With a "genius for illuminating that sometimes ephemeral apogee in people's lives when they prove capable of generating a brightly burning spark" "(Columbia Journalism Review), " Robert McG. Thomas Jr. commemorated fascinating, unconventional lives with signature style and wit."The New York Times" received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers, including: Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing. He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that make each life unique, and the ability, as Joseph Epstein wrote, to "look beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on a deeper truth."Compiled by Chris Calhoun, one of Thomas's most dedicated readers, and with a fittingly sharp introduction from acclaimed novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, "52 McGs." will win legions of new fans to the masterful writer who transformed the obituary into an art form.

    forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Army Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, the on-the-ground commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division—the “Ready First Combat Team”—describes his brigade’s first year in Iraq, from the sweltering, chaotic summer after the Ba’athists’ defeat to the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government a year later. Uniquely positioned to observe, record, and assess the events of that fateful year, Mansoor now explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency of unexpected strength and tenacity. Drawing not only on his own daily combat journal but also on observations by embedded reporters, news reports, combat logs, archived e-mails, and many other sources, Mansoor offers a contemporary record of the valor, motivations, and resolve of the 1st Brigade and its attachments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet this book has a deeper significance than a personal memoir or unit history. Baghdad at Sunrise provides a detailed, nuanced analysis of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, and along with it critically important lessons for America’s military and political leaders of the twenty-first century.

       Although much has changed in the nearly four years since, How Barack Obama Won remains the essential guide to Obama’s electoral strengths and offers important perspective on his 2012 bid. The votes in each state for Obama and McCain are broken down by percentage according to gender, age, race, party, religious affiliation, education, household income, size of city, and according to views about the most important issues (the economy, terrorism, Iraq, energy, healthcare), the future of the economy (worried, not worried) and the war in Iraq (approve, disapprove).

    Bush. Before the acts of terrorism on 11 September, George W. Bush's presidency had been beset by numerous problems. Not only was it in many peoples eyes invalid, very few people took him seriously as a world statesman. Then following one violent mindless act of terrorism, George W. Bush became a president that his country could rely on, one they felt they could trust to lead them through these difficult times. And the world saw a man who was decisive and resolute, a president who was seemingly determined to route out the people who had carried out the heinous acts. But one year after the attacks how has the 44th President of the United States fared? And what were the actual behind the scenes discussions that took place whilst the country was rocked by the crisis? Bob Woodward has been shadowing the President since those fateful events, he was allowed unprecedented access to closed-door meetings and briefings and this masterful book is a look at what really happened.

    Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead he gave the whole nation “a new birth of freedom” in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece.By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.

    Their journey would prove an extraordinary collaboration and a watershed literary event when in 1941 "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" was first published to enormous critical acclaim. This unsparing record of place, of the people who shaped the land, and of the rhythm of their lives today stands as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.

    Bacevich provides a searing reassessment of U.S. military policy in the Middle East over the past four decades. From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country’s most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise—now more than thirty years old and with no end in sight. During the 1980s, Bacevich argues, a great transition occurred. As the Cold War wound down, the United States initiated a new conflict—a War for the Greater Middle East—that continues to the present day. The long twilight struggle with the Soviet Union had involved only occasional and sporadic fighting. But as this new war unfolded, hostilities became persistent. From the Balkans and East Africa to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, U.S. forces embarked upon a seemingly endless series of campaigns across the Islamic world. Few achieved anything remotely like conclusive success. Instead, actions undertaken with expectations of promoting peace and stability produced just the opposite. As a consequence, phrases like “permanent war” and “open-ended war” have become part of everyday discourse. Connecting the dots in a way no other historian has done before, Bacevich weaves a compelling narrative out of episodes as varied as the Beirut bombing of 1983, the Mogadishu firefight of 1993, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rise of ISIS in the present decade. Understanding what America’s costly military exertions have wrought requires seeing these seemingly discrete events as parts of a single war. It also requires identifying the errors of judgment made by political leaders in both parties and by senior military officers who share responsibility for what has become a monumental march to folly. This Bacevich unflinchingly does. A twenty-year army veteran who served in Vietnam, Andrew J. Bacevich brings the full weight of his expertise to this vitally important subject. America’s War for the Greater Middle East is a bracing after-action report from the front lines of history. It will fundamentally change the way we view America’s engagement in the world’s most volatile region.Advance praise for America’s War for the Greater Middle East“In one arresting book after another, Bacevich has relentlessly laid bare the failings of American foreign policy since the Cold War. This one is his sad crowning achievement: the story of our long and growing military entanglement in the region of the most tragic, bitter, and intractable of conflicts.”—Richard K. Betts, director, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University “An unparalleled historical tour de force certain to affect the formation of future U.S. foreign policy . . . Every citizen aspiring to high office needs not only to read but to study and learn from this important book. This is one of the most serious and essential books I have read in more than half a century of public service.”—Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) “Bacevich asks and answers a provocative, inconvenient question: In a multigenerational war in the Middle East, ‘Why has the world’s mightiest military achieved so little?’ ”—Graham Allison, director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of GovernmentFrom the Hardcover edition.

     August 2014: ISIS continues its reign of terror, conquering new areas in Iraq and Syria, leaving tens of thousands of dead and millions displaced in their homelands. International news shows gruesome images of massacres and ethnic cleansing. A horrified Norwegian soldier at Camp Rena, shocked by Norway’s unwillingness to commit troops to eradicate the terrorists, decides to take matters into his own hands and travels to the Kurdish front line in Iraq.

In this gripping memoir, Mike Peshmerganor recounts how his Kurdish heritage, liberal Norwegian upbringing and military training shaped his worldview and drew him into the fight against militant Islamism. Armed only with gear he purchased himself and the name of a Kurdish contact, Mike is thrust into a military culture completely foreign to Westerners; where soldiers work without pay, adequate food and even ammunition, and their revered leader is a former hitman. Here are dramatic firefights against the world’s most feared terrorist organization, and insight into the mindset of a true warrior. Mike Peshmerganor is a pseudonym. He escaped from Kurdistan as an infant with his family, grew up in Eastern Norway and served in Norway’s elite Telemark Battalion. "I couldn’t think of a single better reason for the government to send troops abroad than to stop an ongoing genocide. And what about all the foreign fighters from Europe who fought for ISIS? Didn’t we have a responsibility to stop our own citizens from actively perpetrating war crimes and other atrocities in Iraq? Who will prevent them from returning home and carrying out terrorist attacks here, in
our own cities? I realized it was futile to wait for Norway to engage directly in the fight against ISIS. I had to do it on my own."

    Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). Based on his experiences as a British Army officer working with the Bedu in the Hejaz during Word War I. These observations are one of the most valuable sets of principles for western soldiers working with indigenous forces.

    He had access to the headquarters command post and the top-secret plans tent and spent most days at the elbow of Major General David H. Petraeus as he directed attacks on the cities of Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and, ultimately, southern Baghdad. This short book, written with a strong first-person narrative, will not only provide a unique insight into the course of events; using the microcosm of the 101st, Atkinson will also reveal much about the contemporary US military and the soldiers who compose it. In his unique hands this book is set to become a classic of war journalism and the only book to buy for an insider's account of America's war in Iraq.

    At age fifteen he became a sports reporter for his Ocean City High School newspaper; four years later, as sports editor of the University of Alabama's Crimson-White, he began to employ devices more common in fiction, such as establishing a scene with minute details-a technique that would later make him famous.Later, as a sports reporter for the New York Times, Talese was drawn to individuals at poignant and vulnerable moments rather than to the spectacle of sports. Boxing held special appeal, and his Esquire pieces on Joe Louis and Floyd Patterson in decline won praise, as would his later essay Ali in Havana, chronicling Muhammad Ali's visit to Fidel Castro. His profile of Joe DiMaggio, The Silent Season of a Hero, perfectly captured the great player in his remote retirement, and displayed Talese's journalistic brilliance, for it grew out of his on-the-ground observation of the Yankee Clipper rather than from any interview. More recently, Talese traveled to China to track down and chronicle the female soccer player who missed a penalty kick that would have won China the World Cup.Chronicling Talese's writing over more than six decades, from high school and college columns to his signature adult journalism- and including several never-before-published pieces (such as one on sports anthropology), a new introduction by the author, and notes on the background of each piece-The Silent Season of a Hero is a unique and indispensable collection for sports fans and those who enjoy the heights of journalism.

    Distinguished by new and impressive voices as well as some of the foremost names in science writing—David Dobbs, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Larissa MacFarquhar among them—this eleventh edition features outstanding journalism from a wide variety of publications, providing a comprehensive overview of the year’s most compelling, relevant, and exciting developments in the world of science. Provocative and engaging, The Best American Science Writing 2010 reveals just how far science has brought us—and where it is headed next.

    Still essential and still timely ten years after its original publication, The Shia Revival provides a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis and sheds crucial light on its modern-day consequences. A new epilogue elucidates the rise of ISIS and ongoing tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    Telling True Stories presents their best advice—covering everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book. More than fifty well-known writers offer their most powerful tips, including: • Tom Wolfe on the emotional core of the story • Gay Talese on writing about private lives • Malcolm Gladwell on the limits of profiles • Nora Ephron on narrative writing and screenwriters • Alma Guillermoprieto on telling the story and telling the truth • Dozens of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and more . . .The essays contain important counsel for new and career journalists, as well as for freelance writers, radio producers, and memoirists. Packed with refreshingly candid and insightful recommendations, Telling True Stories will show anyone fascinated by the art of writing nonfiction how to bring people, scenes, and ideas to life on the page.