Military

A SAS soldier's journey from trainee to elite warrior fighting Islamic militants in Afghanistan, only to be betrayed by his own senior leaders at home. 'I've had more than my share of close calls. Truth is, it's fucking thrilling. But the fear can hit just as hard, especially when you see mates...

The story begins in 1629, when the pride of the Dutch East India Company, the Batavia, is on its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to leave Holland....

The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimons In September 1939, young Australian...

33 Strategies of War is a comprehensive guide to the subtle social game of everyday life, informed by the most ingenious and effective military principles in war. It's the I-Ching of conflict, the contemporary companion to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and is abundantly illustrated with examples...

Own five of history's most influential books on strategy, power, war, and leadership in one complete audiobook. Together, these timeless classics have shaped the thinking of military commanders, political leaders, entrepreneurs, executives, and strategists for centuries.

For Australians, Kokoda is the iconic battle of World War II, yet few people know just what happened and just what our troops achieved....

The definitive account of the warrior-monks who stood as Christendom’s shield against centuries of relentless Islamic aggression and a superlative example of Muscular Christianity for an era marred by effete and effeminized forms of the faith. In this magisterial history, Raymond Ibrahim...

Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar. THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 A...

Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become. Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial...

Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the twentieth century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how...

The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph, and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle - where infantry, tanks, artillery and...

In Forging the Will to Fight, retired Special Forces Major Heston Russell delivers a raw and deeply personal memoir that cuts through the mythology of war to reveal the real human cost — and courage — of leadership in combat and beyond. From commanding elite Australian commandos in...

Incredible stories of combat and survival from over twenty years in the Army and Special Forces For more than two decades, Bram Connolly's life was a relentless march through some of the world's most volatile landscapes, brutal conflicts and extreme training. Serving in the Australian Army and...

The shocking story of the case against Australia's most highly decorated soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG, and the defamation trial of the century. With a Victoria Cross and Medal for Gallantry, Ben Roberts-Smith was the most highly decorated Australian soldier, the best of the best. When he...

'The bloodstained drama of the last decades of the Roman republic... is told afresh with tremendous wit, narrative verve and insight' 'I owe a debt of gratitude to Tom Holland not just for reminding me of the great figures who bestrode the Roman world - Pompey and Crassus, Cato, Cicero and...

From bestselling author Michael Veitch (Australia's Secret Army, Turning Point) comes the story of the brilliant, yet controversial campaign which ended Australia's involvement in World War II. Borneo: The Last Campaign tells the story of Operation OBOE, the massive, three-pronged assault on the...

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along...

One soldier’s fight didn’t end on the battlefield — it began there. This is the raw, haunting memoir of war, shame, survival, and the search for redemption. At just seventeen, Jason Gibney enlisted in the Australian Defence Force, full of vigour and a thirst for adventure. Over the next...

In the early days of April 1941, the 14,000 Australian forces garrisoned in the Libyan town of Tobruk were told to expect reinforcements and supplies within eight weeks...

‘Stop screaming, I’m scared too!’ is not what you’d expect to see on the back of a loadmaster’s helmet in a Chinook helicopter flying over southern Afghanistan, but for Rod Henderson it sums up his 22 years of service as a soldier in the Australian Army. During the busiest period in...

This book is the culmination of more than three decades of meticulous historiographic research on Nazi Germany by one of the period’s most distinguished historians. The volume brings together the most important and influential aspects of Ian Kershaw’s research on the Holocaust....

In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade....

‘Paddy’ Mayne was one of the most outstanding special forces leaders of the Second World War. Hamish Ross’s authoritative study follows Mayne from solicitor and a rugby international to troop commander in the Commandos and then the SAS, whose leader he later became and whose annals he...

The definitive account of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, by best-selling author of Kokoda....

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 WALKLEY BOOK AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 ABIA GENERAL NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE 2024 DANGER AWARD FOR TRUE CRIME 'There is no doubt the truth would have been concealed and our concerns...

A SAS soldier's journey from trainee to elite warrior fighting Islamic militants in Afghanistan, only to be betrayed by his own senior leaders at home. 'I've had more than my share of close calls. Truth is, it's fucking thrilling. But the fear can hit just as hard, especially when you see mates...

What drove a young man with a full life to sacrifice it all for his nation? Why did battle-hardened soldiers revere this young man, following him into peril, or even death? A loving son to a doting mother, a loyal friend to fellow officers, a trusted comrade to his brave soldiers, and a fearless warrior against his enemy.

Instant New York Times Bestseller! New York Times Editors' Choice One of People's 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer The Next Big Idea Club's July 2026 Must-Read Books One of the New York Times Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer Sunset Magazine's 15 New Books You Don't Want to Miss...

At 9:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, an American bomber pierced the skies over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The single bomb it dropped unleashed an atomic hurricane that toppled homes, vaporized birds in flight, and carbonized humans. Three days later, a second bomb flattened the port city of...

Throughout the twentieth century, the pilots of the Royal Australian Navy carved their name with pride to build a service that would take shape as the Navy's Fleet Air Arm. Australian naval aviators stood tall in the gallant ranks of the fighter Aces of World War 1.They fought, and some of them...

Richard V. Lowney Jr. spent his career building software that millions of people used without knowing his name. The other thing he was building, without realizing it, is what kept him alive. He grew up in one of Boston's toughest neighborhoods, the son of a factory worker and the grandson of an Irish immigrant who died on the Charlestown docks. He enlisted in the Army during Vietnam, worked with early computing systems in Cold War Germany, and came home to a country that had changed while he was gone.

In January 1980, a secret review quietly rewired Britain’s war in Northern Ireland. Commissioned by the Chief Constable of the RUC and led by future MI5 Director General Sir Patrick Walker, it placed intelligence above the law - and changed everything. What followed was a vast, covert...

A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors—bringing unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event. “A stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer...

With the outbreak of Gulf War hostilities a unit from 22 SAS slipped quietly over the border and into the enemy's backyard. It would be six weeks before any of the patrol again reached safety. Sabre Squadron recounts in graphic detail their scud-busting operations deep inside Iraq. They were...

Coup d'État astonished readers when it first appeared in 1968 because it showed, step by step, how governments could be overthrown. Translated into sixteen languages, it has inspired anti-coup precautions by regimes around the world. In addition to these detailed instructions, Edward Luttwak's...

In the late 1930s, as the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany and Austria intensified, five distinguished gentlemen met half a world away for regular late-night poker games. What began as an excuse to drink whiskey, smoke cigars, and discuss the political events of the day resulted in an...

What role did German big business play in the persecution of European Jews during the Holocaust? What were its motivations? And how did it respond to changing social and economic circumstances after the war? Profits and Persecution examines how the leaders of Germany's largest industrial and...

A riveting retelling of one of the great adventure stories of antiquity—when Greek philosopher-warrior Xenophon led a stranded band of the “Ten Thousand” mercenary soldiers on a treacherous escape from the Persians. 400 BC. The Persian prince Cyrus the Younger hires an army of Greek...

"A tale of violence and political intrigue that reads like a Tom Clancy novel written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky." —The Wall Street Journal "Riveting . . . It's a vital window onto the weird world of secretive, privatized modern warfare." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) An eye-opening...

Bloomsbury Presents The Battle of Gettysburg 1863: The Third Day by Timothy J. Orr, read by Tom Alexander An authoritative and superbly illustrated exploration of the events of July 3, 1863, incorporating new interpretations that have arisen in the past two decades. The third day of the Battle...

Bloomsbury Presents The Battle of Gettysburg 1863: The Second Day by Timothy J. Orr, read by Tom Alexander An authoritative and superbly illustrated exploration of the events of July 3, 1863, incorporating new interpretations that have arisen in the past two decades. The third day of the Battle...

The story of Black Hawk Down is a familiar one. On 3 October 1993 two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and in the ensuing Battle of Mogadishu eighteen Americans and hundreds of Somalis were killed. But very few appreciate that this was one day in a two-and-a-half-year operation; the most...

What happens when secret intelligence operations, nuclear accidents, military experiments, and government cover-ups finally become public? Book Four opens fifty extraordinary investigation files from the hidden side of modern history, pulling listeners into the worlds of the CIA, NSA, KGB, Cold War espionage, wartime deception, atomic weapons, covert surveillance, classified research, corporate negligence, and catastrophic institutional failure.

What really causes a disaster to become history’s buried truth? Forbidden Secrets & Hidden Files of the World: Codex VI takes listeners inside catastrophic explosions, transportation disasters, nuclear accidents, environmental poisonings, engineering failures, and the investigations that revealed far more than the public was first told.

What if some of history's deadliest disasters were preventable—but quietly minimized, misreported, or buried after the victims were counted? Forbidden Secrets & Hidden Files of the World: Codex V takes listeners inside devastating industrial accidents, nuclear incidents, dam failures, mining catastrophes, environmental poisonings, military disasters, and government cover-ups from around the world.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2026 “Beguiling, troubling and ultimately heartbreaking… Ostler employs her research skills like an X-ray technician, peeking beneath the painting’s shimmering surface to reveal secrets and betrayals at the heart of both a single...

Bloomsbury presents Generalship on the Eastern Front, 1941–45: A Study in Command by Robert Forczyk, read by Elliot Chapman A comprehensive evaluation of generalship on the most important front in World War II. The war on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945 was the largest sustained air-ground...

What if the most shocking chapters of modern history were the ones governments never wanted you to read? This gripping audiobook opens the files on declassified intelligence operations, secret military experiments, nuclear disasters, espionage networks, hidden surveillance programs, political cover-ups, and buried historical truths.

Step inside the mud, fear, and fire of the Western Front. World War I Trench Warfare takes readers into one of the most brutal fighting environments in modern history, where soldiers lived beneath shellfire, slept in mud, faced poison gas, and waited for the whistle that could send them over the top into no man’s land. This gripping beginner-friendly history explores how trench warfare began, why the Western Front became locked in stalemate, and what daily life was really like for the men who endured it.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 was condemned by the United Nations and led to a military coalition of more than thirty countries, spearheaded by the United States and United Kingdom. Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division—better known as "Bandit"—was one of nearly two hundred American armor and infantry companies that were called to fight.