In two decades of clinical work with Vietnam veterans, psychiatrist Theodore Nadelson sought to understand a seeming paradox about his patients: even veterans being treated for post traumatic stress disorder often still felt attracted to the danger and violence of combat and killing. How this could be possible became a central focus of Nadelson's work and thought, as he looked to veterans' stories and within himself for pieces of the human puzzle. This compelling book is the result of that exploration. In it, Nadelson confronts a dark side of human psychology with sensitivity and depth, revealing startling truths about the allure of violence. Among the topics he addresses are the ways in which the concept of war shapes boys' lives from an early age, what happens when killing becomes a job, and how memories of the thrill of combat affect a soldier after the war is over. He probes the aftermath of September 11, including the historic implications of women's experience in the military. A veteran himself, the author weaves together insights from his own clinical and military experience and from the moving narratives of former soldiers with his thoughtful analysis of readings from world literature to answer tough questions: What does our attraction to killing mean for the future of war and civilization? What implications does it have for the way we understand peacetime violence in our society?

Antonio Veciana fought on the front lines of the CIA’s decades-long secret war to destroy Fidel Castro, the bearded bogeyman who haunted America’s Cold War dreams. It was a time of swirling intrigue, involving US spies with license to kill, Mafia hit men, ruthless Cuban exiles—and the leaders in the crosshairs of all this dark plotting, Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy. Veciana transformed himself from an asthmatic banker to a bomb-making mastermind who headed terrorist attacks in Havana and assassination attempts against Castro, while building one of the era’s most feared paramilitary groups—all under the direction of the CIA. In the end, Veciana became a threat—not just to Castro, but also to his CIA handler. Veciana was the man who knew too much. Suddenly he found himself a target—framed and sent to prison, and later shot in the head and left to die on a Miami street. When he was called before a Congressional committee investigating the Kennedy assassination, Veciana held back, fearful of the consequences. He didn’t reveal the identity of the CIA officer who directed him—the same agent Veciana observed meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas before the killing of JFK. Now, for the first time, Veciana tells all, detailing his role in the intricate game of thrones that aimed to topple world leaders and change the course of history. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

When detectives have exhausted every lead in their arsenal of tools, they turn to the only people who can help solve the crime. This novel has a flair for the “why done it” with lots of twists and turns, southern exposure, police procedures where the good guys are not always good, and an ending that forces you to sit up a little bit straighter. The characters come to life with suspense, drama, and explosive action. Seasoned Detectives Oliver Rousseau and Jack Deveraux of the New Orleans PD are stumped when a sophisticated killer who targets his victims on rainy nights during hurricane season evades suspicion as the police quickly run out of leads on the murder of a prominent doctor’s wife. When Jennifer Dolan, an employee at the Criminal Courthouse fails to show up for work police are dispatched to her residence, just houses from the murdered doctor’s wife, to discover she has been killed with the same M.O. – a single gunshot to the head on a rainy night. With the clock ticking on the second murder, Oliver resorts to unorthodox methods and enlists the aid of his beautiful wife Marin, and her twin sister Megan - who hold the clues and a carefully guarded secret of the affluent Carrington women – their psychic ability that allows them to see the calculated murder of Jennifer Dolan and identify the killer. Oliver knows only hard evidence will lead to an arrest so it’s up to him to convince Jack, and a small task force to focus the investigation on an unlikely killer without telling them where he gets his information, in order to protect his wife’s secret. But, when the suspect terrorizes Oliver’s family and one of them is shot, the case explodes as Oliver and Jack go on the hunt for a sniper - Trained To Kill.

A controversial psychological examination of how soldiers’ willingness to kill has been encouraged and exploited to the detriment of contemporary civilian society. Psychologist and US Army Ranger Dave Grossman writes that the vast majority of soldiers are loath to pull the trigger in battle. Unfortunately, modern armies, using Pavlovian and operant conditioning, have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. The mental cost for members of the military, as witnessed by the increase in post-traumatic stress, is devastating. The sociological cost for the rest of us is even worse: Contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army’s conditioning techniques and, Grossman argues, is responsible for the rising rate of murder and violence, especially among the young. Drawing from interviews, personal accounts, and academic studies, On Killing is an important look at the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects the soldier, and of the societal implications of escalating violence.

"A triumph. Nadelson's legacy is a brilliant book that concisely lays out the unrelenting madness of war by examining the psychological carnage it inflicts on the men who survive." -- San Diego Union-Tribune

Based on Evan Wright's National Magazine Award-winning story in Rolling Stone, this is the raw, firsthand account of the 2003 Iraq invasion that inspired the HBO® original mini-series. Within hours of 9/11, America’s war on terrorism fell to those like the twenty-three Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new pop-culture breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears—soldiers raised on hip hop, video games and The Real World. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional and moral horrors ahead, the “First Suicide Battalion” would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer. Hailed as “one of the best books to come out of the Iraq war”(Financial Times), Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality and camaraderie of a new American War.

Based on classified documents and interviews, argues that American acts of violence against millions of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War were a pervasive and systematic part of the war.

This groundbreaking history of how American police forces have been militarized is now revised and updated. Newly added material brings the story through 2020, including analysis of the Ferguson protests, the Obama and Trump administrations, and the George Floyd protests. The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But over the last two centuries, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as enemies. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative that spans from America’s earliest days through today shows how a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

An original and groundbreaking book that examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In this moving, dazzlingly creative book, Dr. Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A classic of war literature that has as much relevance as ever in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is a “transcendent literary adventure” (The New York Times) and “clearly one of the most original and most important scholarly works to have emerged from the Vietnam War” (Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried).