After 9/11, when the nation was still in shock over the unprecedented attack on U.S. soil, Shannen Rossmiller, a country judge and mother of three in rural Montana, was formulating a plan. Soon she was devouring literature on Islamic culture, teaching herself Arabic, and preparing to infiltrate the central nervous system of global terror: online networks. Her efforts succeeded beyond imagination. Posing as an Islamic terrorist under dozens of screen aliases, she joined forces with the FBI and started trolling jihadist chat rooms, striking up conversations at 3am with men as far away as Pakistan, and amassing evidence against an array of suspected terrorists both at home and abroad. Her work laid the foundation for the online searches so crucial to law enforcement's fight against terror today. Shannen's husband, Randy, uncovered her double life after a chat room terrorist wiped out the family computer and reports rolled in that the Rossmillers were being targeted for reprisal. Undeterred, Shannen started working with the FBI on sting operations, involving everything from jihadist cells to weapons caches to bomb plots, and bringing many of her targets to justice, as well as pioneering the digital entrapment tactics that are at the forefront of today's war on terror. This is the story of one woman's unexpected courage and how it changed the face of this global struggle.

In the mid 1990s self-styled Patriot John Pitner gathered around him a ragtag band of discontents, all eager to avenge themselves against America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic. Fervently believing that a New World Order threatened their liberty and way of life, Pitner and his recruits prepared for confrontation until an FBI sting led to their arrests on conspiracy charges in 1997. In Lone Patriot, acclaimed New Yorker correspondent Jane Kramer delivers an intimate look into the life and mind of a militia leader and his followers, exploring the volatile mix of personalities and politics that shapes their extreme worldview. Through a series of exclusive interviews with them both before and after, Kramer paints an incredible portrait of a rural America that is rarely glimpsed but strikingly relevant.

Japan and China are thrown close to the brink of war when a Japanese warship is attacked. Meanwhile top Covert-One operative Jon Smith is sent to recover mysterious material from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactor. Smith vanishes, and CIA agent Randi Russell goes on an unsanctioned mission to find him. She discovers that the missing samples may be evidence that Japan, led by Chief of Staff Masao Takahashi, has been developing next-generation weapons systems in preparation for a conflict with China. The Covert-One team must prevent Takahashi from sparking a war, or the world will be dragged into a battle certain to kill tens of millions of people and leave much of the planet uninhabitable.

After the government’s first choice to design a secret installation is discovered and murdered by foreign agents, the president turns to a lonely widower from Pittsburgh to take her place. Stanley Bigelow’s unusual engineering skills and solitary life make him suitable for the work, but Captain Tyler Brew, the Navy SEAL overseeing the project worries that the man’s age, weight, and lack of physical fitness will make him vulnerable to his predecessor’s fate. Despite round-the-clock protection by female FBI agent, L.T. Kitt, and a specially trained German shepherd from the witness protection program (Augie), the SEAL’s fears prove warranted. All while a terrorist offensive takes shape. The Accidental Patriot is a story of citizenship and service; loyalty and love; and how personal transformation happens in unexpected ways.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY New York Times Critics • Wall Street Journal • Kirkus Reviews Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize The deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City, forging a life between two worlds In 2014, in a snow-covered house in Flushing, Queens, a village revolutionary from Southern China considered his options. Zhuang Liehong was the son of a fisherman, the former owner of a small tea shop, and the spark that had sent his village into an uproar—pitting residents against a corrupt local government. Under the alias Patriot Number One, he had stoked a series of pro-democracy protests, hoping to change his home for the better. Instead, sensing an impending crackdown, Zhuang and his wife, Little Yan, left their infant son with relatives and traveled to America. With few contacts and only a shaky grasp of English, they had to start from scratch. In Patriot Number One, Hilgers follows this dauntless family through a world hidden in plain sight: a byzantine network of employment agencies and language schools, of underground asylum brokers and illegal dormitories that Flushing’s Chinese community relies on for survival. As the irrepressibly opinionated Zhuang and the more pragmatic Little Yan pursue legal status and struggle to reunite with their son, we also meet others piecing together a new life in Flushing. Tang, a democracy activist who was caught up in the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, is still dedicated to his cause after more than a decade in exile. Karen, a college graduate whose mother imagined a bold American life for her, works part-time in a nail salon as she attends vocational school, and refuses to look backward. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of building a life in a new country—and the stubborn allure of the American dream.

A highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs "Reads like the show bible for Homeland only her story is real." —Alison Stewart, WNYC "A thrilling tale...Walder’s fast-paced and intense narrative opens a window into life in two of America’s major intelligence agencies" —Publishers Weekly (starred review) When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity. The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder's tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists—men who swore they’d never speak to a woman—until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks. Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped take down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate—and thus change the world.

When her husband, LtCol Rich Higgins, was yanked from his United Nations' jeep and kidnapped in 1988 by Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, Maj Robin Higgins dedicated her life to finding him and bringing him home.

For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.

“An elegant, meticulously researched, and eminently readable history of the books that define us as Americans. For history buffs and book-lovers alike, McHugh offers us a precious gift.”—Jake Halpern, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author “With her usual eye for detail and knack for smart storytelling, Jess McHugh takes a savvy and sensitive look at the 'secret origins' of the books that made and defined us. . . . You won't want to miss a one moment of it.”—Brian Jay Jones, author of Becoming Dr. Seuss and the New York Times bestselling Jim Henson The true, fascinating, and remarkable history of thirteen books that defined a nation Surprising and delightfully engrossing, Americanon explores the true history of thirteen of the nation’s most popular books. Overlooked for centuries, our simple dictionaries, spellers, almanacs, and how-to manuals are the unexamined touchstones for American cultures and customs. These books sold tens of millions of copies and set out specific archetypes for the ideal American, from the self-made entrepreneur to the humble farmer. Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Webster's Dictionary, Emily Post’s Etiquette: Americanon looks at how these ubiquitous books have updated and reemphasized potent American ideals—about meritocracy, patriotism, or individualism—at crucial moments in history. Old favorites like the Old Farmer’s Almanac and Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book are seen in this new way—not just as popular books but as foundational texts that shaped our understanding of the American story. Taken together, these books help us understand how their authors, most of them part of a powerful minority, attempted to construct meaning for the majority. Their beliefs and quirks—as well as personal interests, prejudices, and often strange personalities—informed the values and habits of millions of Americans, woven into our cultural DNA over generations of reading and dog-earing. Yet their influence remains uninvestigated--until now. What better way to understand a people than to look at the books they consumed most, the ones they returned to repeatedly, with questions about everything from spelling to social mobility to sex. This fresh and engaging book is American history as you’ve never encountered it before.

The author shares her perspective on such topics as the 2000 election, present-day civil rights activists, and the relationship between the United States and Canada.