The term "friendly fire" was coined in the 1970s but the theme appears in literature from ancient times to the present. It begins the narrative in Aeschylus's Persians and Larry Heinemann's Paco's Story. It marks the turning point in Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, the Chanson de Roland, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato. It is the subject of transformative disclosure in Jaan Kross's Czar's Madman, Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods and A.B. Yehoshua's Friendly Fire. In some stories, events propel the characters into a friendly-fire catastrophe, as in Thomas Taylor's A Piece of this Country and Oliver Stone's 1986 film Platoon. This study examines friendly fire in a broad range of literary contexts.

A "fresh...thrilling" (The Guardian) account of the Graeco-Persian Wars. In the fifth century B.C., a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold, and men. The terrorist states were Athens and Sparta, eccentric cities in a poor and mountainous backwater: Greece. The story of how their citizens took on the Great King of Persia, and thereby saved not only themselves but Western civilization as well, is as heart-stopping and fateful as any episode in history. Tom Holland’s brilliant study of these critical Persian Wars skillfully examines a conflict of critical importance to both ancient and modern history.

On a late September day in 480 B.C., Greek warships faced an invading Persian armada in the narrow Salamis Straits in the most important naval battle of the ancient world. Overwhelmingly outnumbered by the enemy, the Greeks triumphed through a combination of strategy and deception. More than two millennia after it occurred, the clash between the Greeks and Persians at Salamis remains one of the most tactically brilliant battles ever fought. The Greek victory changed the course of western history -- halting the advance of the Persian Empire and setting the stage for the Golden Age of Athens. In this dramatic new narrative account, historian and classicist Barry Strauss brings this landmark battle to life. He introduces us to the unforgettable characters whose decisions altered history: Themistocles, Athens' great leader (and admiral of its fleet), who devised the ingenious strategy that effectively destroyed the Persian navy in one day; Xerxes, the Persian king who fought bravely but who ultimately did not understand the sea; Aeschylus, the playwright who served in the battle and later wrote about it; and Artemisia, the only woman commander known from antiquity, who turned defeat into personal triumph. Filled with the sights, sounds, and scent of battle, The Battle of Salamis is a stirring work of history.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel of the Spanish Civil War, a modern classic, and a searing exploration of the unknowability of history, by the acclaimed author of Outlaws In the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, an unknown militiaman discovered a Nationalist prisoner who had fled a firing squad and taken refuge in the forest. But instead of killing him, the soldier simply turned and walked away. The prisoner, Rafael Sánchez Mazas—writer, fascist, and founder of the Spanish Falange—went on to become a national hero and ultimately a minister in Franco's first government. The soldier disappeared into history. Sixty years later, Javier Cercas—or at least, a character who shares his name—sifts through the evidence to establish what really happened that day. Who was the soldier? Why didn't he shoot? And who was the true hero in the story? Every answer yields another question in this powerful and elegantly constructed novel about truth, memory, and war.

This book looks at a number of topics in economic education, presenting multiple perspectives from those in the field to anyone interested in teaching economics. Using anecdotes, classroom experiments and surveys, the contributing authors show that, with some different or new techniques, teaching economics can be more engaging for students and help them better retain what they learned. Chapters cover a wide range of approaches to teaching economics, from interactive approaches such as utilizing video games and Econ Beats, to more rigorous examinations of government policies, market outcomes and exploring case studies from specific courses. Many of the chapters incorporate game theory and provide worked out examples of games designed to help students with intuitive retention of the material, and these games can be replicated in any economics classroom. While the exercises are geared towards college-level economics students, instructors can draw inspiration for course lectures from the various approaches taken here and utilize them at any level of teaching. This book will be very useful to instructors in economics interested in bringing innovative teaching methods into the classroom.

“A fresh approach to the Greco-Persian wars focusing on Athens’s evacuation, Persian occupation, and rebuilding . . . [a] compelling book.” —John O. Hyland, Christopher Newport University Winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Between June 480 and August 479 BC, tens of thousands of Athenians evacuated, following King Xerxes’ victory at the Battle of Thermopylae. Abandoning their homes and ancestral tombs in the wake of the invading Persian army, they sought refuge abroad. During this difficult year of exile, the city of Athens was set on fire not once, but twice. In Athens Burning, Robert Garland explores the reasons behind the decision to abandon Attica, the peninsular region of Greece that includes Athens, while analyzing the consequences, both material and psychological, of the resulting invasion. Taking its inspiration from the sufferings of civilians, Athens Burning also works to dispel the image of the Persians as ruthless barbarians. Addressing questions that are largely ignored in other accounts of the conflict, including how the evacuation was organized and what kind of facilities were available to the refugees along the way, Garland demonstrates the relevance of ancient history to the contemporary world. This compelling story is especially resonant in a time when the news is filled with the suffering of nearly 5 million people driven by civil war from their homes in Syria. Aimed at students and scholars of ancient history, this highly accessible book will also fascinate anyone interested in the burgeoning fields of refugee and diaspora studies. “The fullest account of the Persian sack of Athens in September 480 and in June 479 BCE available in English.” —Canadian Journal of History

Chronicles two decades of war between Athens and Sparta.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.”—Pat Conroy At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .