S2 Actual reading list

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

Ben Macintyre

Crown · 2014

Master storyteller Ben Macintyre’s most ambitious work to date brings to life the twentieth century’s greatest spy story. Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world. But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow—and not just Elliott’s words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott’s unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him—until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake. Told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, and based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files, A Spy Among Friends is Ben Macintyre’s best book yet, a high-water mark in Cold War history telling.

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

Ben Macintyre

Harmony Books · 2007

Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. In 1941, after training as a German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted MI5, the British Secret Service. For the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service who at one time volunteered to assassinate Hitler for his countrymen. Crisscrossing Europe under different names, all the while weaving plans, spreading disinformation, and, miraculously, keeping his stories straight under intense interrogation, he even managed to gain some profit and seduce beautiful women along the way. The Nazis feted Chapman as a hero and awarded him the Iron Cross. In Britain, he was pardoned for his crimes, becoming the only wartime agent to be thus rewarded. Both countries provided for the mother of his child and his mistress. Sixty years after the end of the war, and ten years after Chapman’s death, MI5 has now declassified all of Chapman’s files, releasing more than 1,800 pages of top secret material and allowing the full story of Agent Zigzag to be told for the first time. A gripping story of loyalty, love, and treachery, Agent Zigzag offers a unique glimpse into the psychology of espionage, with its thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.

Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany

Stephen E. Ambrose

From Stephen E. Ambrose, bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day , the inspiring story of the ordinary men of the U.S. army in northwest Europe from the day after D-Day until the end of the bitterest days of World War II. In this riveting account, historian Stephen E. Ambrose continues where he left off in his #1 bestseller D-Day. Citizen Soldiers opens at 0001 hours, June 7, 1944, on the Normandy beaches, and ends at 0245 hours, May 7, 1945, with the allied victory. It is biography of the US Army in the European Theater of Operations, and Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war. From the high command down to the ordinary soldier, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it.

Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink

Anthony McCarten

HarperCollins Publishers · 2017

From the acclaimed novelist and screenwriter of The Theory of Everything comes a revelatory look at the period immediately following Winston Churchill’s ascendancy to Prime Minister—soon to be a major motion picture starring Gary Oldman. “He was speaking to the nation, the world, and indeed to history...”  May, 1940. Britain is at war. The horrors of blitzkrieg have seen one western European democracy after another fall in rapid succession to Nazi boot and shell. Invasion seems mere hours away.  Just days after becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill must deal with this horror—as well as a skeptical King, a party plotting against him, and an unprepared public. Pen in hand and typist-secretary at the ready, how could he change the mood and shore up the will of a nervous people?  In this gripping day-by-day, often hour-by-hour account of how an often uncertain Churchill turned Britain around, the celebrated Bafta-winning writer Anthony McCarten exposes sides of the great man never seen before. He reveals how he practiced and re-wrote his key speeches, from ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’ to ‘We shall fight on the beaches’; his consideration of a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, and his underappreciated role in the Dunkirk evacuation; and, above all, how 25 days helped make one man an icon.  Using new archive material, McCarten reveals the crucial behind-the-scenes moments that changed the course of history. It’s a scarier—and more human—story than has ever been told.  “McCarten's pulse-pounding narrative transports the reader to those springtime weeks in 1940 when the fate of the world rested on the shoulders of Winston Churchill. A true story thrillingly told. Thoroughly researched and compulsively readable.”—Michael F. Bishop, Executive Director of the International Churchill Society

Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II

Belton Y. Cooper

Presidio Press · April 29, 2003

“An important contribution to the history of World War II . . . I have never before been able to learn so much about maintenance methods of an armored division, with precise details that underline the importance of the work, along with descriptions of how the job was done.”—Russell F. Weigley, author of  Eisenhower’s Lieutenants “Cooper saw more of the war than most junior officers, and he writes about it better than almost anyone. . . . His stories are vivid, enlightening, full of life—and of pain, sorrow, horror, and triumph.” —Stephen E. Ambrose, from his Foreword  “In a down-to-earth style, Death Traps tells the compelling story of one man’s assignment to the famous 3rd Armored Division that spearheaded the American advance from Normandy into Germany. Cooper served as an ordnance officer with the forward elements and was responsible for coordinating the recovery and repair of damaged American tanks. This was a dangerous job that often required him to travel alone through enemy territory, and the author recalls his service with pride, downplaying his role in the vast effort that kept the American forces well equipped and supplied. . . . [Readers] will be left with an indelible impression of the importance of the support troops and how dependent combat forces were on them.” — Library Journal “As an alumnus of the 3rd, I eagerly awaited this book’s coming out since I heard of its release . . . and the wait and the book have both been worth it. . . . Cooper is a very polished writer, and the book is very readable. But there is a certain quality of ‘you are there’ many other memoirs do not seem to have. . . . Nothing in recent times—ridgerunning in Korea, firebases in Vietnam, or even the one hundred hours of Desert Storm—pressed the ingenuity and resolve of American troops . . . like WWII. This book lays it out better than any other recent effort, and should be part of the library of any contemporary warrior.” —Stephen Sewell,  Armor Magazine “Cooper’s writing and recall of harrowing events is superb and engrossing. Highly recommended.” —Robert A. Lynn, The Stars and Stripes “This detailed story will become a classic of WWII history and required reading for anyone interested in armored warfare.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “[ Death Traps ] fills a critical gap in WWII literature. . . . It’s a truly unique and valuable work.” —G.I. Journal

Desert War: The North African Campaign 1940-43

Alan Moorehead

Penguin Books · 2001

The seminal account of the battle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, amidst the endless harsh wastes of the Western Desert. In 1940, Alan Moorehead was sent to cover the North Africa campaign by the Daily Express, and he followed its dramatic course all the way to 1943. The three books he subsequently wrote about the Desert War – later collected as his ‘African Trilogy’ – were swiftly acclaimed as a classic account of the tussle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, under the beating sun of the Egyptian Sahara's Western Desert. Moorehead was responsible for the celebrated insight that tank battles in the desert are like battles at sea, the lumbering tanks like ships lost in a vast ocean of sand. The New Statesman could not have put it better when it described his achievement with this riveting book: ‘There is something of genius in the breadth and penetration of his vision , which encompasses the whole panorama of war and then narrows it down to the particular: the soldier stubbing out his cigarette before going into action, the expression on a tank commander’s face as he is hit… The story of the African campaigns will go down in history as one of the great epics of mankind, largely thanks to Mr Moorehead’s account.’

Eastern Approaches

Fitzroy Maclean

Penguin Global · September 1, 2004

70th Anniversary Edition with a New Foreword by Sunday Times Bestselling Author Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A classic' Observer | 'A legend' Washington Post | 'The best book you will read this year' Colonel Tim Collins Posted to Moscow as a young diplomat before the Second World War, Fitzroy Maclean travelled widely, with or without permission, in some of the wildest and remotest parts of the Soviet Union, then virtually closed to foreigners. In 1942 he fought as a founder member of the SAS in North Africa. There Maclean specialised in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines, including the daring and outrageous kidnapping of the German Consul in Axis-controlled Iraq. In 1943 he parachuted into German-occupied Yugoslavia as Winston Churchill's personal representative to Josip Broz Tito and remained there until 1945, all enemy attempts to capture him proving unsuccessful. Eastern Approaches is Maclean's classic, gripping account of the sybaritic delights of diplomatic life, the thrill of remote travel in the then-forbidden zones of Central Asia, and the violence and adventure of world-changing tours in North Africa and Yugoslavia. Maclean is the original British action hero and this is blistering reading. 'This book literally changed my life' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A man of daring character' Winston Churchill 'An absorbing mixture of military adventure, political judgement, urbane wit, cool humour and surprising incident' Financial Times 'One of the bravest men in the British army, and one of the funniest' Ben Macintyre 'Entertaining, important, the model for James Bond' New York Times

Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda

John Keegan

Knopf · 2003

In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about military intelligence. In his characteristically wry and perceptive prose, Keegan offers us nothing short of a new history of war through the prism of intelligence. He brings to life the split-second decisions that went into waging war before the benefit of aerial surveillance and electronic communications. The English admiral Horatio Nelson was hot on the heels of Napoleon’s fleet in the Mediterranean and never knew it, while Stonewall Jackson was able to compensate for the Confederacy’s disadvantage in firearms and manpower with detailed maps of the Appalachians. In the past century, espionage and decryption have changed the face of the Japanese surprise attack at the Battle of the Midway was thwarted by an early warning. Timely information, however, is only the beginning of the surprising and disturbing aspects of decisions that are made in war, where brute force is often more critical. Intelligence in War is a thought-provoking work that ranks among John Keegan’s finest achievements.

Iron Coffins: A Personal Account of the German U-boat Battles of World War II

Herbert A. Werner

Da Capo Press · June 2002

The Battle of the Atlantic was one of the most savage and strategically significant campaigns of World War II: 28,000 out of 39,000 men in the German U-boat force disappeared beneath the waves. Herbert A. Werner, one of the few surviving German U-boat commanders, served on five submarines from 1941 to 1945. From the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, from the English Channel to the North Sea, he takes the reader with him through the triumphant years of 1941 and 1942, when German U-boats nearly strangled England, to the apocalyptic final years of destruction, disillusionment, and defeat.

Leningrad: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941-44.

Anna Reid

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC · Nov 07, 2012

On September 8, 1941, eleven weeks after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, his brutal surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Leningrad was surrounded. The siege was not lifted for two and a half years, by which time some three quarters of a million Leningraders had died of starvation. Anna Reid's Leningrad is a gripping, authoritative narrative history of this dramatic moment in the twentieth century, interwoven with indelible personal accounts of daily siege life drawn from diarists on both sides. They reveal the Nazis' deliberate decision to starve Leningrad into surrender and Hitler's messianic miscalculation, the incompetence and cruelty of the Soviet war leadership, the horrors experienced by soldiers on the front lines, and, above all, the terrible details of life in the blockaded city: the relentless search for food and water; the withering of emotions and family ties; looting, murder, and cannibalism- and at the same time, extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Stripping away decades of Soviet propaganda, and drawing on newly available diaries and government records, Leningrad also tackles a raft of unanswered questions: Was the size of the death toll as much the fault of Stalin as of Hitler? Why didn't the Germans capture the city? Why didn't it collapse into anarchy? What decided who lived and who died? Impressive in its originality and literary style, Leningrad gives voice to the dead and will rival Anthony Beevor's classic Stalingrad in its impact.

Nancy Wake

Peter FitzSimons

HarperCollins Publishers · 28 January 2001

'Freedom is the only thing worth living for. While I was doing that work I used to think that it didn't matter if I died, because without freedom there was no point in living'. Nancy Wake In the early 1930's, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naive, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazi presence. What began as a courier job here and there, became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy's high-society life in Marseille. Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that he had to flee France to escape the Gestapo who had dubbed her 'the white mouse' for her knack of slipping through its traps. But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. She trained with the British Special Operations Executive and parachuted back into France behind enemy lines. Again, this singular woman rallied to the cause, helping to lead a powerful underground fighting force, the Maquis. Supplying weapons and training the civilian Maquis, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis. Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake's compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things.

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

Ben Macintyre

Bloomsbury · 2010

In 1943, from a windowless London basement office, two intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple & complicated—Operation Mincemeat. Purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking the Allies were planning to attack Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed & the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu were very different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. A perfect team, they created an ingenious plan: equip a corpse with secret (but false) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would hopefully take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (007's creator). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis & help bring victory. Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, heroes & a corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller. Unveiling never-before-released material, Macintyre goes into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles & spies, & the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness & yesmanship.” He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley & Montagu & their improbable feats into an adventure that saved thousands & paved the way for the conquest of Sicily.

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Christopher R. Browning

HarperPerennial · 1998

Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs. Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.   Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work, with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.

Panzerkrieg: The Rise and Fall of Hitler's Tank Divisions

Peter McCarthy

Carroll & Graf Publishers · 2002

The image that defines the Nazis’ Blitzkrieg is that of the Panzerwaffe’s massed columns of tanks sweeping through Europe, all resistance smashed in their wake. The Panzers’ achievements in battle were largely responsible for Germany’s early successes in World War II, and once the tide had turned against the Reich, the Panzers became the backbone of its defense. But the dramatic story of Hitler’s tank divisions is more than one of mere mechanical efficiency. It hangs, too, on those who commanded and fought in them, and believed in their near invincibility. These are the men who come to life in this immensely readable narrative. Great generals like Guderian, Rommel, and Manstein, tank masters like Wittmann and Bake, and inspired commanders like Balck and Bayerlein dominate the story of Panzerkreig. Dispensing with jargon, but including explanatory maps, rare illustrations, and fascinating detail on uniforms, crew members, and the mechanical features of the machines, the authors give a comprehensive overview of all aspects of the subject, both human and technical. They have also benefited from new information available since the opening of Cold War archives. Emerging from the narrative is the whole vast canvas of the war, as it follows the titanic struggles that raged between France’s bocage country, North Africa’s desert wastes, and Russia’s limitless steppes. The development of German fighting vehicles and tactics is fully charted, and the many myths and misconceptions of the Panzerwaffe are exploded. Extensive research, maps, illustrations throughout, reference to the leading participants’ memoirs, and original new conclusions all contribute to this finely measured assessment of the evolution, exploits, and eventual destruction of this superlative fighting force.

Password Is Courage

John Castle

Souvenir Press · 2001

The man who broke into Auschwitz. When he was captured in France in 1940 Sergeant-Major Charles Coward launched his own private war against the Germans (although he was being held as a prisoner-of-war). For several years he was the most incredible amateur espionage and sabotage agent of World War Two, opposing the Nazis while sending back vital information to England. He escaped from captivity nine times and was, eventually, sent to Auschwitz III (a labour camp just five miles from Auschwitz II, the extermination camp). He carried guns and dynamite for the Polish underground movement, traded in dead bodies (by swapping the corpses of dead prisoners for Jewish prisoners, allowing the prisoners to escape) and, finally, he smuggled himself into Auschwitz where he witnessed the full horrors of the extermination camp. This is one of the most heroic and extraordinary stories of World War Two. Charles Coward fought the might of the Nazi army and won, his courage is testament to the indomitable human spirit facing overwhelming odds. At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials Coward's testimony was sensational, allowing over 2,000 Auschwitz survivors to file lawsuits for compensations against their former oppressors.

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare

Philip Short

Henry Holt and Company · 2006

Philip Short observed Pol Pot at close quarters during the one and only official visit Pol ever made abroad, to China in 1975. He was struck by Pol Pot's charm and charisma, yet, soon after, the leader would emerge as the architect of one of the most radical and ruthless experiments in social engineering ever undertaken. His egalitarian utopia released a reign of terror that would result in one in every five Cambodians - more than a million people - perishing in the killing fields or from hunger. Why did it happen? How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity's worst nightmares? To answer these questions, Short traveled through Cambodia, interviewing former Khmer Rouge leaders and sifting through previously closed archives around the world. Key figures, including Khlen Samphan and Ieng Sary, Pol Pot's brother-in-law and foreign minister, speak here for the first time. Philip Short's masterly narrative reveals how Pol Pot engineered his country's desolation, fashioning the definitive portrait of the man who headed one of the most enigmatic and terrifying regimes of modern times.

Red Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Joseph Pilyushin

Joseph Pilyushin

Pen & Sword Books Limited · 2010

A gripping memoir of a Soviet sniper who fought against the Nazis during the siege of Leningrad and throughout World War II. Joseph Pilyushin, a top Red Army sniper in the ruthless fight against the Germans on the Eastern Front, was an exceptional soldier. His first-hand account of his wartime service gives a graphic insight into his lethal skill with a rifle and into the desperate fight put up by Soviet forces to defend Leningrad. Pilyushin, who lived in Leningrad with his family, was already 35 years-old when the war broke out and he was drafted. He started in the Red Army as a scout, but once he had demonstrated his marksmanship and steady nerve, he became a sniper. He served throughout the Leningrad siege, from the late 1941 when the Wehrmacht’s advance was halted just short of the city to its liberation during the Soviet offensive of 1944. His descriptions of grueling front-line life, of his fellow soldiers, and of his sniping missions are balanced by his vivid recollections of the protracted suffering of Leningrad’s imprisoned population and of the grief that was visited upon him and his family. His narrative will be fascinating reading for anyone eager to learn about the role and technique of the sniper during the Second World War. It is also a memorable eyewitness account of one man’s experience on the Eastern Front.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

T.E. Lawrence

Anchor Books · 1991

In his classic book, T.E. Lawrence—forever known as Lawrence of Arabia—recounts his role in the origin of the modern Arab world. At first a shy Oxford scholar and archaeologist with a facility for languages, he joined and went on to lead the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks while the rest of the world was enmeshed in World War I. With its richly detailed evocation of the land and the people Lawrence passionately believed in, its incisive portraits of key players, from Faisal ibn Hussein, the future Hashemite king of Syria and Iraq, to General Sir Edmund Allenby and other members of the British imperial forces, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an indispensible primary historical source. It helps us to understand today’s Middle East, while giving us thrilling accounts of military exploits (including the liberation of Aqaba and Damascus), clandestine activities, and human foibles.

Sniper One: The Blistering True Story Of A British Battle Group Under Siege

Dan Mills

Penguin · 2008

Sniper One is the gritty, awe-inspiring true story that takes you right into the heart of the Iraq war from Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Sgt. Dan Mills. 'One of the best first-hand accounts of combat that I've ever read' Andy McNab We all saw it at once. Half a dozen voices screamed 'Grenade!' simultaneously. Then everything went into slow motion. The grenade took an age to travel through its 20 metre arc. A dark, small oval-shaped package of misery the size of a peach ... April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers fly into southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained fire fight British troops had faced for over fifty years. This awe-inspiring account tells of total war in throat-burning winds and fifty-degree heat, blasted by mortars and surrounded by heavily armed militias. For six months, they fought isolated, besieged and under constant enemy fire. Their heroic stand a modern-day Rorke's Drift. ************** Dan Mills served for 24 years as an Infantry Soldier reaching the rank of Warrant Officer Class 2. During his long military career he served on operations in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Dan was awarded a 'Mention In Despatches' for Gallantry for his services during The Iraq War. Since leaving the Army in 2010, he has forged a career as a writer and security consultant, amongst other things. Sniper One is his first book.

Storm of Steel

Ernst Jünger

Penguin Books Ltd · June 3, 2004

A memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism, 'Storm of Steel' illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, Jünger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict, but more importantly as a unique personal struggle. Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, Jünger kept testing himself, braced for the death that will mark his failure. Published shortly after the war's end, 'Storm of Steel' was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.

Survival in the Killing Fields

Haing Ngor

Carroll & Graf · 1987

Nothing has shaped my life as much as surviving the Pol Pot regime. I am a survivor of the Cambodian holocaust. That's who I am. He became famous through his academy award-winning performance as Dith Pran in the film The Killing Fields, but the key to Haing Ngor's screen success was the terrible truth of his own experiences in the rice paddies and labour camps of revolutionary Cambodia. Here, in a gripping memoir of life under the communist Khmer Rouge regime, he reveals the country's descent into a hell beyond our imaginings: a world of war slaves and senseless brutality, where family life simply ceases to be. But with the pain he also gives us hope and an illuminating example of how the best sort of love can actually be strengthened through the shared experience of a life-threatening ordeal. An eyewitness account of the real killing fields by an extraordinary survivor, this book is both a reminder of the horrors of war and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

Gregory A. Freeman

Nal Caliber · 2007

Draws on recently declassified documents and exclusive interviews to recount the dramatic story of a World War II rescue mission in 1944 during which the OSS embarked on a daring scheme to recover more than five hundred airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. 40,000 first printing.

The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 (Abridged)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Perennial · 2002

Drawing on his own incarceration and exile, as well as on evidence from more than 200 fellow prisoners and Soviet archives, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression—the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully. Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims—men, women, and children—we encounter secret police operations, labor camps and prisons; the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the welcome that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness the astounding moral courage of the incorruptible, who, defenseless, endured great brutality and degradation. The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956—a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle—has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.

The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan

Ben Macintyre

Farrar, Straus and Giroux · April 14, 2005

The riveting story that inspired Kipling's classic tale and a John Huston movie The true story of Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker and the first American ever to enter Afghanistan, has never been told before. Soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler and writer, Josiah Harlan wanted to be a king, with all the imperialist hubris of his times. In an amazing twenty-year journey around Central Asia, he was variously employed as surgeon to the Maharaja of Punjab, revolutionary agent for the exiled Afghan King, and then commander-in-chief of the Afghan armies. In 1838, he set off in the footsteps of Alexander the Great across the Hindu Kush and forged his own kingdom, only to be ejected from Afghanistan a few months later by the invading British. Using a trove of newly-discovered documents, Harlan's own unpublished journals, and with a revised Preface detailing the unexpected discovery of Harlan's descendents, Ben Macintyre's The Man Who Would Be King tells the astonishing tale of the man who would be the first and last American king.