New Bestseller at CARL - Boots on the ground by dusk

Check CARL Holdings: Boots on the ground by dusk : my tribute to Pat Tillman

About this book: "On April 22, 2004, Lieutenant David Uthlaut received orders from Khost, Afghanistan, that his platoon was to leave the town of Magarah and "have boots on the ground before dark" in Mariah, a small village on the border of Pakistan. It was an order the young lieutenant protested vehemently, but the commanders at the Tactical Command Center disregarded his objections. Uthlaut split his platoon into two serials, with Serial One traveling northwest to Manah and Serial Two towing a broken Humvee north toward the Khost highway. By nightfall, Uthlaut and his radio operator were seriously wounded, and an Afghan militia soldier and a U.S. soldier were dead. The American soldier was Pat Tillman."

Related podcast:

Interview with the author: C-Span Book TV

Lone Survivor

Ed Tracy interviews Navy Cross recipient and Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell about his experiences in Afghanistan and his book, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. Originally aired 05/19/08.

Book available at CARL in multiple formats

New at CARL - the Utility of Force

Check our holdings: The utility of force: the art of war in the modern world

"Gen. Rupert Smith (Ret.), who commanded British forces during the 1991 Gulf War, argues that our current understanding of war is outdated and that war planners of the future should incorporate both military and political strategies to achieve their goals."

Book excerpt

Related podcast: C-Span Interview - the author discusses his book with Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information.

Notable - Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace

Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace From the book jacket: "Why do cease-fire agreements sometimes last for years while others flounder barely long enough to be announced? How to maintain peace in the aftermath of war is arguably one of the most important questions of the post--Cold War era. And yet it is one of the least explored issues in the study of war and peace. Here, Page Fortna offers the first comprehensive analysis of why cease-fires between states succeed or fail. She develops cooperation theory to argue that mechanisms within these agreements can help maintain peace by altering the incentives for war and peace, reducing uncertainty, and helping to prevent or manage accidents that could lead to war. To test this theory, the book first explores factors, such as decisive victory and prior history of conflict, that affect the baseline prospects for peace. It then considers whether stronger cease-fires are likely to be implemented in the hardest or the easiest cases. Next, through both quantitative and qualitative testing of the effects of cease-fire agreements, firm evidence emerges that agreements do matter. Durable peace is harder to achieve after some wars than others, but when most difficult, states usually invest more in peace building. These efforts work. Strong agreements markedly lessen the risk of further war. Mechanisms such as demilitarized zones, dispute resolution commissions, peacekeeping, and external guarantees can help maintain peace between even the deadliest of foes." Related podcast - author presentation University-Channel Podcast

New at CARL - Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the hijacking of Afghanistan

Check out our holdings: How we missed the story : Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the hijacking of Afghanistan

"In How We Missed the Story, award-winning journalist Roy Gutman weaves a narrative that exposes how and why the U.S. government, the United Nations, and the Western media "missed the story" in the leadup to 9/11. Drawing on his own original research and extensive-interviews with key players, Gutman sheds new light on the inner workings of the policy process in Washington and offers the inside perspective of a member of the media. " Book jacket.

related podcast: C-Span Afterwords interview of the author.

New at CARL - Beyond the green zone

Check our holdings of this title: Beyond the green zone : dispatches from an unembedded journalist in occupied Iraq

Dahr Jamail has spent more time reporting from Iraq than almost any other US journalist. In these collected dispatches, Jamail presents never-before-published details of the siege of Fallujah and examines the origins of the Iraqi insurgency.

Book Review: the Nation magazine

Watch this Book TV C-Span Interview with the author

New at CARL: The Ghost Mountain boys

Check our holdings at CARL: The Ghost Mountain boys : their epic march and the terrifying battle for New Guinea : the forgotten war of the South Pacific

Summary: "New Guinea is among the world's largest islands. In 1942, when World War II exploded onto its shores, it was an inhospitable, cursorily mapped, disease-ridden land of dense jungle, towering mountain peaks, deep valleys,and fetid swamps. Coveted by the Japanese for its strategic position, New Guinea became the site of one of the South Pacific's most savage campaigns. Despite their lack of jungle training, the 32nd Division's Ghost Mountain Boys were assigned the most grueling mission of the entire Pacific campaign: to march 130 miles over the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains and to protect the right flank of the Australian army as they fought to push the Japanese back to the village of Buna on New Guinea's north coast."

Related podcast: Interview with the Author James Campbell - Pritzker Military Library Podcast

New at CARL - In the ruins of empire

In the ruins of empire : the Japanese surrender and the battle for postwar Asia by Ronald Spector

Spector follows up on Eagle Against the Sun, his account of the American struggle against the Japanese in World War II, with a chronicle of the aftermath of this crucial conflict. He tells the fascinating story of the deadly confrontations that broke out--or merely continued--in Asia after peace was proclaimed. Under occupation by the victorious Allies, this part of the world was plunged into new power struggles, or back into old feuds, that in some ways were worse than the war itself. International suspicions were still strong; die-hard Japanese officers plotted to prevent surrender; in Manchuria, Russian "liberators" looted, raped, and killed innocent civilians; in China a fratricidal rivalry continued between Chiang Kai-shek's regime and Mao's revolutionaries; and Southeast Asia and Korea became powderkegs, with Communists only one of several competing anticolonial factions.--From publisher description.

Related Audio: C-Span's After Words : Ronald Spector author of "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" interviewed by Steven Clemons.

New at CARL - Wars of blood and faith

Check our holdings: Wars of blood and faith : the conflicts that will shape the twenty-first century

Summary: Bestselling author and strategist Peters confronts the crucial security issues of the modern era. He argues that the world has entered a violent, rather than ideological, period that will continue to be the source of ferocious rebellions, genocide, and global terrorism.

Related podcast:

Author Ralph Peters at the Pritzker Military Library - Strategist and author Ralph Peters returns to the library to discuss his new book, Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-First Century. Originally aired 11/29/07.

New at CARL : Hog pilots, blue water grunts

Check our holdings: Hog pilots, blue water grunts : the American military in the air, at sea, and on the ground by Robert Kaplan

Summary: "Foreign affairs journalist Kaplan lets readers experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground: flying in a B-2 bomber, living on a nuclear submarine, and traveling with a Stryker brigade on missions around the world. Provided unprecedented access, Kaplan moves from destroyers off the coast of Indonesia to submarines in the central Pacific, from simulated Iraqi training grounds in Alaska to technology bases in Las Vegas. He goes deep into their highly technical and exotic worlds, and tells this story through the words and perspectives of the enlisted personnel and junior officers themselves--men and women who, as he writes, have "had their national identities as Americans engraved in sharp bas-relief." He not only conveys the vast scope of America's military commitments, but also shows us astonishing and vital operations as they unfold--from the point of view of the troops themselves.--From publisher description."

Sample Text

Related podcast: Robert Kaplan talks about Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts , his new book about the modern military across the globe.

House to House by David Bellavia

Check our book holdings of House to House: an epic memoir of war by SSG David Bellavia

This work also available as an audio book.

Description: "On the night of November 10, 2004, a U.S. Army infantry squad under Staff Sergeant David Bellavia entered the heart of the city of Fallujah and plunged into one of the most sustained and savage urban battles in the history of American men at arms.

With Third Platoon, Alpha Company, part of the Army's Task Force 2/2, Bellavia and his men confronted an enemy who had had weeks to prepare, booby-trapping houses, arranging ambushes, rigging entire city blocks as explosives-laden kill zones, and even stocking up on atropine, a steroid that pumps up fighters in the equivalent of a long-lasting crack high. Entering one house, alone, Bellavia faced the fight of his life against six insurgents, using every weapon at his disposal, including a knife. It is the stuff of legend and the chief reason he is one of the great heroes of the Iraq War.

Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, House to House is far more than just another war story. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of characters, from a fearless corporal who happens to be a Bush-hating liberal to an inspirational sergeant-major who became the author's own lost father figure, it develops the intensely close relationships that form between soldiers under fire. Their friendships, tested in brutal combat, would never be quite the same. Not all of them would make it out of the city alive. What happened to them in their bloody embrace with America's most implacable enemy is a harrowing, unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, and the resiliency of the human spirit."

Book Excerpt: Last Mission before Fallujah

Watch this BookTV webcast of the author SSG David Bellavia describing his book House to House.

Related article: Into the Hot Zone by Michael Ware

New at CARL: The day of battle by Rick Atkinson

The day of battle : the war in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson

"In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy. In An Army at Dawn—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome.

The Italian campaign’s outcome was never certain; in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the war’s most complex and controversial commanders, American officers and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable.

Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank. With The Day of Battle, Atkinson has once again given us the definitive account of one of history’s most compelling military campaigns."

Related Podcast - Rick Atkinson discusses his new book in this Pritzker Military Library program. Listen. (~1 hour 20 minutes)

Also by Rick Atkinson: An Army at Dawn (1st volume of his Liberation trilogy) , In the company of soldiers : a chronicle of combat , The Long Gray Line

The nine : inside the secret world of the Supreme Court

Check our holdings at CARL - The nine : inside the secret world of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin

"Based on exclusive interviews with the justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities - from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore - and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office."

Book TV C-Span broadcast - Jeffrey Toobin discusses his new book "The Nine"

Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War

Check the CARL holdings of this title: Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence

About the book: "In this gripping chronicle of America's struggle for independence, award-winning historian John Ferling transports readers to the grim realities of that war, capturing an eight-year conflict filled with heroism, suffering, cowardice, betrayal, and fierce dedication. As Ferling demonstrates, it was a war that America came much closer to losing than is now usually remembered. General George Washington put it best when he said that the American victory was "little short of a standing miracle." Almost a Miracle offers an illuminating portrait of America's triumph, offering vivid descriptions of all the major engagements, from the first shots fired on Lexington Green to the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, revealing how these battles often hinged on intangibles such as leadership under fire, heroism, good fortune, blunders, tenacity, and surprise. "

Pritzker Military Library: Interview of John Ferling

New at CARL: 15 Stars by Stanley Weintraub

Check our holdings at CARL: "15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall - Three Generals Who Saved the American Century"

Summary: "In the closing days of World War II, America looked up to three five-star generals as its greatest heroes. George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur personified victory, from the Pentagon to Normandy to the Far East. Counterparts and on occasion competitors, they had leapfrogged each other, sometimes stonewalled each other, even supported and protected each other throughout their celebrated careers. In the public mind they stood for glamour, integrity, and competence. But for dramatic twists of circumstance, all three - rather than only one - might have occupied the White House." "The story of their interconnected lives opens a fascinating window onto some of the twentieth century's most crucial events, revealing the personalities behind the public images and showing how much of a difference three men can make."--BOOK JACKET.

Excerpt from the book

Related podcast:

Stanley Weintraub, author of "15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall - Three Generals Who Saved the American Century," interviewed by Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council On Foreign Relations. Podcast

New at the CARL - The Al Qaeda reader

Check our holdings: The Al Qaeda reader by Raymond Ibrahim

Summary:

"Despite our tendency to dismiss Islamic extremism as profoundly irrational, al Qaeda is not without a coherent body of beliefs. As in other totalitarian movements, its leaders have rationalized their brutality in a number of published treatises. Now, for the first time, The Al Qaeda Reader gathers together the essential texts and documents that trace the origin, history, and evolution of the ideas of al-Qaeda founders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden."--BOOK JACKET.

Related podcast

with the author on C-Span AfterWords Program Raymond Ibrahim translates key Al Qaeda documents, some previously unavailable in English, that provide a window into the thinking of radical Islam's leadership. "The Al Qaeda Reader," divided into theology and propaganda focuses on the writings of Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. Raymond Abrahim is interviewed by Lawrence Wright, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction for his book "The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."

Scorpion down : sunk by the Soviets, buried by the Pentagon

Scorpion down : sunk by the Soviets, buried by the Pentagon : the untold story of the USS Scorpion by Edward Offley

"In this work of investigative journalism, Ed Offley reveals that the U.S. Navy knew from the very beginning that the Scorpion had been sunk by the Soviets. Even before the Scorpion failed to show up at port, senior Navy officials had initiated an elaborate cover-up to suppress the real story of the undersea battle. The Navy has concealed the truth from the general public and families of the crewmen for nearly four decades. All ninety-nine American sailors aboard the Scorpion died in combat." "Here, Ed Offley tells the true story of the USS Scorpion for the first time. Offley tells the dramatic story of a secret battle that could have brought about World War III, and he conclusively demonstrates that the Navy's official story about the Scorpion incident - from the frantic open-ocean hunt for the wreckage to a Court of Inquiry's final conclusions - is nothing more than a carefully-constructed series of lies."--BOOK JACKET.

Related podcast: interview of the author describing his book Scorpion Down

Insurgents, terrorists, and militias : the warriors of contemporary combat

Insurgents, terrorists, and militias : the warriors of contemporary combat by Richard Schultz and Andrea J. Dew

Book review exerpt: "The authors, Richard H. Shultz and Andrea J. Dew, lay out the framework and goals of the book at the very beginning. This book is not about tactics or even strategy, but “operational art”, the middle ground between Strategy (big “S”) and Tactics (big “T”). Using case studies of Somali, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the authors demonstrate their theories through both recent and historical encounters. Some of their analysis is interesting as elements of previous success were clearly not understood and led to later failures." Full Book review: MountainRunner blog

Listen to Andrea Dew's interview on NPR's "The World

Read an interview with Andrea Dew and Richard Shultz.

Read "When Soldiers Fight Warriors," a chapter from Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias.

Read Shultz and Dew's New York Times op-ed piece, "Counterinsurgency, by the Book".

terrorism counterinsurgency robert schultz andrea dew

New York Times Bestseller at CARL : Lone Survivor

Lone survivor : the eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell

Texan recounts special forces tragedy in Afghanistan.

Excerpt from book review:

"The Battle of Murphy's Ridge, June 28, 2005, was among the most tragic days in U.S. special operations history, and only Texan Marcus Luttrell lived to talk about it.

His memoir, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, recounts how he and three other Navy SEALs were dropped on a mountainside in the rural Hindu Kush in eastern Afghanistan to carry out a reconnaissance mission and, if possible, assassinate Taliban warlord Ben Sharmak." Full Book review published in Guide live.com

Book review published in the New York Times

Podcast of Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell talking about his book "Lone Survivor"

Is this book checked out at CARL? How to place a hold on it.

Marcus Luttrell navy seals Afghanistan taliban

War by other means by John Yoo

War by other means : an insider's account of the War on Terror by John Yoo

Book summary from the publisher: "John Yoo, the key legal architect of the Bush administration’s response to 9/11, delivers a fascinating insider account of the War on Terror. While America reeled from the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001, Yoo and a skeletal staff of the Office of Legal Counsel found themselves on the phone with the White House. In a series of memos, Yoo offered his legal opinions on the president’s authority to respond, and in the process had an almost unmatched impact on America's fight against terrorism. His analysis led to many of the Bush administration’s most controversial policies, including detention at Guantanamo Bay, coercive interrogation, military trials for terrorists, preemptive attacks, and the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program. In fascinating detail, Yoo takes us inside the corridors of power and examines specific cases, from John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla to an American al-Qaeda leader assassinated by a CIA pilotless drone in the deserts of Yemen."

Book review: published in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune

Book review : published in the New Republic magazine

Audio: Milt Rosenberg WGN radio interviews John Yoo on his book War by other means. (Real player audio)

John Yoo War on Terror