Weapons & Warfare

There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States.

Authors Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff take a riveting inside look at an elite unit within the Pentagon—the Defense Innovation Unit, also known as Unit X—whose mission is to bring Silicon Valley’s cutting-edge technology to America’s military.

Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed....

Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51....

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War.

In this comprehensive guide to the most widespread conflict in contemporary history, Vladislav Zubok traces the origins of the Cold War in post-war Europe, through the tumultuous decades of confrontation, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond.

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal....

The virus now known as Stuxnet was unlike any other piece of malware built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it proved that a piece of code could escape the digital realm and wreak actual, physical destruction....

From best-selling author John U. Bacon, a gripping narrative history of the largest manmade detonation prior to Hiroshima....

This book by military strategist Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., is the definitive take on the race for military dominance in the twenty-first century....

From New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb....

A fresh window on American history: the eye-opening truth about the government's secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil, even if the rest of us die....

The author of Case White offers an extensive history of German and Soviet armored warfare toward the end of World War II....

The first major bioterror event in the United States - the anthrax attacks in October 2001 - was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons....

In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare, but also the very structure of power in the West....

Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct....

From a preeminent historian of Eastern Europe, the definitive history of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster....

A sweeping history of tragic genius, cutting-edge science, and the discovery that changed billions of lives - including your own....

A brilliant and bloody examination of the axe's foundational role in human history, from prehistoric violence, to war and executions, to newspaper headlines and popular culture.

From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday comes a behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima....

In a narrative that moves like a thriller, Rhodes sheds light on the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s....

So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb—and Japan’s decision to surrender....

Stalking the Red Bear, for the first time ever, describes the action principally from the perspective of a commanding officer of a nuclear submarine during the Cold War....

At the time of his tragic death in February 2013, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, was finishing a book that retold American history through the lens of a hand-selected list of firearms....

The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today....

Whack Job is the story of the axe, first as a convenient danger and then an anachronism, as told through the murders it has been employed in throughout history: from the first axe murder nearly half a million years ago, to the brutal harnessing of the axe in warfare, to its use in King Henry VIII's favorite method of execution, to Lizzie Borden and the birth of modern pop culture.

Drone Wars: The Future of Conflict is a groundbreaking exploration of how unmanned systems are transforming the battlefield, shifting global power, and redefining the rules of war. From the Bronze Age to the nuclear era, history has demonstrated that revolutions in military technology have reshaped societies. Today, the rapid rise of drones—affordable, autonomous, and increasingly lethal—is the next evolution. Once the domain of superpowers, drone warfare has been democratized. Now, insurgents, terrorists, criminal cartels, and lone actors can wield capabilities once reserved for the ...

Guerras de Drones: El Futuro de los Conflictos es una exploración innovadora sobre cómo los sistemas no tripulados están transformando el campo de batalla, alterando el equilibrio del poder global y redefiniendo las reglas de la guerra. Desde la Edad de Bronce hasta la era nuclear, la historia ha demostrado que las revoluciones en tecnología militar han reconfigurado sociedades enteras. Hoy, el rápido auge de los drones—accesibles, autónomos y cada vez más letales—representa la siguiente evolución. Lo que antes era exclusivo de las superpotencias, ahora ha sido democratizado. ...

Innovating Victory: Naval Technology in Three Wars studies how the world‘s navies incorporated new technologies into their ships, their practices, and their doctrine. It does this by examining six core technologies fundamental to twentieth-century naval warfare including new platforms (submarines and aircraft), new weapons (torpedoes and mines), and new tools (radar and radio).

A fireball over the Arctic. A missing hydrogen bomb. A Cold War program exposed in a single, shattering night. Before dawn on January 21, 1968, a U.S. Air Force B-52G code-named HOBO 28 streaked across the polar sky carrying four thermonuclear weapons. Its mission—Operation Chrome Dome—kept nuclear-armed bombers in the air 24/7, ready to strike Moscow in minutes. But when a cockpit fire roared through the bomber at 41,000 feet, the crew faced an unthinkable choice: burn alive or bail out into −60 °F darkness. Minutes later a mushroom-shaped blast lit North Star Bay, scattering ...