In the fall of 1943, armed with only his notebooks and pencils, Time and Life correspondent Robert L. Sherrod leapt from the safety of a landing craft and waded through neck-deep water and a hail of bullets to reach the shores of the Tarawa Atoll with the US Marine Corps. Living shoulder to shoulder with the marines, Sherrod chronicled combat and the marines' day-to-day struggles as they leapfrogged across the Central Pacific, battling the Japanese on Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. While the marines courageously and doggedly confronted an enemy that at times seemed invincible, those left behind on the American home front desperately scanned Sherrod's columns for news of their loved ones. Following his death in 1994, the Washington Post heralded Sherrod's reporting as "some of the most vivid accounts of men at war ever produced by an American journalist." Now, for the first time, author Ray E. Boomhower tells the story of the journalist in Dispatches from the Pacific: The World War II Reporting of Robert L. Sherrod, an intimate account of the war efforts on the Pacific front.

Viviano's tales about this expansive era are of mythic proportions. He brilliantly recreates the lives of people in Pacific countries who have been touched by the rapid march into the technological age.

Firsthand accounts of war in the Pacific theater from a premier chronicler of the real world of World War II combat. War Is Not Just for Heroes rescues the incredible true stories of US Marine Corps. Written by one marine, Claude R. "Red" Canup, a combat correspondent in the Pacific during World War II, these dispatches and private letters provide insight into the grind of war and ordinary men and women who carried out their duty. Thoughtfully edited and contextualized by a preface and prologue by his daughter, War Is Not Just for Heroes combines documentary and biography to provide the human dimensions of those in combat and those who reported out.

Looking to make a radical change in his life, English teacher Chuck McKeever decides to hike the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. The only problem: he's never backpacked for more than a weekend before. Along this winding path from Mexico to Canada, he meets colorful characters, bears witness to some of America's most beautiful scenery, and learns unforgettable lessons about fear, perseverance, and the power of community. Set against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election, A Good Place for Maniacs is a timely reminder that everything in American life is inherently political, and that no one ever really does anything great alone.

The impact of continuous coastal development, reclamation, destruction of corals, overfishing and increased maritime traffic places all of us on the front lines of preserving our oceans. Marine biologists, who share a common language that cuts across political, economic and social differences, recognize that the sea’s remarkable coral reefs, which provide food, jobs and protection against storms and floods, have suffered unprecedented rates of destruction in recent decades. Dispatches from the South China Sea’s blend of participatory research and field reportage paves the way for a transformation of policy and, provides a basis for the eventual resolution of some of today’s major maritime conflicts. From overfishing, illegal and unregulated fishing, coral reef destruction and reclamations, Dispatches from the South China Sea charts science-driven cooperation opportunities. James Borton purposefully and passionately argues that the South China Sea can become a body of water that unites, rather than divides.

For all readers, especially those whose only of World War II may be from textbooks or films, Ernie's War offers a revealing, poignant look at the actual experiences of the average foot soldier swept into the tumult of battle. 9 black-and-white photographs.

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist, this powerful elegy for our disappearing coast “captures nature with precise words that almost amount to poetry” (The New York Times). Hailed as “the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing” (Chicago Tribune), Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love. With every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through these dramatic changes, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish. Rush sheds light on the unfolding crises through firsthand testimonials—a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago—woven together with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities. A Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal Best Book Of 2018 Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award A Chicago Tribune Top Ten Book of 2018

"To truly understand the United States, one must understand the 'not-quite states of America." —Mark Stein, best-selling author of How the States Got Their Shapes Everyone knows that America is 50 states and…some other stuff. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states—American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—and their 4 million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. But they’re filled with American flags, U.S. post offices, and Little League baseball games. How did these territories come to be part of the United States? What are they like? And why aren’t they states? When Doug Mack realized just how little he knew about the territories, he set off on a globe-hopping quest covering more than 30,000 miles to see them all. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mack examines the Founding Fathers’ arguments over expansion. He explores Polynesia’s outsize influence on American culture, from tiki bars to tattoos, in American Samoa. He tours Guam with members of a military veterans’ motorcycle club, who offer personal stories about the territory’s role in World War II and its present-day importance for the American military. In the Northern Mariana Islands, he learns about star-guided seafaring from one of the ancient tradition’s last practitioners. And everywhere he goes in Puerto Rico, he listens in on the lively debate over political status—independence, statehood, or the status quo. The Not-Quite States of America is an entertaining account of the territories’ place in the USA, and it raises fascinating questions about the nature of empire. As Mack shows, the territories aren’t mere footnotes to American history; they are a crucial part of the story.

The most authoritative and revealing examination yet of the way intelligence--of all kinds--was instrumental in defeating Japan. Prados gives a new picture of the war in the Pacific, one which will challenge many previous conceptions about that conflict, and one which will be irresistible to those readers who find histories of that period fascinating. 16 pages of photos.

“The best book by far on the Pacific War” (The New York Times Book Review), this classic one-volume history of World War II in the Pacific draws on declassified intelligence files; British, American, and Japanese archival material; and military memoirs to provide a stunning and complete history of the conflict. This “superbly readable, insightful, gripping” (Washington Post Book World) contribution to WWII history combines impeccable research with electrifying detail and offers provocative interpretations of this brutal forty-four-month struggle. Author and historian Ronald H. Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy than a strategic calculation. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition. Spector skillfully takes us from top-secret strategy meetings in Washington, London, and Tokyo to distant beaches and remote Asian jungles with battle-weary GIs. He reveals that the US had secret plans to wage unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan months before Pearl Harbor and shows that MacArthur and his commanders ignored important intercepts of Japanese messages that would have saved thousands of lives in Papua and Leyte. Throughout, Spector contends that American decisions in the Pacific War were shaped more often by the struggles between the British and the Americans, and between the Army and the Navy, than by strategic considerations. Spector vividly recreates the major battles, little-known campaigns, and unfamiliar events leading up to the deadliest air raid ever, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the American war in the Pacific and the people and forces that determined its outcome.