When alien beings armed with devastatingly superior military technology and bent on conquest invaded earth, Allied and Axis forces were already engaged in a bloody conflict - the Second World War - that spanned the whole globe. Suddenly, humans had to stop fighting each other and unite against this deadly new enemy from beyond the Solar System. From China to North Africa, from hit-and-run cavalry raids in the American West to tank clashes in Eastern Europe, the worldwide conflict raged. Now battlefield defeats, supply shortages, guerrilla warfare in their occupied territories, rebellion within their own ranks and atomic attacks forced the alien leaders to rethink drastically their strategy and tactics. Was it going to be necessary to destroy Earth in order to save it . . . ?

Suppose Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, Hitler, and Hirohito had united to conquer an even greater foe? No one could top their power—not the Germans, not the Japanese, not the Russians, not the United States. From Pearl Harbor to panzers rolling through Paris to the Siege of Leningrad and the Battle of Midway, war seethed across the planet as flames of destruction rose higher and hotter. And then, suddenly, the real enemy came. The invaders seemed unstoppable, their technology far beyond human reach. And never before had men been more divided. For Jew to unite with Nazi, American with Japanese, and Russian with German was unthinkable. But the alternative was even worse. As the fate of the world hung in the balance, slowly, painfully, humankind took up the shocking challenge. . . .

Winner of the Northern California Book Award for Nonfiction "Both a serious work of history…and a marvelously readable dramatic narrative." —San Francisco Chronicle On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss, a blow that destroyed the offensive power of their fleet. Pacific Crucible—through a dramatic narrative relying predominantly on primary sources and eyewitness accounts of heroism and sacrifice from both navies—tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history to seize the strategic initiative.

The Right Fight, the new management guide from noted business strategists Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, turns management thinking on its head and shows why, in the fast-moving, hyper-competitive marketplaces of the 21st century, leaders need to both foster alignment and orchestrate thoughtful controversy in their organizations to get the best out of them. The authors’ groundbreaking research—including examples as diverse as Unilever, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Dell, the Clinton Administration, and the Houston Independent School System—shows that happy workers can become bored or complacent and thus less productive than workers who are subjected to a little properly managed tension. Readers of Good to Great and Winning, as well as the Harvard Business Review and Strategy + Business, will find much to ponder in The Right Fight.

World War I has just exploded in Europe. The peace of the entire world is in danger. How will you help? Will you: Join the Belgian resistance movement? Fight as a British Army soldier? Serve as a volunteer with the American Field Service?

The purpose of Weinberg's text is to suggest a way in which the dramatic events of World War II may be seen. Weinberg argues that the war must be seen as a whole, and that the presentation of it in discrete segments covering the European and Pacific portions separately distorts reality and obscures important aspects of the war on both sides of the world. In addition, any understanding of the great struggle requires a mental self-liberation from the certain knowledge of its outcome. In desperate struggles millions fought and died, hopeful or fearful--or both--but without awareness of the end.

Much of how World War I is understood today is rooted in the artistic depictions of the brutal violence and considerable destruction that marked the conflict. Nothing but the Clouds Unchanged examines how the physical and psychological devastation of the war altered the course of twentieth-century artistic Modernism. Following the lives and works of fourteen artists before, during, and after the war, this book demonstrates how the conflict and the resulting trauma actively shaped artistic production. Featured artists include Georges Braque, Carlo Carrà, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz, Fernand Léger, Wyndham Lewis, André Masson, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Nash, and Oskar Schlemmer. Materials from the Getty Research Institute’s special collections—including letters, popular journals, posters, sketches, propaganda, books, and photographs—situate the works of the artists within the historical context, both personal and cultural, in which they were created. The volume accompanies a related exhibition on view at the Getty Research Institute Gallery from November 25, 2014, to April 19, 2015.

James Joll's study is not simply another narrative, retracing the powder trail that was finally ignited at Sarajevo. It is an ambitious and wide-ranging analysis of the historical forces at work in the Europe of 1914, and the very different ways in which historians have subsequently attempted to understand them. The importance of the theme, the breadth and sympathy of James Joll's scholarship, and the clarity of his exposition, have all contributed to the spectacular success of the book since its first appearance in 1984. Revised by Gordon Martel, this new 3rd edition accommodates recent research and an expanded further reading section.

An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.