Books about War could from Amazon.com

They’re on the shoulder of all military personnel: patches that symbolize what a soldier’s unit does. But what happens if it’s top secret?

Shown here for the first time, these sixty patches reveal a secret world of military imagery and jargon, where classified projects are known by peculiar names (“Goat Suckers,” “None of Your Fucking Business,” “Tastes Like Chicken”) and illustrated with occult symbols and ridiculous cartoons. Although the actual projects represented here (such as the notorious Area 51) are classified, these patches—which are worn by military units working on classified missions—are precisely photographed, strangely hinting at a world about which little is known.

By submitting hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, the author has also assembled an extensive and readable guide to the patches included here, making this volume one of the best available surveys of the military’s black world—a $27 billion industry that has quietly grown by almost 50 percent since 9/11.

Trevor Paglen is a geographer by training, and an expert on clandestine military installations. He leads expeditions to the secret bases of the American West and is the author, with A.C. Thompson, of Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights, which The New York Times praised as “the real thing . . . and not on the evening news.”

.
Price: $13.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

During WW2, the US government suspended due process, rounded up more than 100,000 Japanese and American citizens of Japanese descent, and banished them to prison camps in desert wastelands. They were not charged with any crime, except, of course, being Japanese. This collection of haunting reminiscences, letters, stories, poems, and graphic art gives voice to the powerful emotions with which these victims of wartime hysteria struggled. Included are stories of those outside the camps whose lives were interwoven with those inside..
Price: $0.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The war in Iraq is not only controversial, it's also astronomically expensive. Now Rob Simpson answers the question many concerned Americans have been asking: Wasn't there some other way the government could have spent one trillion of our tax dollars?

What We Could Have Done with the Money presents 50 thought-provoking spending alternatives. With a trillion dollars, we could . . .

• Fix Social Security right now: Stop worrying. Stop debating. It's done. Over. Fixed.
• End homelessness in America: House 15 million homeless families, get a million kids out of foster care, and have change to spare!
• Give everyone in the world satellite TV: Can we have the revolution later? I'm watching CSI right now.
• Pay everyone in Iraq to be nice to each other: Hey! If someone tripled your salary for the next 20 years, wouldn't you behave?
• Go Green: Give 100 million car buyers a $10,000 subsidy on their hybrid.
• Or gold . . . : Pave every highway in America with gold leaf.
• Play ball! : Fly everyone in Iraq to America, put them up in a nice hotel for three days with all the extras, take them to a baseball game and fly them home . . . and have a lot leftover.
• Cure cancer: Double research spending for as long as it takes.

. . . not to mention paying all credit card debt, buying everyone in the world an iPod, building 75 million solar-powered homes, and 39 other revealing pipe dreams.

Shocking, thought-provoking, and incredibly entertaining, Simpson takes a hard look at the government's top priorities--both what they are and what they should be.

.
Price: $4.74 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Pilot, scholar, daredevil, general . . . James ""Jimmy"" Doolittle was one of America's greatest heroes. In a life filled with adventure and achievement, Doolittle did it all. As a stunt pilot, he thrilled the world with his aerial acrobatics. As a scientist, he pioneered the development of modern aviation technology. During World War II, he served his country as a fearless and innovative air warrior, organizing and leading the devastating raid against Japan. Now, for the first time, here is his life story - modest, revealing, and candid as only Doolittle himself can tell it. Doolittle tells a story of the sucesses and adventures, the triumphs and tragedies of a true American hero - a far-seeing leader whose courage, devotion, and daring changed the course of modern history . . . and continues to make its influence felt to this day..
Price: $19.77 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Most of us rally around the glory of the Allies' victory over the Nazis in World War II. The story is often told of how the good fight was won by an astonishing array of manpower and stunning tactics. However, what is often overlooked is how the intersection between Adolf Hitler's influential personality and his military strategy was critical in causing Germany to lose the war.

With an acute eye for detail and his use of clear prose, acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander goes beyond counterfactual "What if?" history and explores for the first time just how close the Allies were to losing the war. Using beautifully detailed, newly designed maps, How Hitler Could Have Won World War II   exquisitely illustrates the  important battles and how certain key movements and mistakes by Germany were crucial in determining the war's outcome. Alexander's harrowing study shows how only minor tactical changes in Hitler's military approach could have changed the world we live in today.

How Hitler Could Have Won World War II untangles some of the war's most confounding strategic questions, such as:
Why didn't the Nazis concentrate their enormous military power on the only three beaches upon which the Allies could launch their attack into Europe?
Why did the terrifying German panzers, on the brink of driving the British army into the sea in May 1940, halt their advance and allow the British to regroup and evacuate at Dunkirk?
With the chance to cut off the Soviet lifeline of oil, and therefore any hope of Allied victory from the east, why did Hitler insist on dividing and weakening his army, which ultimately led to the horrible battle of Stalingrad?

Ultimately, Alexander probes deeply into the crucial intersection between Hitler's psyche and military strategy and how his paranoia fatally overwhelmed his acute political shrewdness to answer the most terrifying question: Just how close were the Nazis to victory?

Why did Hitler insist on terror bombing London in the late summer of 1940, when the German air force was on the verge of destroying all of the RAF sector stations, England's last defense?

With the opportunity to drive the British out of Egypt and the Suez Canal and occupy all of the Middle East, therefore opening a Nazi door to the vast oil resources of the region, why did Hitler fail to move in just a few panzer divisions to handle such an easy but crucial maneuver?

On the verge of a last monumental effort and concentration of German power to seize Moscow and end Stalin's grip over the Eastern front, why did the Nazis divert their strength to bring about the far less important surrender of Kiev, thereby destroying any chance of ever conquering the Soviets?


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $4.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

After Pearl Harbor, he led America’s flight to victory

General Doolittle is a giant of the twentieth century. He did it all.

As a stunt pilot, he thrilled the world with his aerial acrobatics. As a scientist, he pioneered the development of modern aviation technology.

During World War II, he served his country as a fearless and innovative air warrior, organizing and leading the devastating raid against Japan immortalized in the film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.

Now, for the first time, here is his life story — modest, revealing, and candid as only Doolittle himself can tell it.


From the Paperback edition..
Price: $36.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

 In the true spirit of David and Goliath, financial consultant Keith Schooley takes on his former employer in a stand to expose internal wrongdoing and cover-ups. In Merrill Lynch: The Cost Could Be Fatal—My War Against Wall Street’s Giant, Schooley’s initial excitement for a new career in finance with Merrill Lynch is clear. His enthusiasm is soon overshadowed by blatant wrongdoing in this powerhouse financial firm. In a daring move, Schooley decides he cannot look the other way and writes a lengthy memo to company management. Confident things will be put right, Schooley is shocked at Merrill Lynch’s ensuing attempts to keep him quiet. His eventual dismissal and threat of a lawsuit by his boss are followed by further steps to keep him down. Discover the fascinating details behind:

● What events led to the courtroom and binding arbitration

● Why Schooley’s appeals to regulatory agencies were futile

● How Schooley made the ultimate sacrifice, both financially and personally

● The shocking reason behind Schooley’s move from the courtroom to the court of public opinion

Merrill Lynch: The Cost Could Be Fatal is a must for all investors; anyone employed in the area of securities, insurance, financial services, employment law, or human resources; as well as anyone with an association with Merrill Lynch. This exposé of corruption and conspiracy on Wall Street strikes at America’s very foundation..
Price: $19.21 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Destroying conventional historical wisdom, acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander reveals how the South most definitely could have defeated the North-and how close a Confederate victory came to happening. Alexander shows:

•How the Confederacy had its greatest chance to win the war just three months into the fighting-but blew it
• How the Confederacy’s three most important leaders- President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson– clashed over how to fight the war
• How the Confederate army devised–but never fully exploited–a way to negate the Union’s huge advantages in manpower and weaponry
• How Abraham Lincoln and other Northern leaders understood the Union’s vulnerability better than the Confederacy’s leaders did

How the South Could Have Won the Civil War provides a startling account of how a relatively small number of tactical and strategic mistakes cost the South the war and changed the course of history..
Price: $7.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What does it feel like to starve? To feel your body cry out for nourishment, to think only of food? How many fitful, hungry nights must pass before dreams of home-cooked meals metastasize into nightmares of cannibalism? Why would anyone volunteer to find out?

In The Great Starvation Experiment, historian Todd Tucker tells the harrowing story of thirty-six young men who willingly and bravely faced down profound, consuming hunger. As conscientious objectors during World War II, these men were eager to help in the war effort but restricted from combat by their pacifist beliefs. So, instead, they volunteered to become guinea pigs in one of the most unusual experiments in medical history -- one that required a year of systematic starvation.

Dr. Ancel Keys was already famous for inventing the K ration when the War Department asked for his help with feeding the starving citizens of Europe and the Far East at the war's end. Fascists and Communists, it was feared, could gain a foothold in war-ravaged areas. "Starved people," Keys liked to say, "can't be taught Democracy." The government needed to know the best way to rehabilitate those people who had been severely underfed during the long war. To study rehabilitation, Keys first needed to create a pool of starving test subjects.

Gathered in a cutting-edge lab underneath the football stadium at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Keys' test subjects forsook most food and were monitored constantly so that Dr. Keys and his scientists could study the effects of starvation on otherwise healthy people. While the weight loss of the men followed a neat mathematical curve, the psychological deterioration was less predictable. Some men drank quarts and quarts of water to fill their empty stomachs. One man chewed as many as forty packs of gum a day. One man mutilated himself to escape the experiment. Ultimately only four of the men were expelled from the experiment for cheating -- a testament to the volunteers' determination and toughness.

To prevent atrocities of the kind committed by the Nazi doctors, international law now prevents this kind of experimentation on healthy people. But in this remarkable book, Todd Tucker captures a lost sliver of American history -- a time when cold scientific principles collided with living, breathing human beings. Tucker depicts the agony and endurance of a group of extraordinary men whose lives were altered not only for the year they participated in the experiment, but forever..
Price: $3.43 [Notify me when price goes down.]

War and Peace in the Global Village, initially published in 1968, is regarded as a revolutionary work for its depiction of a planet made ever smaller by new technologies. McLuhan's prescient ideas are eerily relevant to recent discussions about the Digital Revolution and about the impact of the Internet on society. Photos & illustrations..
Price: $6.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]