This portrait follows the career of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann from his arrival in Vietnam in 1962, to his death in 1972. It deals centrally with his outspoken disillusionment with the war and his role as a civilian in the pacification programme afterwards where he rose to become the first American civilian to wield a general's command in the war.;Neil Sheehan was a Vietnam war correspondent for "United Press International" and the "New York...

Every battle is different. Each takes place in a different context - the war, the campaign, the weapons. However, battles across the centuries, whether fought with sticks and stones or advanced technology, have much in common. Fighting is, after all, an intensely human affair; human nature doesn't change. So why were battles fought as they were? What gave them their shape? Why did they go as they did: victory for one side, defeat for the other? In...

The first ever authorised history of the SAS, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Regiment. In the summer of 1941, at the height of the war in the Western Desert, a bored and eccentric young officer, David Stirling, came up with a plan that was imaginative, radical and entirely against the rules: a small, undercover unit that would wreak havoc behind enemy lines. Despite intense opposition, Winston Churchill personally gave Stirling permission...

March 1945. Allied troops are poised to cross the Rhine and sweep on into Germany. Victory is finally within their grasp. But if they believe this victory can be easily won, they face swift disillusionment. The final 100 days of the Second World War will prove to be bitterly and bloodily fought, village by village, town by town. In this book, military historian Peter Caddick-Adams brings this closing stage of the Allies' fight against Nazi Germany...

On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary...

The Spartan hoplite enjoys unquestioned currency as history's greatest fighting man. The last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends in their own time, famous for their ability to endure hardship, control their emotions, and to never surrender - even in the face of impossible odds, even when it meant certain death. Was this reputation earned? Or was it simply the success of a propaganda machine that began turning at Thermopylae in 480 BC?...

Trapped. Surrounded. Betrayed. 'Desert Fire' tells the shocking true story of a top secret mission in Iraq.

The Blood Tub is a new, controversial and stirring account of one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War, a heroic but disastrous engagement which left a lasting rift between the British and Australians.

A complete history of Bomber Command, including its crucial role in WWII and later nuclear role in the Cold War.

The first rule of nuclear war is that there are no rules. Up to now, no one outside of official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilisation as we know it. If a single nuclear missile is launched, it provokes two dozen in return. Frantic calls over secure lines work to confirm...