The story of every war begins with a question: What were they fighting for? Books in this series go beyond the names and dates to examine the central issues behind major U.S. and world conflicts. Engaging nonfiction text explains why each nation joined the war and discusses what they had to gain--or to lose--in the conflict. Detailed maps, primary sources, and infographics enhance the meaning of the information and support Common Core standards.

By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. Three quarters of a century later, the question persists: What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world’s leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this gripping account of German military campaigns during the final phase of World War II, Citino charts the inevitable path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a “war of movement,” inexorably led to Nazi Germany’s defeat. The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand analyzes the German Totenritt, or “death ride,” from January 1944—with simultaneous Allied offensives at Anzio and Ukraine—until May 1945, the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the field, and the Soviet storming of Berlin. In clear and compelling prose, and bringing extensive reading of the German-language literature to bear, Citino focuses on the German view of these campaigns. Often very different from the Allied perspective, this approach allows for a more nuanced and far-reaching understanding of the last battles of the Wehrmacht than any now available. With Citino’s previous volumes, Death of the Wehrmacht and The Wehrmacht Retreats, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand completes a uniquely comprehensive picture of the German army’s strategy, operations, and performance against the Allies in World War II.

War should be recognised as one of the defining features of life in the England of Henry VIII. Henry fought many wars throughout his reign, and this book explores how this came to dominate English culture and shape attitudes to the king and to national history, with people talking and reading about war, and spending money on weaponry and defence.

Acclaimed New York Times journalist and author Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of combat to speak for itself. Hedges poses dozens of questions that young soldiers might ask about combat, and then answers them by quoting from medical and psychological studies. • What are my chances of being wounded or killed if we go to war? • What does it feel like to get shot? • What do artillery shells do to you? • What is the most painful way to get wounded? • Will I be afraid? • What could happen to me in a nuclear attack? • What does it feel like to kill someone? • Can I withstand torture? • What are the long-term consequences of combat stress? • What will happen to my body after I die? This profound and devastating portrayal of the horrors to which we subject our armed forces stands as a ringing indictment of the glorification of war and the concealment of its barbarity.

This book offers a fresh and vibrant account of the military campaign of Argyll and Monmouth that concludes at Sedgemoor in July 1685.

An urgent, on-the-ground look at some of the “new American radicals” who have laid everything on the line to build a stronger climate justice movement The science is clear: catastrophic climate change, by any humane definition, is upon us. At the same time, the fossil-fuel industry has doubled down, economically and politically, on business as usual. We face an unprecedented situation—a radical situation. As an individual of conscience, how will you respond? In 2010, journalist Wen Stephenson woke up to the true scale and urgency of the catastrophe bearing down on humanity, starting with the poorest and most vulnerable everywhere, and confronted what he calls “the spiritual crisis at the heart of the climate crisis.” Inspired by others who refused to retreat into various forms of denial and fatalism, he walked away from his career in mainstream media and became an activist, joining those working to build a transformative movement for climate justice in America. In What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other, Stephenson tells his own story and offers an up-close, on-the-ground look at some of the remarkable and courageous people—those he calls “new American radicals”—who have laid everything on the line to build and inspire this fast-growing movement: old-school environmentalists and young climate-justice organizers, frontline community leaders and Texas tar-sands blockaders, Quakers and college students, evangelicals and Occupiers. Most important, Stephenson pushes beyond easy labels to understand who these people really are, what drives them, and what they’re ultimately fighting for. He argues that the movement is less like environmentalism as we know it and more like the great human-rights and social-justice struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from abolitionism to civil rights. It’s a movement for human solidarity. This is a fiercely urgent and profoundly spiritual journey into the climate-justice movement at a critical moment—in search of what climate justice, at this late hour, might yet mean.

“A tightly written narrative history.” —Harvard magazine It was an enigma of the Vietnam War: American troops kept killing the Viet Cong—and were being killed in the process—and yet the Viet Cong's ranks continued to grow. When one man—CIA analyst Sam Adams—uncovered documents suggesting a Viet Cong army more than twice as numerous as previously reckoned, another war erupted, this time within the ranks of America's intelligence community. This clandestine conflict, which burst into public view during the acrimonious lawsuit Westmoreland v. CBS, involved the highest levels of the U.S. government. The central issue in the trial, as in the war itself, was the calamitous failure of our intelligence agencies to ascertain the strength of the Viet Cong and get that information to our troops in a timely fashion. The legacy of this failure—whether due to institutional inertia, misguided politics, or individual hubris—haunts our nation. And Sam Adams’ tireless crusade for “honest intelligence” resonates strongly today. To detractors like Richard Helms, Adams was an obsessive zealot; to others, he was a patriot of rare integrity and moral courage. Adams was the driving force behind the CBS ninety-minute documentary The Uncounted Enemy, produced by George Crile and hosted by Mike Wallace. Westmoreland brought a lawsuit seeking $120 million in damages against Adams and Wallace in what headlines around the country trumpeted as the libel trial of the century. Westmoreland dropped his suit before the case could be sent to the jury. Who the Hell Are We Fighting? is the first serious narrative history of Adams' controversial discovery of the Vietnam "numbers gap." Hiam's book is a timeless, cautionary tale that combines the best elements of biography, military history, and current affairs. Praise for Who the Hell Are We Fighting? “Hiam’s book offers a rich oral history relying upon the recollections of many key players, friend and foe alike, as well as Adams’s meticulous notes, court documents, and other relevant sources.” —Library Journal “In the late 1960s, CIA analyst Sam Adams was almost alone in showing what one honest person can do in the face of political and bureaucratic corruption that twisted the truth about America’s enemy strength during the ten-year war in Vietnam. Now, C. Michael Hiam provides new insight into Adams’s epic battle.” —Alex Beam, Newsday “In times of White House obfuscation, it’s a pleasure to be able to read about the candor—against all odds—of courageous patriots like Sam Adams.” —Mike Wallace “A definitive contribution to an understanding of the most acrimonious intelligence controversy of the Vietnam War.” —George W. Allen, author of None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam “An excellent book…should bring [Sam Adams’s story] to the attention of many who know nothing of the passions or the conflicts of that time.” —Larry McMurtry “Take up this book and let Michael Hiam lead you toward a final understanding of how military and civilian intelligence failed us during the Vietnam War.” —John Rolfe Gardiner, author of Double Stitch For more about this and other books by Michael Hiam, visit thelafargeagency.com/book/who-the-hell-are-we-fighting/

Popular images of women during the American Civil War include self-sacrificing nurses, romantic spies, and brave ladies maintaining hearth and home in the absence of their men. However, as DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook show in their remarkable new study, that conventional picture does not tell the entire story. Hundreds of women assumed male aliases, disguised themselves in men’s uniforms, and charged into battle as Union and Confederate soldiers—facing down not only the guns of the adversary but also the gender prejudices of society. They Fought Like Demons is the first book to fully explore and explain these women, their experiences as combatants, and the controversial issues surrounding their military service. Relying on more than a decade of research in primary sources, Blanton and Cook document over 240 women in uniform and find that their reasons for fighting mirrored those of men—-patriotism, honor, heritage, and a desire for excitement. Some enlisted to remain with husbands or brothers, while others had dressed as men before the war. Some so enjoyed being freed from traditional women’s roles that they continued their masquerade well after 1865. The authors describe how Yankee and Rebel women soldiers eluded detection, some for many years, and even merited promotion. Their comrades often did not discover the deception until the “young boy” in their company was wounded, killed, or gave birth. In addition to examining the details of everyday military life and the harsh challenges of -warfare for these women—which included injury, capture, and imprisonment—Blanton and Cook discuss the female warrior as an icon in nineteenth-century popular culture and why twentieth-century historians and society ignored women soldiers’ contributions. Shattering the negative assumptions long held about Civil War distaff soldiers, this sophisticated and dynamic work sheds much-needed light on an unusual and overlooked facet of the Civil War experience.