When poet Fannie Toyne talked about her father, Charles Brother, which was hardly ever, she said her earliest memory was being thrown out a window. When Civil War Marine Charles Brother talked about "the boys," which was often, he talked of the pursuit of that prize ship and the Battle of Mobile Bay when Admiral Farragut reportedly cried out, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" Drenched in history and sea salt, The Boys of Bath is a saga of sacrifice and loyalty, exhibiting the few and proud men of rare, high spirit: the first to go in, not flinching for canon, shipwreck, or mines. Charles Brother wrote of life in Bath, New York, and in the barracks in Boston and Brooklyn, the New York Draft Riots, gunnery, targets, storms, and drilling with terrific shipmates-men who were agile and ready to fly in the ropes and through life-his fraternity. His story is about the bloody correction of the nineteenth century, made by grandsons of slave owners, a story relevant only to those who know well this business of being wrong about all of it-the true cost of sin against a race and the exit strategy, the unspoken promise to be silent, the pursuit of a prize, and the torpedo mines primed to give way to that switch, even those only in your head.

When news of the war broke out in 1914, nothing could prepare the citizens of Bath for the changes that would envelop their city over the next four years. The story of Bath in the Great War is both an interesting and intriguing one. This book covers this historic city's involvement from the commencement of the Great War in July 1914, to the Armistice in November 1918, describing in great detail what happened to the city and its people, including their everyday lives, entertainment, spies and the internment of aliens living within the city. Bath played a key role in the deployment of troops to Northern Europe as well as supplying vital munitions. Local men responded keenly to recruitment drives and thousands of soldiers were billeted in the city before being sent off to fight the enemy overseas. The city also played a vital role caring for the many wounded soldiers who returned home from the front. As the end of the war was announced there were tremendous celebrations in the streets, but the effects of war lasted for years to come. By the end of the conflict, there wasn't a family in Bath who hadn't lost a son, father, nephew, uncle or brother. Bath features many forgotten news stories of the day and includes a considerable collection of rare photographs last seen in newspapers nearly 70 years ago.

“A precisely crafted and bracingly honest” memoir of war and its aftershocks from the New York Times–bestselling author of Matterhorn (The Atlantic). In 1968, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. In his thirteen-month tour he saw intense combat, killing the enemy and watching friends die. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his experiences. In What It Is Like to Go to War, Marlantes takes a candid look at these experiences and critically examines how we might better prepare young soldiers for war. In the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion, and literature—which also helped bring them home. While contemplating ancient works from Homer to the Mahabharata, Marlantes writes of the daily contradictions modern warriors are subject to, of being haunted by the face of a young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters, and of how he finally found a way to make peace with his past. Through it all, he demonstrates just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of the journey. In this memoir, the New York Times–bestselling author of Matterhorn offers “a well-crafted and forcefully argued work that contains fresh and important insights into what it’s like to be in a war and what it does to the human psyche” (The Washington Post).

Nominated for a 34th annual Lambda Literary Award • A scintillating thriller with an emotional punch: “The tension builds to unbearably claustrophobic levels. To say more would rob readers of the 'no, he didn’t' suspense that makes Bath Haus an unexpectedly twisted, heart-pounding cat-versus-mouse thriller" (Los Angeles Times). Oliver Park, a recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving, wealthy partner in Nathan, a prominent DC trauma surgeon. Despite their difference in age and disparate backgrounds, they've made a perfect life together. With everything to lose, Oliver shouldn't be visiting Haus, a gay bathhouse. But through the entrance he goes, and it's a line crossed. Inside, he follows a man into a private room, and it's the final line. Whatever happens next, Nathan can never know. But then, everything goes wrong, terribly wrong, and Oliver barely escapes with his life. He races home in full-blown terror as the hand-shaped bruise grows dark on his neck. The truth will destroy Nathan and everything they have together, so Oliver does the thing he used to do so well: he lies. What follows is a classic runaway-train narrative, full of the exquisite escalations, edge-of-your-seat thrills, and oh-my-god twists. P. J. Vernon's Bath Haus is perfect for readers curious for their next must-read novel.

It is 1939. Anthony Roberts is just a schoolboy when his parents welcome the Blumfeldts, a Jewish couple and their young daughter, refugees from Germany, into their home in Bath. But Anthony has to grow up fast as the Nazis bring the war to their very doorstep and his elder brother Henry joins up to fight.Serving in war-ravaged Italy, Anthony falls in love with the beautiful Isabella Fortuno, but their dreams are shattered when tragedy strikes.In the years that follow, secrets connecting the families are gradually uncovered, revealing a tale of love, jealousy and betrayal. The search for truth extends across Europe, but one thing becomes clear: all roads lead back to Bath and those terrible nights when the bombs fell. This engrossing story of each family's struggle to find answers, peace and love will grip you to the very last page. Original artwork by Maggie Rayner

Assured Destruction: Building the Ballistic Missile Culture of the U.S. Air Force documents the rapid development of nuclear ballistic missiles in the United States and their equally swift demise after the Cuban Missile Crisis, revealing how these drastic changes negatively influenced both the Air Force and the missile community. David W. Bath contends that the struggle to create and control nuclear ballistic missiles threatened both the dominance of the United States during an intensifying Cold War and the strategic airpower mission of the newly created Air Force. The book details the strenuous efforts required to create and prepare a missile arsenal before the Cuban Missile Crisis, which occurred only five years after the first missile was declared operational. It uses the personal recollections of former missileers and the professional military education theses they wrote to highlight some of the concerns that have faced the missileers who operated and worked on these powerful weapons from 1957 to the present. The highlight of the book, however, is the personal stories of the missileers who served during the missile crisis, revealing the efforts that they went to in order to prepare these unique and untried weapons for what many thought might become the third world war.

While there is a tacit appreciation that freedom from violence will lead to more prosperous relations among peoples, violence continues to be deployed for various political and social ends. Yet the problem of violence still defies neat description, subject to many competing interpretations. Histories of Violence offers an accessible yet compelling examination of the problem of violence as it appears in the corpus of canonical figures – from Hannah Arendt to Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault to Slavoj Žižek – who continue to influence and inform contemporary political, philosophical, sociological, cultural, and anthropological study. Written by a team of internationally renowned experts, this is an essential interrogation of post-war critical thought as it relates to violence.

With three Military Crosses, three Croix de guerre, a Légion d'honneur and a papal knighthood for his heroics during the Second World War, Sir Tommy Macpherson is the most decorated living soldier of the British Army. Yet for 65 years the Highlander's story has remained untold. Few know how, aged 21, he persuaded 23,000 SS soldiers of the feared Das Reich tank column to surrender, or how Tommy almost single-handedly stopped Tito's Yugoslavia annexing the whole of north-east Italy. Twice captured, he escaped both times, marching through hundreds of miles of German-held territory to get home. Still a schoolboy when war broke out, Tommy quickly matured into a legendary commando, and his remarkable story features a dizzyingly diverse cast of characters, including Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle.