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The peace of the galaxy is shattered when the planet Toran explodes, an intelligent civilization driven instantly to extinction. The cause of the explosion is traced to a "naked starship" from the Alternative Alliance-a starship traveling faster-than-light without a gamma ray surge dissipater. Is this a tragic accident-or the first salvo of a doomsday war? Station Post One is alone in the middle of a mounting interstellar crisis. The problems are mounting up. Crew members are abandoning their duty and fleeing across the galaxy. Commander Damon Kramer, now dealing with an aggressive brain tumor caused by the Thermians, must find a way to prepare his small and vulnerable station for the coming war-despite lack of resources, malfunctioning equipment, and his own impending death! The galaxy is turned on its head, the alliance with the Community unraveling, and everything you thought you knew about the Voyage Into the Unknown universe may be a lie...in a cataclysmic and shocking COUNTDOWN TO WAR!
When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. Even Ferdinand's own uncle, Franz Josef I, was notably ambivalent about the death of the Hapsburg heir, saying simply, "It is God's will." Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflict -- much less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would fundamentally reshape the course of human events. As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand's murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war's outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, each of the men involved -- from Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and French president Raymond Poincaré- sought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand's murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen. A revolutionary account of the genesis of World War I, July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe's countdown to war from the bloody opening act on June 28th to Britain's final plunge on August 4th, showing how a single month -- and a handful of men -- changed the course of the twentieth century.
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter chronicles the 12 days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, examining the miscommunications, clues, missteps and racist assumptions that may have been behind America's failure to safeguard against the tragedy, "--NoveList.
A groundbreaking history that considers the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective and is certain to revolutionize how we think of the war in the Pacific. When Japan launched hostilities against the United States in 1941, argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a war they were almost certain to lose. Drawing on material little known to Western readers, and barely explored in depth in Japan itself, Hotta poses an essential question: Why did these men—military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor—put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm’s way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed—eager to avoid war but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor, tempted by the gambler’s dream of scoring the biggest win against impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally proved inevitable. In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals just how divided Japan’s leaders were, right up to (and, in fact, beyond) their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: many of the same leaders seeking to avoid war with the United States continued to adamantly advocate Asian expansionism, hoping to advance, or at least maintain, the occupation of China that began in 1931, unable to end the second Sino-Japanese War and unwilling to acknowledge Washington’s hardening disapproval of their continental incursions. Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and his facile supporters cemented Japan’s place in the fascist alliance with Germany and Italy—unaware (or unconcerned) that in so doing they destroyed the nation’s bona fides with the West. We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic rivalry between Japan’s army and navy. Roles are recast and blame reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the hawks and skeptics among Japan’s elite. Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it. Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing—both Japanese and Western—to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity. An essential book for any student of the Second World War, this compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember those days of infamy.
A "behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the Americans attack on Hiroshima"--Dust jacket flap.
24 August 1939: The fate of the world is hanging in the balance. Hitler has ambitions to invade Poland and hopes Stalin will now help him. And the West must try to stop him. If they don�t, world war will result. In this dramatic account of the last days of peace in 1939, Richard Overy re-creates hour by hour the unfolding story in the capitals of Europe as politicians and the public braced themselves for a war that they feared might spell the end of European civilisation. There was nothing entirely predictable or inevitable about the outcome. The West hoped that Hitler would see sense if they stood firm. Hitler was convinced the West would back down. There were moments of hesitation and moments of confrontation; secret intelligence was used by both sides to support their hopes. The one constant feature was the determination of Poland, a country created only in 1919, to fight a war that seemed entirely irrational, against the armed might of Germany. Countdown to War brings to life a defining moment in the history of the violent twentieth century.
Stories deal with a military conspiracy, postnuclear societies, the arms race, and the horror of nuclear war
The story of a formative year in 12-year-old Franny Chapman's life, and the life of a nation facing the threat of nuclear war. Franny Chapman just wants some peace. But that's hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head. Her saintly younger brother is no help, and the cute boy across the street only complicates things. Worst of all, everyone is walking around just waiting for a bomb to fall. It's 1962, and it seems that the whole country is living in fear. When President Kennedy goes on television to say that Russia is sending nuclear missiles to Cuba, it only gets worse. Franny doesn't know how to deal with what's going on in the world -- no more than she knows how to deal with what's going on with her family and friends. But somehow she's got to make it through. Featuring a captivating story interspersed with footage from 1962, award-winning author Deborah Wiles has created a documentary novel that will put you right alongside Franny as she navigates a dangerous time in both her history and our history.
A top cybersecurity journalist tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb. “Immensely enjoyable . . . Zetter turns a complicated and technical cyber story into an engrossing whodunit.”—The Washington Post 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—in this case, on an Iranian nuclear facility. In these pages, journalist Kim Zetter tells the whole story behind the world’s first cyberweapon, covering its genesis in the corridors of the White House and its effects in Iran—and telling the spectacular, unlikely tale of the security geeks who managed to unravel a top secret sabotage campaign years in the making. But Countdown to Zero Day also ranges beyond Stuxnet itself, exploring the history of cyberwarfare and its future, showing us what might happen should our infrastructure be targeted by a Stuxnet-style attack, and ultimately, providing a portrait of a world at the edge of a new kind of war.
The Air War, 1939-1945 was first written in the late 1970s when there was very little academic interest in the history of air power. What there was focused largely on combat. The book was intended to provide a global history of the air war by looking at combat, but also the broader context of technology, production, intelligence and leadership. The book sought to address the question of why the Allies in the end won decisively the war in the air, and concluded that Axis air forces were too tied to a narrow conception of air power attached to surface forces, rather than air power exercised in a broader framework of air defense, logistics, strategic bombing and technological development. The book has been assigned reading in military and air force academies for the past forty years. “The Air War, 1939-1945... immediately and permanently altered the way that historians have examined the nature of aerial warfare during World War II. Overy’s ingenious examination of the global nature of planning, building, deploying, and utilizing air forces remains the finest overall study of the topic more than a quarter-century after its first publication... conclusions drawn in this work... are even today an integral part of U.S. Air Force doctrine.” — Dik A. Daso, US Air Force Chief of Staff’s Reading List “This is an outstanding book on a subject in which past controversy has often generated more heat than light... The strength of the book is... Overy’s masterly discussion of the economic problems of sustaining air forces in war and of hitting the right balance between quantity production of current models and diversion of resources to research and technical innovation... Truly this is a book that deserves attention from all those who wish to study, and learn from, the history of warfare.” — G. C. Peden, Naval War College Review “[T]ightly written... The Air War, 1939-1945 is essential reading for all military historians.” — James J. Hudson, Military Affairs “[O]ne of the best books on aviation in World War II.” — Kenneth P. Werrell, Air Power History “An important and successful book.” — The Economist “Highly effective. The result, as so often with sound scholarship, is the ruthless dispelling of myths.” — A. J. P. Taylor, author of The Origins of the Second World War “The Air War is... an excellent and stimulating book which both needs and deserves slow and careful reading. It is an ambitious book, too, and Dr. Overy should be congratulated for breaking down national histories in writing his history of air power during the Second World War.” — Malcolm Smith, The International History Review “[A] recognized classic.” — Richard B. Frank, The Journal of American History “Originally published in 1980 and still the best one-volume aerial history of World War II, Richard Overy’s classic work remains profound and highly original... [it] deepens our understanding not only of World War II but of military history in general.” — The SHAFR Guide Online “[A]n outstanding book... The Air War is a serious and profound treatise that analyses those various military and civilian themes which, in combination, determined the nature of the struggle in the air during the Second World War... The Air War is something of a novelty in aeronautical literature. It is to be hoped that it will serve as a model for other books to come in this important field.” — Alfred Gollin, The English Historical Review “Overy provides operational accounts of the air-forces’ role in Europe... and in the Pacific. Then, and most exceptionally, he deals separately with all facets of the air war: planning, organization, manpower, equipment, and doctrine... honest... broadly informed, and... well-stocked with useful data.“ — Kirkus “R. J. Overy examines the whole war period from the point of view of each of the warring powers and gives us not only a study of military campaigns but also a highly successful examination of aerial doctrine, economic and scientific mobilization, and the political, diplomatic, and military aspects of the management of hostilities. This fine study analyzes the achievements and the failures of the aerial component of the war... This good analysis of many studies done on this subject... makes possible a new, balanced synthesis from an objective point of view.” — Sam H. Frank, The American Historical Review