Showing titles in Weapons & Warfare

Nazi Germany was driven by a desire to dominate the world and create a new master race. Every aspect of life in the Third Reich was focused on the goal of Aryan supremacy, and science and technology were no exception. Under the Nazis, conventional science and a range of fringes sciences were legitimate areas for research and development.

On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno. He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry....

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

During World War II, in the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research; Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses—dubbed the Alsos Mission—and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club.

The story of the twentieth century is largely the story of the power of science and technology. Within that story is the incredible tale of the human conflict between Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller—the scientists most responsible for the advent of weapons of mass destruction. How did science—and its practitioners—enlisted in the service of the state during the Second World War, become a slave to its patron during the Cold War?

Starting with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies over the course of more than two thousand years. Following the progress of human aggression in its full historical sweep, from the strangely ritualistic combat of Stone Age peoples to the warfare of mass destruction in the present age, his illuminating and lively narrative gives us all the world's great warrior cultures.

July 1967: At the Moscow Air Show, the Soviets unveiled six new state-of-the-art aircraft. From among this lineup of new fighters and interceptors stood the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 - purportedly capable of outrunning and outmaneuvering any aircraft in NATO’s inventory. Yet even before its public appearance in Moscow, the MiG-25 had been a grave concern for Western analysts.

Smallpox, the only infectious disease to have been eradicated, was one of the most terrifying of human scourges. It covered the skin with hideous, painful boils, killed a third of its victims, and left the survivors disfigured for life. In this riveting, often terrifying look at the history of smallpox, Jonathan B. Tucker tells the story of this deadly disease, the heroic efforts to eradicate it worldwide, and the looming dangers it still poses today.

On the night of June 13th, 1944, a 12-man SAS unit parachuted into occupied France. Their objective: hit German forces deep behind the lines, cutting the rail-tracks linking Central France to the northern coastline. In a country crawling with enemy troops, their mission was to prevent Hitler from rushing his Panzer divisions to the D-Day beaches and driving the Allied troops back into the sea. It was a Herculean task, but no risk was deemed too great to stop the Nazi assault.

Richard Rhodes' landmark history of the atomic bomb won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now, in this majestic new masterpiece of history, science, and politics, he tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made, and traces the path by which this supreme artifact of 20th-century technology became the defining issue of the Cold War.

Many nations, peoples and special interest groups believe that violence will advance their cause. Warfare has changed greatly since the Second World War; it continued to change during the late 20th century, and this process is still accelerating. Political, technological, social and religious forces are shaping the future of warfare, but most Western armed forces have yet to evolve significantly from the Cold War era when they trained to resist a conventional invasion by the Warsaw Pact.

General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer were the two men chiefly responsible for the building of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, code name The Manhattan Project. As the ranking military officer in charge of marshalling men and material for what was to be the most ambitious, expensive engineering feat in history, it was General Groves who hired Oppenheimer (with knowledge of his left-wing past), planned facilities that would extract the necessary enriched uranium, and saw to it that nothing interfered with the accelerated research and swift assembly of the weapon.

The rapid evolution of radio and radar systems for military use during WWII, and devices to counter them, led to a technological battle that neither the Axis nor the Allied powers could afford to lose. The result was a continual series of thrusts, parries, and counter-thrusts, as first one side then the other sought to wrest the initiative in the struggle to control the ether.

Part One Winston Churchill's superlative account of the prelude to and events of the First World War is a defining work of 20th-century history. With dramatic narrative power Churchill reconstructs the action on the Western and Eastern Fronts, the wars at sea and in the air and the advent of tanks and U-boats.

The First World War saw the birth of an extraordinary fighting machine that has fascinated three generations: the tank. In Tank Men, ex-soldier and military historian Robert Kershaw brings to life the grime, the grease, and the fury of a tank battle through the voices of ordinary men and women who lived and fought in those fearsome machines. Drawing on vivid, newly researched personal testimony from the crucial battles of the First and Second World Wars, this is military history at its very best.

Iraqi microbiologist Thamer Abdul Rahman Imran has information vital to stopping the unthinkable: a biological attack on the US. When he learns that the new Iraqi government wants to arrest him and the insurgents want to kill him, he goes into hiding. Racing against time, ex-Secret Service agent Steve Monteiro and his team set out on a mission to find the missing scientist and learn what he knows. The journey takes them from the White House to the Middle East as they fight bureaucrats in Washington who want them to fail. Why? And what is this vital information that Thamer possesses?

Few people are aware that John Moses Browning - a tall, humble, cerebral man born in 1855 and raised as a Mormon in the American West - was the mind behind many of the world-changing firearms that dominated more than a century of conflict. He invented the design used in virtually all modern pistols, created the most popular hunting rifles and shotguns, and conceived the machine guns that proved decisive not just in World Wars I and II but nearly every major military action since. Yet few in America knew his name until he was into his 60s.

Painstakingly researched, the story behind the decision to send the Enola Gay to bomb Hiroshima is told through firsthand sources. From diplomatic moves behind the scenes to Japanese actions and the US Army Air Force's call to action, no detail is left untold. Touching on the early days of the Manhattan Project and the first inkling of an atomic bomb, investigative journalist Gordon Thomas and his writing partner Max Morgan-Witts, take WWII enthusiasts through the training of the crew of the Enola Gay and the challenges faced by pilot Paul Tibbets.

It is the world's most widely recognized weapon, the most profuse tool for killing ever made. More than fifty national armies carry the automatic Kalashnikov, as do an array of police, intelligence, and security agencies all over the world. In this tour de force, prizewinning New York Times reporter C. J. Chivers traces the invention of the assault rifle.

North Korean nukes. Dirty bombs in train stations. Chemical warfare. Americans have more reasons than ever to be afraid. If a nuclear missile strikes, will you know what to do? If a nerve agent is released in your subway system or office building, will you be safe? The US Armed Forces Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Survival Manual gives you the information you need to survive a terrorist attack. It contains the best practices of all the United States' military services, adapted for the first time for civilian use. With this manual, you will be able to take action.