Vietnam Diary


Richard Tregaskis - 1963
     For the next four months he spent his life on the frontline, witnessing and recording what the American men were doing, saying and thinking in the fight against the communist forces of Northern Vietnam. Tregaskis exposes the confusion of the conflict as he climbs on board Marine and Army helicopters and goes on missions to search out their deadly foes that seem to disappear into the jungle as soon as they are seen. Vietnam Diary is a remarkable book that takes the reader to the heart of what it was like to be fighting in this vicious war. Through the course of the book Tregaskis develops deep friendships with many of the troops who begin to open up to him and explain their experiences that they have been through since the beginning of the war. “He discusses in typical Tregaskis style his observations and experiences during the time he spent with the Marine and Army helicopter units, the Special Forces, the MAAG personnel, and the Junk fleet.” R. C. Rosacker, Lieutenant Colonel, U. S. Marine Corps, Naval War College Review Tregaskis won the George Polk Award for first-person reporting under hazardous conditions shortly after publishing Vietname Diary. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the Vietnam War as well as the lives of the soldiers who fought within it. Richard Tregaskis was an American journalist and author who served as a war correspondent during World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He was no stranger to danger as he frequently put himself in the firing line to report and during the Second World War while in Italy a shell fragment pierced his helmet and his skull and nearly killed him. His book Vietnam Diary was first published in 1963 and he passed away in Hawaii in 1973.

Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House


Peter Baker - 2013
    Confronted by one crisis after another, they struggled to protect the country, remake the world, and define their own relationship along the way. In Days of Fire, Peter Baker chronicles the history of the most consequential presidency in modern times through the prism of its two most compelling characters, capturing the elusive and shifting alliance of George Walker Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney as no historian has done before. He brings to life with in-the-room immediacy all the drama of an era marked by devastating terror attacks, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and financial collapse.      The real story of Bush and Cheney is a far more fascinating tale than the familiar suspicion that Cheney was the power behind the throne. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with key players, and thousands of pages of never-released notes, memos, and other internal documents, Baker paints a riveting portrait of a partnership that evolved dramatically over time, from the early days when Bush leaned on Cheney, making him the most influential vice president in history, to their final hours, when the two had grown so far apart they were clashing in the West Wing. Together and separately, they were tested as no other president and vice president have been, first on a bright September morning, an unforgettable “day of fire” just months into the presidency, and on countless days of fire over the course of eight tumultuous years.     Days of Fire is a monumental and definitive work that will rank with the best of presidential histories. As absorbing as a thriller, it is eye-opening and essential reading.

A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror


Larry Schweikart - 2004
    These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin.A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.

Common Sense, The Rights of Man and Other Essential Writings


Thomas Paine - 1776
    This volume also includes " The Crisis ," " The Age of Reason ," and " Agrarian Justice ."

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution


Eric Foner - 2019
    The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed due process and the equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. The federal government, not the states, was put in charge of enforcement. By grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, the amendments marked the second founding of the United States.Eric Foner’s rich, insightful history conveys the dramatic origins of these revolutionary amendments in citizen meetings and political negotiations. He explores the momentous court decisions that then narrowed and even nullified the rights guaranteed in these amendments. Today, issues of birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection are still in dispute, the ideal of equality yet to be achieved.

The Art of War


Sun TzuSun Tzu
    Since that time, all levels of military have used the teaching on Sun Tzu to warfare and civilization have adapted these teachings for use in politics, business and everyday life. The Art of War is a book which should be used to gain advantage of opponents in the boardroom and battlefield alike.

The Real Thomas Jefferson: The True Story of America's Philosopher of Freedom


Andrew M. Allison - 1983
    he may yet prove to be the central figure in modern history. So stated noted historian Henry Steele Commager. And as the English novelist Samuel Butler once wrote, Though God cannot alter the past, historians can. His observation is especially applicable to our changing perceptions of great historical personalities, most of whom are relentlessly reinterpreted by each new generation of biographers. It is doubtful whether many of these renowned characters of yesteryear would even recognize themselves in some of the publications devoted to them today.There is no better example of this kind of metamorphosis than Thomas Jefferson, author of the American Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States. Since his death in 1826 he has been alternately vilified and deified in numerous forms by writers of varying motivations. In The Real Thomas Jefferson, by allowing Jefferson to explain his life and ideas in his own words, we have tried to ensure that his spirit, not ours, will breathe in these pages — so that all who read them will become acquainted with Jefferson himself, not another second-hand interpretation of him. His biography appears in Part I, and Part II brings together the most insightful passages from his writings, arranged by subject.

The Dark Side of Camelot


Seymour M. Hersh - 1997
    Kennedy was the nation's crown prince. Magnetic, handsome, and charismatic, his perfectly coifed image overshadowed the successes and failures of his presidency, and his assassination cemented his near-mythological status in American culture and politics. Struck down in his prime, he represented the best and the brightest of America's future, and when he died, part of the nation's promise and innocence went with him. That, at least, is the public version of the story.The private version, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour M. Hersh, is quite different. His meticulous investigation of Kennedy has revealed a wealth of indiscretions and malfeasance, ranging from frequent liaisons with prostitutes and mistresses to the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro to involvement in organized crime. Though scandals in the White House are nothing new, Hersh maintains that Kennedy's activities went beyond minor abuses of power and personal indulgences: they threatened the security of the nation--particularly in the realm of foreign policy--and the integrity of the office. Hersh believes it was only a matter of time before Kennedy's dealings were exposed, and only his popularity and charm, compounded by his premature death, spared such an investigation for so long. Exposure was further stalled by Bobby Kennedy's involvement in nefarious dealings, enabling him to bury any investigation of his brother and--by extension--himself.Based on interviews with former Kennedy administration officials, former Secret Service agents, and hundreds of Kennedy's personal friends and associates, The Dark Side of Camelot rewrites the history of John F. Kennedy and his presidency.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different


Gordon S. Wood - 2006
    The life of each; Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress.

The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide


Gary J. Bass - 2013
    Gary J. Bass shows how Nixon and Kissinger supported Pakistan’s military dictatorship as it brutally quashed the results of a historic free election. The Pakistani army launched a crackdown on what was then East Pakistan (today an independent Bangladesh), killing hundreds of thousands of people and sending ten million refugees fleeing to India—one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century.Nixon and Kissinger, unswayed by detailed warnings of genocide from American diplomats witnessing the bloodshed, stood behind Pakistan’s military rulers. Driven not just by Cold War realpolitik but by a bitter personal dislike of India and its leader Indira Gandhi, Nixon and Kissinger actively helped the Pakistani government even as it careened toward a devastating war against India. They silenced American officials who dared to speak up, secretly encouraged China to mass troops on the Indian border, and illegally supplied weapons to the Pakistani military—an overlooked scandal that presages Watergate.Drawing on previously unheard White House tapes, recently declassified documents, and extensive interviews with White House staffers and Indian military leaders, The Blood Telegram tells this thrilling, shadowy story in full. Bringing us into the drama of a crisis exploding into war, Bass follows reporters, consuls, and guerrilla warriors on the ground—from the desperate refugee camps to the most secretive conversations in the Oval Office. Bass makes clear how the United States’ embrace of the military dictatorship in Islamabad would mold Asia’s destiny for decades, and confronts for the first time Nixon and Kissinger’s hidden role in a tragedy that was far bloodier than Bosnia. This is a revelatory, compulsively readable work of politics, personalities, military confrontation, and Cold War brinksmanship.

For the Common Defense


Allan Reed Millett - 1984
    Traces the competing strategies and goals, and struggles for manpower and material that have shaped American military institutions.

Democracy in America


Alexis de Tocqueville - 1835
    Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, came to the young nation to investigate the functioning of American democracy & the social, political & economic life of its citizens, publishing his observations in 1835 & 1840. Brilliantly written, vividly illustrated with vignettes & portraits, Democracy in America is far more than a trenchant analysis of one society at a particular point in time. What will most intrigue modern readers is how many of the observations still hold true: on the mixed advantages of a free press, the strained relations among the races & the threats posed to democracies by consumerism & corruption. So uncanny is Tocqueville’s insight & so accurate are his predictions, that it seems as tho he were not merely describing the American identity but actually helping to create it.

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth


Mark Mazzetti - 2013
    The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies.This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation and has been championed as a clean and surgical way of conflict. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fueled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime.

John Quincy Adams


Harlow Giles Unger - 2012
    He negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of The Amistad. He served his nation as minister to six countries, secretary of state, senator, congressman, and president. John Quincy Adams was all of these things and more. In this masterful biography, award winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals Quincy Adams as a towering figure in the nation's formative years and one of the most courageous figures in American history, which is why he ranked first in John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage. A magisterial biography and a sweeping panorama of American history from the Washington to Lincoln eras, Unger's John Quincy Adams follows one of America's most important yet least-known figures.

They Marched Into Sunlight: War And Peace, Vietnam And America, October 1967


David Maraniss - 2003
    In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. To understand what happens to the people in these interconnected stories is to understand America's anguish. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the book describes the battles that evoked cultural and political conflicts that still reverberate.