conflicts, particularly the Arctic Ocean, Eastern Mediterranean, and the South China Sea. Finally, Sea Power steps back to take a holistic view of the plagues to our oceans that are best seen that way, from piracy to pollution.When most of us look at a globe, we focus on the shape of the of the seven continents. Admiral Stavridis sees the shapes of the seven seas. After reading Sea Power, you will too. Not since Alfred Thayer Mahan's legendary The Influence of Sea Power upon History have we had such a powerful reckoning with this vital subject.

    The Soviet-equipped Egyptian Army has amassed a thousand tanks on the nation’s southern border. Syrian heavy guns are shelling her from the north. To the east, Jordan and Iraq are moving mechanized brigades and fighter squadrons into position to attack. Egypt’s President Nasser has declared that the Arab force’s objective is the destruction of Israel.” The rest of the world turns a blind eye to the new nation’s desperate peril.June 10, 1967. The Arab armies have been routed, ground divisions wiped out, air forces totally destroyed. Israel’s citizen-soldiers have seized the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. The land under Israeli control has tripled. Her charismatic defense minister, Moshe Dayan, has entered the Lion’s Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem to stand with the paratroopers who have liberated Judaism’s holiest site—the Western Wall, part of the ruins of Solomon’s temple, which has not been in Jewish hands for nineteen hundred years.It is one of the most unlikely and astonishing military victories in history.Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with veterans of the war—fighter and helicopter pilots, tank commanders and Recon soldiers, paratroopers, as well as women soldiers, wives, and others—bestselling author Steven Pressfield tells the story of the Six Day War as you’ve never experienced it before: in the voices of the young men and women who battled not only for their lives but for the survival of a Jewish state, and for the dreams of their ancestors.By turns inspiring, thrilling, and heartbreaking, The Lion’s Gate is both a true tale of military courage under fire and a journey into the heart of what it means to fight for one’s people.

    Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men--damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George--and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria--grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third--whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy "arch-vulgarian" who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect.For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.

    Brimming with lucid analysis, elegant character sketches, and geopolitical pathos, it is essential reading.'Between January and July 1919, after "the war to end all wars," men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and wildly idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the larger-than-life characters who fill the pages of this extraordinary book. David Lloyd George, the gregarious and wily British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam.For six months, Paris was effectively the center of the world as the peacemakers carved up bankrupt empires and created new countries. This book brings to life the personalities, ideals, and prejudices of the men who shaped the settlement. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China, and dismissed the Arabs. They struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews.The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; above all they failed to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made the scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. She refutes received ideas about the path from Versailles to World War II and debunks the widely accepted notion that reparations imposed on the Germans were in large part responsible for the Second World War.A landmark work of narrative history, Paris 1919 is the first full-scale treatment of the Peace Conference in more than twenty-five years. It offers a scintillating view of those dramatic and fateful days when much of the modern world was sketched out, when countries were created--Iraq, Yugoslavia, Israel--whose troubles haunt us still.Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize

    Less well-known is that this savage war (1853-1856) killed almost a million soldiers and countless civilians; that it enmeshed four great empires—the British, French, Turkish, and Russian—in a battle over religion as well as territory; that it fixed the fault lines between Russia and the West; that it set in motion the conflicts that would dominate the century to come.In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the first full conflagration of modernity, a global industrialized struggle fought with unusual ferocity and incompetence. Drawing on untapped Russian and Ottoman as well as European sources, Figes vividly depicts the world at war, from the palaces of St. Petersburg to the holy sites of Jerusalem; from the young Tolstoy reporting in Sevastopol to Tsar Nicolas, haunted by dreams of religious salvation; from the ordinary soldiers and nurses on the battlefields to the women and children in towns under siege..Original, magisterial, alive with voices of the time, The Crimean War is a historical tour de force whose depiction of ethnic cleansing and the West's relations with the Muslim world resonates with contemporary overtones. At once a rigorous, original study and a sweeping, panoramic narrative, The Crimean War is the definitive account of the war that mapped the terrain for today's world..

    Whether it's eye to eye with a four ton elephant, confrontation with a fourteen foot crocodile, a wild cheetah close enough to pat, and a close call with an angry rhino. Join the author on this journey as he embarks on his first African safari where all of the above (and many more) occurs. Envelope yourself in the colors and sounds of the flora and fauna. You will be captivated by his experiences and maybe you will be inspired to plan your own African safari adventure. So now close your eyes and imagine that beautiful huge yellow/orange African sun setting on the horizon as you listen to the roar of a far off lion on the kill.

    Almost overnight, an intelligence organization converted itself into a weaponized warfighting machine, one that raised questions about how far America would go to pursue al-Qa’ida. Now, more than fifteen years later, ex-CIA executive Philip Mudd comes forward with a never-before-told account of the 9/11 story, one that illuminates the profound impact that enhanced interrogation techniques and other initiatives known internally as “The Program” took on those who administered them. With unprecedented access to officials at the highest levels―including Director George Tenet―Mudd goes beyond the 2014 Senate report to show us what life was really like at the CIA prisons and why interrogators were forced to make decisions that they still ponder today. As hair-raising as it is revelatory, Black Site shows us the tragedy and triumph of the CIA during its most difficult hour.