history / military / united states

"On September 17, 1862, the United States was on the brink, facing a permanent split into two separate nations. America's very future hung on the outcome of a single battle--and the result reverberates to this day"--Amazon.

"The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Heart of Everything That Is return with one of the most inspiring--and underappreciated--chapters in American history: the story of the Continental Army's six-month transformation in Valley Forge. On December 19, 1777, some twelve thousand members of America's beleaguered Continental Army staggered into Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a small encampment twenty-three miles northwest of British-occupied Philadelphia. The starving and half-naked force is reeling from a string of demoralizing defeats at the hands of King George III's army, and are barely equipped to survive the coming winter. Their commander in chief, the focused and forceful George Washington, is at the lowest ebb of his military career. The Continental Congress is in exile and the American Revolution appears to be lost. As the days and weeks passed, however, Washington embarked on a mission to transform his troops from a bobtail army of citizen soldiers into a professional fighting force. Keeping a wary eye out for a British attack, he was aided by a trio of home-grown generals as well as a young coterie of American advisors and foreign volunteers led by Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, and the Marquis de Lafayette. Within six months Washington had achieved his miracle. Valley Forge is the riveting true story of a nascent United States toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents--and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation--Drury and Clavin provide the definitive account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence"--.

"From a . . . presidential historian comes a . . . narrative of America's wartime chief executives"--Provided by publisher.

"The Farewell was published at the end of Washington's second term. It was reprinted in newspapers across the country. The President began the letter during his first term intending to retire but was persuaded by Hamilton and Jefferson to run for a second. By the end of that term he was the object of scurrilous press attacks and alarmed by the growing partisan bitterness. Fearful for the country's future, Washington pled with his countrymen to resist hyper-partisanship and foreign alliances. He called for unity among "citizens by birth or choice," defended religious pluralism, called for national education. His message to the country was urgent. ... In Washington's Farewell, Avlon offers important insight into Washington's final public days, presenting not only a startling description of the perilous state of the new nation but a rare view of the man behind the usual face of a tranquil First Father"--Provided by publisher.

The true account of the events of September 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station called the Annex in Benghazi, Libya. A team of six American security operators fought to repel the attackers and protect the Americans stationed there. Those men went beyond the call of duty, performing extraordinary acts of courage and heroism, to avert tragedy on a much larger scale. This is their personal account, never before told, of what happened during the thirteen hours of that now-infamous attack.

A reassessment of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first real engagement of the American Revolution in 1775, attempting to dispel lingering myths about the battle and the men who fought it, telling of the role of George Washington is shaping the American army, and discussing the real heroes of 1775 who became the first leaders of the new republic.