Showing titles in Weapons & Warfare

The “fascinating” (Wall Street Journal) story of how military technology has transformed the world The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author John Hersey's seminal work of narrative nonfiction which has defined the way we think about nuclear warfare. “One of the great classics of the war" (The New Republic) that tells what happened in Hiroshima during World War II through the...

Early in 1968, a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank in the waters off Hawaii, hundreds of miles closer to American shores than it should have been. Compelling evidence strongly suggests that the sub sank while attempting to fire a nuclear missile.

Bloomsbury presents The Sun Rising by Anna Whitelock, read by Alix Dunmore. A panoramic history of the arrival of the Stuarts, and how the reign of King James I saw England reach new corners of the globe 'A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good' PETER...

The Mosquito was probably World War II's most versatile combat aircraft. This book contains hundreds of firsthand accounts from many of the two-man crews who flew in them; pilots and navigators. It portrays the dramatic experiences of flying in its many roles as pathfinder, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, precision bombing, and low-level ground attack aircraft. It describes many of the RAF's most audacious raids on prime, but difficult, targets where carpet bombing by heavy bombers was likely to be ineffective and cause unnecessary casualties to civilians.

Brought to you by Penguin. A remarkable account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in Asia, published to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. In the closing months of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Japanese, mostly civilians, died in a final...

Brought to you by Penguin. **WINNER of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024** Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair...

A revelatory account of how African Independence was systematically undermined by the United States. "Fascinating information, original research, and bold ideas." —NPR "A triumph of archival research." —Jacobin In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought together the...

At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.

April 12, 1945. Less than three months into his vice presidency, Harry Truman is catapulted into the Oval Office following the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. As he recites the oath, he learns a chilling secret known only to a select few: the United States is on the verge of deploying a weapon of unimaginable power. This weapon could end the war but also herald a new age of global fear and uncertainty.

The first of two ground-breaking volumes on the Waterloo campaign, this audiobook is based upon a detailed analysis of sources old and new in four languages. It highlights the political stresses between the Allies, the problems of feeding and paying for the Allied forces assembling in Belgium during the undeclared war and how a strategy was thrashed out. It studies the neglected topic of how the Allies beyond the Rhine hampered the plans of Blücher and Wellington, thus allowing Napoleon to snatch the initiative from them.

From the acclaimed author of The Nobel Prize comes this fascinating portrait of four of the greatest minds in the history of science and the impossible turning point they faced. As World War II wound down, and it became increasingly clear that the Allies would emerge victorious, Albert Einstein invited three close friends - all titans of contemporary science and philosophy - to his home at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, to discuss what they loved best: science and philosophy.

 To Hell and Back offers listeners a stunning "you are there" time capsule, wrapped in elegant prose. Charles Pellegrino's scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bomb survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.   

Brought to you by Penguin. The remarkable story of the Real 'Dad's Army', from the bestselling historian of The Secret Life of Bletchley Park With the threat of invasion from Hitler's forces looming large in 1940, men of all ages and backgrounds assembled under the banner of the Home Guard. A...

Bloomsbury presents Stealing Hitler's Rocket, written and read by Guy Walters. 'As vivid and enthralling as the story deserves… recounted with a quiet restraint that makes it all the more devastating' The Telegraph Adolf Hitler’s plan to break British morale during the months after the D-Day...

Brought to you by Penguin. Even as the great siege began it was understood by both sides to be an epic – a potentially decisive encounter between an uneasy assortment of soldiers, native Maltese, adventurers and Knights Hospitaller on a strategically crucial but near waterless island and a...

The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy - and renewal under the Obama administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them.

Shortlisted for the 2024 Financial Times Business Book of the Year “An exceedingly important book!” —General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Director of the CIA “Essential reading for understanding how technology will change the future of warfare.” —Chris Miller, New York...

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.

Revealed for the first time in Racing for the Bomb, Groves played a crucial and decisive role in the planning, timing, and targeting of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions. Norris offers new insights into the complex and controversial questions surrounding the decision to drop the bomb in Japan and Groves' actions during World War II, which had a lasting imprint on the nuclear age and the Cold War that followed.