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Best 1945 - Present American History

Flashing Saber: Three Years in Vietnam
“The division's expendables.” That's what one division commander called the 1/9th Cavalry Blue platoons during the Vietnam War. My first reaction was that Brennan's War was a work of fiction--no one in Vietnam was involved in enemy contact for such a long period of time. "...the reader sees bloody combat amid lavishly beautiful surroundings--a juxtaposition so constant it begins to seem natural rather than sadly ironic."
Reviews
"And feel how the jungle is Brennan does a great job describing the helicopters the pilots where they were from how much they meant to the men."
"Read this and think about what the United States was doing there; think about the power of our military capability fighting in a country that has different values and goals; think about the attitude of the soldier and their beliefs; and think about the politics of the United States and "its whims" which control destiny."
"This is the best book I have ever read about the Vietnam War."
"I've read dozens upon dozens of Nam memoirs and hope they keep on coming."
"This author is a brave man and his account of his war in Nam was chief."
"Realistic, starts out slow and builds to a continuous action packed honest description of Brennan's 3 tours in Vietnam."
"He relates a lot of action without the filler many authors use because he experienced so much and was lucky to tell us after."
"This veteran went through Hell and emerged alive and able to write his experiences in a book that I could not put down."
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Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative
In Blinded By the Right , Brock, who came out of the closet at the height of his conservative renown, tells his riveting story from the beginning, giving us the first insider’s view of what Hillary Rodham Clinton called “the vast right-wing conspiracy.” Whether dealing with the right-wing press, the richly endowed think tanks, Republican political operatives, or the Paula Jones case, Brock names names from Clarence Thomas on down, uncovers hidden links, and demonstrates how the Republican Right’s zeal for power created the poisonous political climate that culminated in George W. Bush’s election. But it was Brock's reporting that was nutty and slutty, he confesses in the riveting memoir Blinded by the Right . He absolves Hill; claims he helped Clarence Thomas threaten another witness into backing down; portrays a ghastly right-wing Clinton-bashing conspiracy of hypocrites, zillionaires, and maniacs; and accuses himself of being "a witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine." Now Brock is sliming his former fellows--everyone from the lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case to gonzo pundits Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham ("the only person I knew who didn't appear to own a book or regularly read a newspaper") to Matt Drudge and Tom Wolfe. (Anita Hill's lawyer has acidly observed that Brock confessed his Hill-related lies after seven years, when the statute of limitations prevents suing for slander.). Although readers may doubt the sincerity of Brock's latest conversion, the book offers a revealing inside look at the conservative media and provides a careful chronicling of the investigations of the Clintons.
Reviews
"Abandoning all time honored journalistic principles and ethics, he wrote a book that set him on his trajectory to fame and fortune, "The Real Anita Hill", which the author now readily admits was largely false and a total smear campaign promulgated by the far right. These are only two of the more notorious and totally false stories the author promulgated in furtherance of far right wing agendas, making him for a time the undisputed darling of the conspiratorial far right. So, the author left the far right, came back out of the closet, and instead of being a hatchet man for the far right, he is now exposing them for what they are, a bunch of disgusting crazies, or at least that is how many of them appear to me after reading this book, which is rife with a lot of detail about many people in the political limelight and its wings, from politicians to political pundits, as well as writers, assorted hangers, and those with deep pockets to fund conspiracies promulgated by the far right."
"Interesting especially in today's political climate."
"It does give insight to those on the right and make you realize they are not all they appear."
"Talk about timely!"
"Richard Mellon Scaife apologized to Bill Clinton and asked him to give eulogy at Scaife's funeral after years of lying about Clinton and almost destroying our democratic system."
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Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (Oxford History of the United States Book 10)
It was a boom that produced a national euphoria, a buoyant time of grand expectations and an unprecedented faith in our government, in our leaders, and in the American dream--an optimistic spirit which would be shaken by events in the '60s and '70s, and particularly by the Vietnam War. Patterson excels at portraying the amazing growth after World War II--the great building boom epitomized by Levittown (the largest such development in history) and the baby boom (which exploded literally nine months after V-J Day)--as well as the resultant buoyancy of spirit reflected in everything from streamlined toasters, to big, flashy cars, to the soaring, butterfly roof of TWA's airline terminal in New York. And by Nixon's resignation, we find a national mood in stark contrast to the grand expectations of ten years earlier, one in which faith in our leaders and in the attainability of the American dream was greatly shaken. Part of the multivolume Oxford History of the United States , Grand Expectations spotlights the United States at the center of the international stage during the post World War II years. In a continuously challenging, stirring history of postwar America, Brown University history professor Patterson charts Americans' ever-widening postwar expectations about the capacity of the U.S. to create abundance and opportunity.
Reviews
"Another entry in the growing line of the Oxford History of the United States, Grand Expectations covers the post WWII era through the beginning of the Watergate years for the Nixon administration. However, as the country began to develop a conscience over the concept of equality, the forces split on the issue with both parties undergoing a transformation in the 1960-70 years which would result in the Reagan conservatism of the 1980s and beyond. Later he would detail how this fear factor would move headlong into standard GOP political tactics in his sequel to Grand Expectations; Restless Giant. The twin forces of egalitarianism and liberty are shown in their full panoramic view for it was during this time that equality for all truly began to be realized after its budding beginning in the American Revolution."
"The other main theme is one of social justice; it took over a hundred years from the end of the Civil War before a strong civil rights bill was passed. The push for equality for Blacks, women, LGBT, hispanics and other immigrants was always met by an enormous inertia."
"The author does a credible job of discussing the domestic turmoil of the Sixties and it's effect on foreign policy under the Johnson administration."
"There obviously is much to cover in the '45-'74 era, both domestically, which saw the U.S. transformed into today's consumer society after WW II, while simultaneously undergoing a rights revolution; but also on the international scene as the country emerged from WW II with immense concentrated wealth, and one of two countries vying to create spheres of influence globally. Much space rightly is devoted to issues of race and the civil rights movement, the red scare, the various presidential administrations and politics, on the domestic side."
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Best Military Uniform History

U.S. Army Uniforms of the Cold War
The 4th volume of Stantons uniform series, now in paperback Previously unpublished photos of mens and womens uniforms formal, work, field, dress Equipment, special-purpose uniforms, and battle gear. U.S. Army Uniforms of the Cold War describes the evolution of Army uniforms in the quarter-century between World War II and the Vietnam War.
Reviews
"I found this book to be a very informative reference for aany military equipment collector any military "buff" who wants to learn more about the US Army uniforms for the Cold War era."
"Very detailed A nice touch was including comments from the eras wearers regarding their experiences."
"A must for specialists in the Cold War be they collectors of militaria, historians, re-enactors or war gamers."
"Guard mount uniforms were often worn with the pockets sewn shut so they would not gape. Some even had their shirts tailored so severely that the button placket was sewn shut and a hidden zipper put under the arm on the side."
"Stanton, an acknowledged expert, sorts out the changes in this fine addition to his series on Army uniforms, covering not only the field uniforms (ingeniously designed, soldiers noted, to be hot in the summer and cold in the winter), but also the whites, blues, the familiar khakis and OD's, and the new greens."
"Some of the more obscure equipment is shown like gear worn by the supporting labs & departments of the military."
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Best 1950s American History

Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
The long-awaited Blacklisted by History , based on six years of intensive research, dismantles the myths surrounding Joe McCarthy and his campaign to unmask Communists, Soviet agents, and flagrant loyalty risks working within the U.S. government. Blacklisted by History shows, for instance, that the FBI knew as early as 1942 that J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the atomic bomb project, had been identified by Communist leaders as a party member; that high-level U.S. officials were warned that Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy almost a decade before the Hiss case became a public scandal; that a cabal of White House, Justice Department, and State Department officials lied about and covered up the Amerasia spy case; and that the State Department had been heavily penetrated by Communists and Soviet agents before McCarthy came on the scene. But as Evans writes, “The real Joe McCarthy has vanished into the mists of fable and recycled error, so that it takes the equivalent of a dragnet search to find him.” Blacklisted by History provides the first accurate account of what McCarthy did and, more broadly, what happened to America during the Cold War. -Glenn Beck. "the greatest book since the Bible". -Ann Coulter, Creators Syndicate. "It takes M. Stanton Evans's meticulous investigative journalism to show what Joe McCarthy's short stay on the national stage (a little under five years, from February 1950 to December 1954) really was about." -Bob McMahan, Foreign Service Journal "Evans goes through extensive files and transcripts with complete mastery of complex material and an engaging turn of phrase that makes more than 600 pages of painstaking analysis both a triumph of historical scholarship and a gripping detective story." -Jack Cashill, WorldNetDaily. "This is a master newspaperman at work: digging, interviewing the record, pulling apart and putting together the details of deeds done mostly by the politicians who ran our imperfect national government in the nineteen fifties."
Reviews
"Just started reading it and so far, so good!"
"I found the book very interesting,providing information I was not aware of."
"But the Democrats demogauged McCarthy and rewrote history to protect their own careers when the enormity of the communist influence in Truman's Department of State was disclosed."
"The many revelations of this book show what the eventual classified release of information will prove the truth of one man's crusade."
"This book flips almost everything you knew about Joe McCarthy."
"I'm only halfway through M. Stanton Evans' "Blacklisted by History" and I find it difficult to put the book down."
"Probably one of the greatest politicians in US history, McCarthy is maligned even today."
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Best 1960s American History

One Minute to Midnight
Here, for the first time, are gripping accounts of Khrushchev's plan to destroy the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo; the handling of Soviet nuclear warheads on Cuba; and the extraordinary story of a U-2 spy plane that got lost over Russia at the peak of the crisis. In this re-examination of the 1963 Bay of Pigs face-off between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Dobbs combines visits to Cuba, discussions with Russian participants and fingertip command of archival and printed U.S. sources to describe a wild ride that—contrary to the myth of Kennedy's steel-nerved crisis management—was shaped by improvisation, guesswork and blind luck. In a densely packed, fast-paced, suspenseful narrative, Dobbs presents the crisis from its early stages through the decision to blockade Cuba and Kennedy's ordering of DEFCON 2, the last step before an attack, to the final resolution on October 27 and 28. Although nothing presented here will change the overall view of the crisis, Dobbs presents new and often startling information that again confirms that the thirteen days in October brought the world to the edge of an unprecedented cataclysm.
Reviews
"One thing that will stay with me forever was how close we were of a nuclear war, but most importantly, that I would not have been because of the big, important pieces of the chess game, like Kennedy or Khrushchev or Castro but because of people with little minds and no capacity of realizing how the consequences of their actions could hurt millions of people."
"The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous moment during the Cold War, when humanity was in danger of annihilation.The main players of this showdown were two: Khrushchev and Kennedy.Their game was taking place on the tiny island of Castro's Cuba. For those who know very little about the crisis, this book will help them not only get started, but will also take them on a dangerous ride which is typical of thriller writers.For the specialists in this field, this book has to offer serious research- including many pages of documentation as well."
"The discovery of nuclear capable cruise missiles, by VFP-62 photos, revealed new information on how they were to be used against Guantanamo Naval Base and invading U.S. forces. The accounting of the wayward U2 that strayed over the Soviet Union during the height of the crisis, the crash of a F-106 with a nuclear bomb on board, the shoot down of a U2 over Cuba, the lack of full control over the nuclear weapons, in Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States, is a chilling reminder of how close we came to a nuclear disaster. Through television documentaries such as, "Man, Moment, Machine", or "DEFCON 2" by the History and Discovery Channels, or the movie "Thirteen Days", the public is led to a superficial coverage of the most dangerous time in our nation's history."
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Best 20th Century American Depression History

The Greatest Generation
The instant classic and runaway bestseller that changed the way we saw World War II and an entire generation of Americans, from the beloved journalist whose own iconic career has lasted more than fifty years. From military heroes to community leaders to ordinary citizens, he profiles men and women who served their country with valor, then came home and transformed it: Senator Daniel Inouye, decorated at the front, fighting prejudice at home; Martha Settle Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs; Charles Van Gorder, a doctor who set up a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of battle, then opened a small clinic in his hometown; Navy pilot and future president George H. W. Bush, assigned to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, who says that in doing so he “learned about life”; and many other laudable Americans. However, this collection is more than a mere chronicle of a tumultuous time, it's history made personal by a cast of everyday people transformed by extraordinary circumstances: the first women to break the homemaker mold, minorities suffering countless indignities to boldly fight for their country, infantrymen who went on to become some of the most distinguished leaders in the world, small-town kids who became corporate magnates. From the reminiscences of George Bush and Julia Child to the astonishing heroism and moving love stories of everyday people, The Greatest Generation salutes those whose sacrifices changed the course of American history.
Reviews
"The Greatest Generation by Tom Browkaw ; intriguing to the last word."
"This is an excellent work by Tom Brokow."
"If I compare this book to another WWII volume; "Alan Turing: The Enigma" these stories are much less in depth."
"I would highly recommend that any citizen of the USA read the book entitled, "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw."
"Terrific content and style."
"Tom Brokaw, always the exacting reporter, did an amazing job bringing the heart of these heroes to his readers."
"Lots of interesting information."
"Enjoyed reading about a time when I was only slightly younger than the author."
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