In the months before World War II, FDR prepared the country for conflict with Germany and Japan by reshuffling various government agencies to create the Office of Strategic Services - America's first intelligence agency and the direct precursor to the CIA. When he charged William ("Wild Bill") Donovan, a successful Wall Street lawyer and Wilkie Republican, to head up the office, the die was set for some of the most fantastic and fascinating operations the US government has ever conducted.

As technological advances and the creation of flying aircraft became realities, the sighting of UFOs increased, as did the interest in potential contact with aliens. It would hardly be groundbreaking for scientists in the 20th century to have a lunchtime discussion in which the search for extraterrestrial life arises, and the question of where it might reside is innocuous enough. However, a furor was created somewhat innocently when physicist Enrico Fermi voiced his “casual lunchtime remark” in the presence of colleagues in 1950.

The study of the apocryphal gospels, documents about the life or sayings of Jesus that did not become part of the New Testament, is a popular discipline among scholars that now fills several shelves of any respectable library. However, few consider the question of whether the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, is "complete" and whether in antiquity there were other books besides "Genesis", the "Exodus" or "Judges", with different histories and unknown characters, that were excluded from the canon and got lost in the sands of time.

The spy novel emerged from the intrigues of the mid-20th century for good reason. The war with the Third Reich involved an unseen cloak-and-dagger struggle between the participants, but beyond that, an even larger and longer contest took place in the shadows. The men responsible for this unprecedented leaking of life-or-death information would enter history as the Cambridge Five - though in fact, they may have been only the core of a much larger group.

Over the course of the 19th century, the people of Sicily found themselves at the center of a struggle for freedom, one that ended up being long and often very bloody. It was during these crucial years of struggle that the Sicilian mafia, La Cosa Nostra ("Our Thing"), started to take shape. Cosa Nostra: The Notorious History and Legacy of the Sicilian Mafia examines how the world’s most famous mob formed, its inner workings, and the events that made it feared around the world.

Since the early days of human warfare, which may date back to the Stone Age, combatants have sought to gain an advantage through the acquisition of secret information. With the growth of technology, a parallel advantage was sought through the application of numerous types of torture. In the 19th century, the concept of manipulation was added to military tactics, an attempt to influence the minds of assassins, double agents, and world leaders alike to act against their natures.

Different branches of the same religion are the exception more than the rule, and they have had a profound impact upon history. The schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches influenced relationships between nations across Europe, and religious intolerance based on different Christian faiths led to persecution and outright violence across the continent for centuries.

A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert here tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions. The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Henry Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever.

John Plaster’s riveting account of his covert activities as a member of a special operations team during the Vietnam War is “a true insider’s account...this eye-opening report will leave readers feeling as if they’ve been given a hot scoop on a highly classified project” (Publishers Weekly). Code-named the Studies and Observations Group, SOG was the most secret elite US military unit to serve in the Vietnam War - so secret that its very existence was denied by the government.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units.

Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945. Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past—and anticipate in the future—in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world.

In this unprecedented audiobook, a paramilitary contractor with more than two decades of experience gives us a firsthand look into the secret lives of America's private warriors and their highly covert work around the world. Author Jamie Smith has planned and executed hundreds of missions on behalf of government agencies and private industry in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots - and lived to tell the tale.

Wanted: Volunteers for Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal. A body bag. Or both. With this call to arms, Charlie Beckwith revolutionized American armed combat. Beckwith's acclaimed memoir tells the story of Delta Force as only its maverick creator could tell it - from the bloody baptism of Vietnam to the top-secret training grounds of North Carolina to political battles in the upper levels of the Pentagon itself. This is the heart-pounding, first-person insider's view of the missions that made Delta Force legendary.

A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.

This dramatic true story reveals the secret mission of the eight members of the CIA’s Team Alpha, the first Americans to be dropped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan after 9/11.

Recalling the classic warnings against militarism, from George Washington's farewell address to Dwight Eisenhower's denunciation of the military-industrial complex, Johnson explores the trend of militarism that is bankrupting the United States and creating conditions for a new century of virulent blowback.

From Tim Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, an urgent and gripping account of the 75-year battle between the US and Russia that led to the election and impeachment of an American president.

What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.

According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.

Following September 11, the United States successfully overthrew the Taliban regime. It established security throughout the country, and Afghanistan finally began to emerge from more than two decades of conflict. But Jones argues that, as early as 2001, planning for the Iraq War siphoned off resources and talented personnel, undermining the gains that had been made. After eight years, the United States had pushed al-Qaeda’s headquarters about one hundred miles across the border into Pakistan.

This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack.

In a completely original analysis, prizewinning historian Alfred W. McCoy explores America's rise as a world power - from the 1890s through the Cold War - and its bid to extend its hegemony deep into the 21st century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances. McCoy then analyzes the marquee instruments of US hegemony - covert intervention, client elites, psychological torture, and worldwide surveillance. Peeling back layers of secrecy, McCoy exposes a military and economic battle for global domination fought in the shadows.

GCHQ is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the UK, and has existed for 100 years - but we still know next to nothing about it. In this ground-breaking book - the first and most definitive history of the organisation ever published - intelligence expert Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s development from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside into one of the world leading espionage organisations.

Putin's Wars is a timely overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involved since Vladimir Putin became prime minister and then president of Russia, from the First Chechen War to the two military incursions into Georgia, the annexation of Crimea and the eventual invasion of Ukraine itself. But it also looks more broadly at Putin's recreation of Russian military power and its expansion to include a range of new capabilities, from mercenaries to operatives in a relentless information war against Western powers.

The Iran Wars is an absorbing account of a battle waged on many levels - military, financial, and covert. Jay Solomon’s book is the product of extensive in-depth reporting and interviews with all the key players in the conflict - from high-ranking Iranian officials to Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiating team. With a reporter’s masterly investigative eye and the narrative dexterity of a great historian, Solomon shows how Iran’s nuclear development went unnoticed for years by the international community only to become its top security concern.

Drawing comparisons to empires past, Johnson explores in vivid detail the likely consequences of US dependence on a permanent war economy, and what it will mean when the globe's sole "hyperpower" is no longer capable of paying for the vaulting ambitions of its leaders - and becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all time. In his stunning conclusion, Johnson suggests that the crisis of a financial breakdown could ultimately prove to be the only path to a renewed nation.

In Your Government Failed You, Clarke looks at why failures have continued and how America and the world can succeed against the terrorists. But Clarke goes beyond terrorism to examine the recurring U.S. government disasters. Despite the lessons of Vietnam, we've gotten involved in Iraq. Drawing on his 30 years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and Intelligence Community, Clarke discovers patterns in the failure and suggests ways to stop the cycle.

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.

Today, it is known by many names, like the First Iraq War, Kuwait War, and, most commonly, the Gulf War or the First Gulf War. It was a rather short conflict, lasting just shy of seven months between late 1990 and early 1991. Yet, it was still rather impactful because it showcased several essential innovations and changes in political and technological aspects of warfare, some of which are still part of modern conflicts.

A remarkable analysis linking the assassination of JFK and 9/11, and how both events were used to influence war policy. Peter Dale Scott examines the many ways in which war policy has been driven by “accidents” and other events in the field, in some cases despite moves toward peace that were directed by presidents. This book explores the “deep politics” that exerts a profound but too-little-understood effect on national policy outside the control of traditional democratic processes.