In 16 riveting portraits, bestselling historian Harvey offers the definitive, one-volume account of some of history's most important and surprising battlesand the commanders who won the field. 16 b&w photographs.

Smedley Butler's life and career epitomize the contradictory nature of American military policy through the first part of this century. Butler won renown as a Marine battlefield hero, campaigning in most of America's foreign military expeditions from 1898 to the late 1920s. He became the leading national advocate for paramilitary police reform. Upon his retirement, however, he renounced war and imperialism and devoted his energy and prestige to various dissident and leftist political causes.

Learn how to be a leader in your own life and career with expert advice from one of the Navy's elite TOPGUN instructors. During a twenty-year career in uniform, Guy Snodgrass became one of the most skilled fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, commanding combat jets over some of the most dangerous war zones in the world -- and he did it all using the lessons he learned at the Navy's Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). The real-life inspiration for the blockbuster films Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick, the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School trains the top one percent of our nation's fighter pilots. Over the course of twelve weeks, these pilots are drilled on aerial tactics, combat, and skills required to win in any organization. Ordinary people are transformed into world-class leaders. Pilots, like Commander Snodgrass, who remain on staff as TOPGUN instructors, are held to even higher and more demanding standards. In TOPGUN's Top 10, Commander Snodgrass distills some of the most important lessons he's learned and taught over the course of his career into a taut, engaging book for readers of all ages and experience levels. It's the perfect gift for anyone looking to change careers, excel in the workplace, or find their way in the world after college graduation. Smart, practical, and direct, Snodgrass's account of real TOPGUN experience will inspire a new generation of leaders.

"The true military maverick combines a fixated dedication to his cause with an heroic ability to lead troops into battle." Kirkus Review Praise for David Rooney: "I thought I had read all the good books on the war in Burma, but this is the best yet." Brigadier Michael Calvert What makes a maverick? Is it simply an unorthodox mind? Or is it more than that - a flagrant disregard for convention? Is there a place for the maverick in a disciplined military hierarchy? If so, is the military maverick more likely to win, or lose, a battle? In an absorbing study of military figures who broke the rules, David Rooney shows how it is so often the maverick who turns challenges into opportunities - and snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. Here are the stories of twelve mavericks, from Alexander the Great and Stonewall Jackson, through Garibaldi and Lawrence of Arabia - and to Second World War commanders such as Heinz Guderian, Orde Wingate and George S. Patton. Each had flaws that would have brought down a lesser man, but each proved their bravery and leadership in battle. Full of insight into the nature of the military mind, this book reveals by how much, and how often, success in battle depends on the irreplaceable presence of just one man.

Maverick Soldier is the forthright, nuts-and-bolts account of John Essex-Clark's unmatched experience as a warrior, leader and teacher. Its telling is all of a piece with the man himself—bluff, astute, no-nonsense. In the course of stumbling, as he puts it, from the rank of private to brigadier, Essex-Clark has fought in wars with the Australian, British, United States and Rhodesian armies, and has led in battle Malay, South African, Rhodesian, Vietnamese, British, New Zealand, United States and Australian soldiers. In peacetime came tours of duty in North America and Western Europe. Nicknamed 'Digger' by the Rhodesian Army and 'The Big E' in the Australian, he led by force of personality, drive, common sense and self-confidence. Military readers and armchair witnesses to war will be challenged by his trenchant and timely views on army obsession with technology and the paucity of subtle tactical thinking. Various controversies are aired: whether we were 'pussyfooters' in Vietnam; bastardization at Duntroon; how best to conduct counter-terrorism. He is angered by what he sees as a 'surfeit of military dilettantes and budding bureaucrats and a dearth of warrior-chiefs'. Always one to lead from the front and to trust the courage and good sense of the ordinary infantryman, his interests have been strategy and battle tactics, leadership and training. He writes particularly for today's young soldier whom he loves with an old fashioned generosity, and to whom he can declare with conviction, 'I have no angst about being a soldier'.

The explosive sequel to the bestselling PATHFINDER. For the first time ever an elite British operator tells the gruelling story of his selection into the Pathfinders - Britain's secret soldiers. Pathfinder selection is a brutal physical and psychological trial lasting many weeks. It rivals that of the SAS and takes place over the same spine-crushing terrain, in the rain-and-snow-lashed wastes of the Welsh Mountains. For two decades no one has been able to relate the extraordinary trials of British elite forces selection - until now. Captain David Blakeley goes on from completing selection to serve with the Pathfinders in Afghanistan post 9/11, where he had a gun held to his head by Al Qaeda fighters. From there he deploys to Iraq, on a series of dramatic behind- enemy-lines missions - wherein he and his tiny elite patrol are outnumbered, outgunned and trapped. Maverick One is unique and extraordinary, chronicling the making of a warrior. It culminates in Blakeley fighting back to full recovery from horrific injuries suffered whilst on operations in Iraq, to go on to face SAS selection.

Among the high-ranking gray uniforms Daniel Harvey Hill caused a stir as a sash of red in a bullpen would. Hot-tempered, outspoken, he stormed his way through the Civil War, leading his soldiers at Malvern Hill and Antietam, and sometimes stepping on the toes of superiors. But he was much more than a seemingly impervious shield against Union bullets: a devout Christian, a family man, a gloomy fatalist, an intellectual. Lee’s Maverick General makes clear that he was often caught in the crossfire of military politics and ultimately made a scapegoat for the costly, barren victory at Chickamauga. Hal Bridges, drawing on Hill’s unpublished papers, offers an outsider’s inside views of Lee, Jefferson Davis, Braxton Bragg, James Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, and others up and down the embattled line. In his introduction, Gary W. Gallagher rounds out the portrait of the controversial Hill, whose reading of military affairs was always perceptive.

The Unseen Leader delivers one simple but immensely powerful point: we need to radically rethink how we discuss leadership. In this book, American historian Martin Gutmann passionately challenges the received wisdom that history's great leaders were individuals with a proclivity for action and brash words. Drawing on extensive historical scholarship and contemporary leadership theory, Gutmann delves into the journeys of four unknown or misunderstood leaders who achieved remarkable successes in vastly different environments—the Polar North, the deserts of Arabia, the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, and Second World War London. What emerges is an entirely new narrative on leadership. Contrary to the perception of heroic protagonists forging ahead boldly, history's truly great leaders were often precisely those who didn't need to generate excessive noise or activity. Instead, they skillfully minimized dramatic circumstances. Their stories challenge our present-day conception of leadership and can inspire the leaders of tomorrow.