Showing titles in Weapons & Warfare

Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?

This audiobook is the story of combat from the guerrilla’s perspective and surviving against the overwhelming firepower and technology of a superpower. The audiobook consists of a series of combat vignettes related by Mujahideen combatants in Afghanistan that shows the good and the bad, the mistakes and successes of guerrillas fighting the Soviet military forces.

Breaking the German Enigma codes was not only about brilliant mathematicians and professors at Bletchley Park. There is another aspect of the story which it is only now possible to tell. It takes in the exploits of spies, naval officers and ordinary British seamen who risked, and in some cases lost, their lives snatching the vital Enigma codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking German ships and submarines. This book tells the whole Enigma story.

Brought to you by Penguin. When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 100,000 men, women and children, it was the beginning of a terrifying new episode in human history. Written only a year after the disaster, John Hersey brought the event vividly alive with this...

GRIPPING, MOVING AND INSPIRING: the remarkable life of a world-leading expert in chemical weapons defence. "His work has saved lives and given hope." - Professor David Nott, bestselling author of War Doctor For thirty years, Hamish has served and volunteered in conflict zones around the world...

If you are a fan of video games or action movies, you would probably marvel about snipers and think they possess an unreal ability. What makes your thoughts toward snipers more amazing is that there have been snipers who have done extraordinary things in service of their nation. If you have done your research on the Vietnam War, you may be familiar with the individual that is about to be looked at.

The modern tank is essentially the same concept as the tanks that fought at the beginning of World War II – an armoured vehicle that can take a large gun to where it is most needed and support infantry. However, the technology that they now use is a blend between those things that would have been recognizable 80 years ago – the gun, armour, and tracks – and things that would have been entirely unimaginable, like the 1 million lines of code in an Ajax reconnaissance vehicle, or the uncrewed turret of the T-14 Armata.

Solo hay un escenario, aparte del impacto de un asteroide, capaz de acabar con el mundo tal como lo conocemos en cuestión de horas: una guerra nuclear. Hasta ahora, nadie fuera de los círculos oficiales ha sabido con exactitud qué sucedería si un estado rebelde lanzara una cabeza nuclear contra el Pentágono. Segundo a segundo y minuto a minuto, estos son los acontecimientos, acciones y protocolos reales que coreografían el fin de la civilización.

J.L. McWilliams and R. J. Steel uncover this horrifying battle from beginning to end and explore what it was like the for the French Algerians who first witnessed the gas clouds approaching them, how the Canadians stubbornly refused to retreat in the face of gas, what the British and Indians hoped to achieve with their tragic counterattacks, and ultimately why the German offensive failed.

A 2026 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the Year NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Magisterial…A stunning account that brings to the fore the nuclear saga’s surreal combination of ingenuity, fate, and terror.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “If you are an intelligent...

The world's foremost intellectual activist narrates his irrefutable analysis of America's pursuit of total domination and the catastrophic consequences that are sure to follow. "Reading Chomsky today is sobering and instructive . . . He is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read...

Innovating Victory: Naval Technology in Three Wars studies how the world‘s navies incorporated new technologies into their ships, their practices, and their doctrine. It does this by examining six core technologies fundamental to twentieth-century naval warfare including new platforms (submarines and aircraft), new weapons (torpedoes and mines), and new tools (radar and radio).

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize One of NPR's Books We Love One of Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Books of the Year Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize “In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen gives us a...

William L. Laurence was fascinated with atomic science and its militarization. When the Manhattan Project drew near to perfecting the atomic bomb, he was recruited to write much of the government's press materials that were distributed on the day that Hiroshima was obliterated. That instantly crowned Laurence as one of the leading journalistic experts on the atomic bomb.

In the Cold War conflict that pitted nuclear superpowers against one another, Europe was the principal battleground. Washington and Moscow had troops on the ground and missiles in the fields of their respective allies, the NATO nations and the states of the Warsaw Pact. Euromissiles—intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be used exclusively in the regional theater of war—highlighted how the peoples of Europe were dangerously placed between hammer and anvil.

The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program: The History and Legacy of the USSR’s Efforts to Build the Atomic Bomb examines the Soviets’ race to reach the ultimate goal during and after World War II, and how they went about their objectives. You will learn about Nazi Germany’s nuclear weapons program like never before.

Atomic weaponry is widely understood as a story of American scientific achievement—but scientists working in Britain played a vital role in its development. Including Nobel Prize winners and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, these scientists have long since been forgotten. But without their expertise, Robert Oppenheimer's research at Los Alamos would never have succeeded. Gareth Williams unearths the true story of the top-secret British atomic program, codenamed "Tube Alloys," established in 1940.

The Battle of Kursk was one of the most pivotal campaigns of World War II and Germany's final strategic offensive on the Eastern Front. Soviet armies had recently occupied the city of Kursk and the Germans aimed to pinch off the salient and cut off its supply chain. But Commander Erich von Manstein did not anticipate the Soviet's dramatic counter offensive, resulting in one of the bloodiest encounters of the Second World War which turned the tide against Adolf Hitler.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The acclaimed author of A Higher Call and Devotion presents the “engrossing” (CNN) true story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich during World War II, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring...

From the earliest days of his dictatorship, Saddam Hussein had vowed to destroy Israel. So when France sold Iraq a top-of-the-line nuclear reactor in 1975, the Israelis were justifiably concerned. The reactor formed the heart of a huge nuclear plant situated twelve miles from Baghdad, 1,100...