The Perfect War

The Perfect War
Author: James William Gibson
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 844
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802196810

“Powerfully and persuasively . . . Gibson tells us why we were in Vietnam . . . a work of daring brilliance—an eye-opening chronicle of waste and self-delusion.” —Robert Olen Butler In this groundbreaking book, James William Gibson shatters the misled assumptions behind both liberal and conservative explanations for America’s failure in Vietnam. Gibson shows how American government and military officials developed a disturbingly limited concept of war—what he calls “technowar”—in which all efforts were focused on maximizing the enemy’s body count, regardless of the means. Consumed by a blind faith in the technology of destruction, American leaders failed to take into account their enemy’s highly effective guerrilla tactics. Indeed, technowar proved woefully inapplicable to the actual political and military strategies used by the Vietnamese, and Gibson reveals how US officials consistently falsified military records to preserve the illusion that their approach would prevail. Gibson was one of the first historians to question the fundamental assumptions behind American policy, and The Perfect War is a brilliant reassessment of the war—now republished with a new introduction by the author. “This book towers above all that has been written to date on Vietnam.” —LA Weekly

The Perfect War

The Perfect War
Author: James William Gibson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 523
Release: 1988
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780394757049

Drawing upon government papers and personal accounts from soldiers, this book documents the failure of technowar in Vietnam and argues that the lessons learned have been ignored by the political and military establishments that continue to espouse it toda

The Perfect Weapon

The Perfect Weapon
Author: David E. Sanger
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2019-05-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0451497902

NOW AN HBO® DOCUMENTARY FROM AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN MAGGIO • “An important—and deeply sobering—new book about cyberwarfare” (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times), now updated with a new chapter. The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the United States and its allies. And if Obama would begin his presidency by helping to launch the new era of cyberwar, he would end it struggling unsuccessfully to defend the 2016 U.S. election from interference by Russia, with Vladimir Putin drawing on the same playbook he used to destabilize Ukraine. Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution, where everyone is a target. “Timely and bracing . . . With the deep knowledge and bright clarity that have long characterized his work, Sanger recounts the cunning and dangerous development of cyberspace into the global battlefield of the twenty-first century.”—Washington Post

The Pig War

The Pig War
Author: E C Coleman
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2009-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0752496700

With a plot to grace any comic opera, the 1859-72 'Pig War' broke out when an American living on a quietly disputed small island in the Gulf of Georgia shot a British pig he found rooting up his garden produce. The authorities on nearby Vancouver Island and the military leadership of the adjacent Washington Territory both felt they had good reasons to escalate a trivial incident into a full-blown war between the United States and Great Britain. Soon, American soldiers found themselves looking down the barrels of the Royal Navy cannon. Whilst both the British and the Americans continued to threaten and bluster, Royal Marines and US soldiers settled down on the island to a round of social events, including sports days, combined dinners and even summer balls. Despite the outbreak of the American Civil War, and British intervention on the Confederate side, the hot-heads were restrained and, eventually, it was decided that the problem should become one of the earliest examples of international arbitration. The German Kaiser was brought in and - from the British point of view - came to the wrong decision. Set against the framework of US attempts to gain control of the whole North American continent, The Pig War is a highly readable account of a little-known episode in Anglo-American history.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War
Author: Geoffrey Ward
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 866
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1984897748

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Based on the celebrated PBS television series, the complete text of an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict, “a significant milestone [that] will no doubt do much to determine how the war is understood for years to come.” —The Washington Post More than forty years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but its memory continues to loom large in the national psyche. In this intimate history, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns have crafted a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. From the Gulf of Tonkin and the Tet Offensive to Hamburger Hill and the fall of Saigon, Ward and Burns trace the conflict that dogged three American presidents and their advisers. But most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of Vietnam as it really was. A magisterial tour de force, The Vietnam War is an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict.

War

War
Author: Sebastian Junger
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2010-05-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0007352263

From the author of The Perfect Storm, a gripping book about Sebastian Junger's almost-fatal year with the 2nd battalion of the American Army.

The Best War Ever

The Best War Ever
Author: Michael C. C. Adams
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2015-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421416670

"Adams challenges various stereotypes to present a view of World War II that avoids the simplistic extremes of both glorification and vilification. The Best War Ever charts the complex diplomatic problems of the 1930s and reveals the realities of ground combat. Adams exposes the myth that the home front was fully united behind the war effort, demonstrating how class, race, gender, and age divisions split Americans."--Page [4] of cover.

A Rumor of War

A Rumor of War
Author: Philip Caputo
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 381
Release: 1996
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 080504695X

Originally published: New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977.

Rust

Rust
Author: Jonathan Waldman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2015
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1451691602

Originally publlished in hardcover in 2015 by Simon & Schuster.

Act of War

Act of War
Author: Brad Thor
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2014-07-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1471136566

The new Scot Harvath thriller and the follow-up to Hidden Order, from New York Timesbestselling author Brad Thor. After a CIA agent mysteriously dies overseas, his top asset surfaces with a startling and terrifying claim. There's just one problem - no one knows if she can be trusted. But when six exchange students go missing, two airplane passengers trade places, and one political-asylum seeker is arrested, a deadly chain of events is set in motion. With the United States facing an imminent and devastating attack, America's new president must turn to covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath to help carry out two of the most dangerous operations in the country's history. Code-named 'Gold Dust' and 'Blackbird', they are shrouded in absolute secrecy as either of them, if discovered, will constitute an act of war. Look out for the adrenaline-fuelled new Brad Thor novel, Code of Conduct, published in July 2015! Praise for Brad Thor: 'Brad Thor is as current as tomorrow's headlines' Dan Brown 'Blasts off like a guided missile and never slows down, weaving current events into a frightening scenario that just could happen. Brad Thor rocks!' Tess Gerritsen 'Brad Thor writes thrillers as plausible as they are terrifying. A must-read for our times!' James Rollins,New York Timesbestselling author of Black Orderand The Judas Strain Praise for Hidden Order: 'One of Brad Thor's best books to date' Washington Post '[A] great, great thriller' Rush Limbaugh 'Thriller writer Brad Thor is awesome…You'll want to take HIDDEN ORDER to the beach' National Review