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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900
Now a major motion picture directed by Clint Eastwood.
From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him "The Legend"; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan ("the devil") and placed a bounty on his head.
Kyle, who was tragically killed in 2013, writes honestly about the pain of war—including the deaths of two close SEAL teammates—and in moving first-person passages throughout, his wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family, as well as on Chris. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle's masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.
Includes new material by Taya Kyle about the making of the American Sniper film.
'A sprawling tale of love, family, duty, war, and displacement'
Khaled Hosseini Correspondents by Tim Murphy is a powerful story
about the legacy of immigration, the present-day world of
refugeehood, the violence that America causes both abroad and at
home, and the power of the individual and the family to bring good
into a world that is often brutal. Spanning the breadth of the
twentieth century and into the post-9/11 wars and their legacy,
Correspondents is a powerful novel that centres on Rita Khoury, an
Irish-Lebanese woman whose life and family history mirrors the
story of modern America. Both sides of Rita's family came to the
United States in the golden years of immigration, and in her home
north of Boston Rita grows into a stubborn, perfectionist, and
relentlessly bright young woman. She studies Arabic at university
and moves to cosmopolitan Beirut to work as a journalist, and is
then posted to Iraq after the American invasion in 2003. In
Baghdad, Rita finds for the first time in her life that her safety
depends on someone else, her talented interpreter Nabil al-Jumaili,
an equally driven young man from a middle-class Baghdad family who
is hiding a secret about his sexuality. As Nabil's identity
threatens to put him in jeopardy and Rita's position becomes more
precarious as the war intensifies, their worlds start to unravel,
forcing them out of the country and into an uncertain future.
An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War.
Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.
Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas.
No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.
An incredible tale of one man's adversity and defiance, for readers
of The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Horace Greasley escaped over 200
times from a notorious German prison camp to see the girl he loved.
This is his incredible true story. A Sunday Times Bestseller - over
60,000 copies sold. Even in the most horrifying places on earth,
hope still lingers in the darkness, waiting for the opportunity to
take flight. When war was declared Horace Greasley was just
twenty-years old. After seven weeks' training with the 2/5th
Battalion, the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, Horace found himself
facing the might of the German Army in a muddy field south of
Cherbourg, in northern France, with just thirty rounds in his
ammunition pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. . . On 25 May 1940
he was taken prisoner and so began the harrowing journey to a
prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. Those who survived the gruelling
ten-week march to the camp were left broken and exhausted, all
chance of escape seemingly extinguished. But when Horace met Rosa,
the daughter of one of his captors, his story changed; fate, it
seemed, had thrown him a lifeline. Horace risked everything in
order to steal out of the camp to see his love, bringing back
supplies for his fellow prisoners. In doing so he offered hope to
his comrades, and defiance to one of the most brutal regimes in
history.
'A further and devastating indictment not only of Tony Blair
personally but of a whole apparatus of state and government,
Cabinet, Parliament, armed forces, and, far from least,
intelligence agencies. - GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT, THE NEW YORK REVIEW
OF BOOKS 'It offers a long and painful account of an episode that
may come to be seen as marking the moment when the UK fell off its
global perch, trust in government collapsed and the country turned
inward and began to disintegrate.' - PHILIPPE SANDS, LONDON REVIEW
OF BOOKS Description All the key findings of the public inquiry
into the handling of the 2003 Iraq war by Tony Blair's government
in a 60,000-word book. Chaired by Sir John Chilcot, the Iraq
Inquiry (known as the 'Chilcot Report') tackled: Saddam Hussein's
threat to Britain the legal advice for the invasion intelligence
about weapons of mass destruction and planning for a post-conflict
Iraq. The behaviour of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun and the
controversy over whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was
the subject of the film Official Secrets. Contents Introduction
Pre-conflict strategy and planning The UK decision to support US
military action. UK policy before 9/11; The impact of 9/11;
Decision to take the UN route; Negotiation of resolution 1441; The
prospect of military action; The gap between the Permanent Members
of the Security Council widens; The end of the UN route Why Iraq?
Why now? Was Iraq a serious or imminent threat?; The predicted
increase in the threat to the UK as a result of military action in
Iraq The UK's relationship with the US Decision-making. Collective
responsibility Advice on the legal basis for military action. The
timing of Lord Goldsmith's advice on the interpretation of
resolution 1441; Goldsmith's advice of 7 March 2003; Goldsmith's
arrival at a "better view"; The exchange of letters on 14 and 15
March 2003; Goldsmith's Written Answer of 17 March 2003 Weapons of
mass destruction. Iraq WMD assessments, pre-July 2002; Iraq WMD
assessments, July to September 2002; Iraq WMD assessments, October
2002 to March 2003; The search for WMD Planning for a post-Saddam
Hussein Iraq. The failure to plan or prepare for known risks; The
planning process and decision-making Occupation. Looting in Basra;
Looting in Baghdad; UK influence on post-invasion strategy:
resolution 1483; UK influence on the Coalition Provisional
Authority; A decline in security; The turning point Transition. UK
influence on US strategy post-CPA; Planning for withdrawal; The
impact of Afghanistan; Iraqiisation Preparation for withdrawal. A
major divergence in strategy; A possible civil war; Force Level
Review; The beginning of the end Did the UK achieve its objectives
in Iraq? Key Findings 1. Development of UK strategy and options,
9/11 to early January 2002; Development of UK strategy and options,
January to April 2002 - "axis of evil" to Crawford; Development of
UK strategy and options, April to July 2002 Key Findings 2.
Development of UK strategy and options, November 2002 to January
2003; Development of UK strategy and options, 1 February to 7 March
2003; Iraq WMD assessments, pre-July 2002; Iraq WMD assessments,
July to September 2002; Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March
2003; WMD search Key Findings 3. Advice on the legal basis for
military action, November 2002 to March 2003; Development of the
military options for an invasion of Iraq; Military planning for the
invasion, January to March 2003; Military equipment (pre-conflict);
Planning for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq; Invasion Key Findings 4.
The post-conflict period; Reconstruction; De-Ba'athification;
Security Sector Reform; Resources; Military equipment
(post-conflict); Civilian personnel; Service Personnel; Civilian
casualties Lessons. The decision to go to war; Weapons of mass
destruction; The invasion of Iraq; The post-conflict period;
Reconstruction; De-Ba'athification; Security Sector Reform;
Resources; Military equipment (post-conflict); Civilian personnel
In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of
recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury
and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the
final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the
war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as
improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter
pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine
general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers
grounded while his men were still on the ground.
Drury and Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who
were the last men to leave, rescued from the U.S. Embassy roof just
moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last
stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face
on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that
the end had come, these courageous men held their ground and helped
save thousands of lives. Drury and Clavin deliver a taut and
stirring account of a turning point in American history that
unfolds with the heartstopping urgency of the best thrillers--a
riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.
The six-month siege of Khe Sanh in 1968 was the largest, most
intense battle of the Vietnam War. For six thousand trapped U.S.
Marines, it was a nightmare; for President Johnson, an obsession.
For General Westmoreland, it was to be the final vindication of
technological weaponry; for General Giap, architect of the French
defeat at Dien Bien Phu, it was a spectacular ruse masking troops
moving south for the Tet offensive. With a new introduction by Mark
Bowden-best-selling author of Hu? 1968-Robert Pisor's immersive
narrative of the action at Khe Sanh is a timely reminder of the
human cost of war, and a visceral portrait of Vietnam's fiercest
and most epic close-quarters battle. Readers may find the politics
and the tactics of the Vietnam War, as they played out at Khe Sahn
fifty years ago, echoed in our nation's global incursions today.
Robert Pisor sets forth the history, the politics, the strategies,
and, above all, the desperate reality of the battle that became the
turning point of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
The Air War in Vietnam is a deep dive into the effectiveness of air
power during the Vietnam War, offering particular evaluation of the
extent to which air operations fulfilled national policy
objectives. Built from exhaustive research into previously
classified and little-known archival sources, Michael Weaver
insightfully blends new sources with material from the State
Department's Foreign Relations of the United States Series. While
Air Force sources from the lion's share of the documentary
evidence, Weaver also makes heavy use of Navy and Marine materials.
Breaking air power into six different mission sets--air
superiority, aerial refueling, airlift, close air support,
reconnaissance, and coercion & interdiction--Weaver assesses
the effectiveness of each of these endeavors from the tactical
level of war and adherence to US policy goals. Critically, The Air
War in Vietnam perceives of the air campaign as a siege of North
Vietnam. While American air forces completed most of their air
campaigns successfully on the tactical, operational, and strategic
levels, what resulted was not a failure in air power, but a failure
in the waging of war as a whole. The Air War in Vietnam tackles
controversies and unearths new evidence, rendering verdicts both
critical and positive, arguing that war, however it is waged, is
ultimately effective only when it achieves a country's policy
objectives.
'My primary aim in writing this book is to demonstrate the
importance of individual human beings in modern warfare. In the
battle to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, Coalition forces used
every form of high-technology weapon available; yet in the end
success depended on the performance of individuals, whether they
were pilots, divers, tank drivers, mechanics, engineers, cooks,
radio operators, infantrymen, nurses or officers of all ranks. It
was these ordinary people who, at the end of the day, were going to
put their lives on the line and risk their neck when their
Government decided to go to war.' Gen. Sir Peter de la Billiere
How is foreign policy made in Iraq? Based on dozens of interviews
with senior officials and politicians, this book provides a clear
analysis of the development of domestic Iraqi politics since 2003.
Zana Gulmohamad explains how the federal government of Iraq and
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have functioned and worked
together since toppling Saddam to reveal in granular detail the
complexity of their foreign policy making. The book shows that the
ruling elites and political factions in Baghdad and in the capital
of the Kurdistan Region, Erbil, create foreign policies according
to their agendas. The formulation and implementation of the two
governments' foreign policies is to a great extent uncoordinated.
Yet Zana Gulmohamad places this incoherent model of foreign policy
making in the context of the country's fragmented political and
social context and explains how Iraq's neighbouring countries -
Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria before the civil war - have
each influenced its internal affairs. The book is the first study
dedicated to the contemporary dynamics of the Iraqi state - outside
the usual focus on the "great powers" - and it explains exactly how
Iraqi foreign policy is managed alongside the country's economic
and security interests.
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