“America’s story from 1898 to 1945 is nothing less than the triumph of American exceptionalism over liberal progressivism, despite a few temporary victories by the latter.”

Conservative historian Larry Schweikart has won wide acclaim for his number one New York Times bestseller, A Patriot’s History of the United States. It proved that, contrary to the liberal biases in countless other his­tory books, America had not really been founded on racism, sexism, greed, and oppression. Schweikart and coauthor Michael Allen restored the truly great achievements of America’s patriots, founders, and heroes to their rightful place of honor.

Now Schweikart and coauthor Dave Dougherty are back with a new perspective on America’s half-century rise to the center of the world stage. This all-new volume corrects many of the biases that cloud the way people view the Treaty of Versailles, the Roaring Twenties, the Crash of 1929, the deployment of the atomic bomb, and other critical events in global history.

Beginning with the Spanish-American War— which introduced the United States as a global military power that could no longer be ignored—and con­tinuing through the end of World War II, this book shows how a free, capitalist nation could thrive when put face-to-face with tyrannical and socialist powers. Schweikart and Dougherty narrate the many times America proved its dominance by upholding the prin­ciples on which it was founded—and struggled on the rare occasions when it strayed from those principles.

The authors make a convincing case that America has constantly been a force for good in the world, improving standards of living, introducing innova­tions, guaranteeing liberty, and offering opportunities to those who had none elsewhere. They also illustrate how the country ascended to superpower status at the same time it was figuring out its own identity. While American ideals were defeating tyrants abroad, a con­stant struggle against progressivism was being waged at home, leading to the stumbles of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Despite this rocky entrance on the world stage, it was during this half century that the world came to embrace all things American, from its innovations and businesses to its political system and popular culture. The United States began to define what the rest of the world could emulate as the new global ideal.

"Schweikart and Dougherty examine nearly 50 years of growing American political and military mastery from the Spanish-American War to WWII. Choosing a theme of Yankee exceptionalism (with four pillars: common law, Protestantism, free market capitalism, and private property), the authors (Schweikart is a professor of history at the University of Dayton and coauthored The Patriot's History Reader with Dougherty) make a convincing case for the series of trial-and-error achievements from Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations through Prohibition to the ultimate victory over Japan with the atomic bomb: "America's ascent to world power demonstrated that so long as the essence of American exceptionalism remained at the core of all efforts foreign and domestic, the likelihood of success was nearly guaranteed." There is a conservative slant on some issues, such as the criticism of FDR's New Deal, but the sections on Margaret Sanger's embrace of eugenics (less well known than her birth control advocacy) and the rise of the fascists in Europe are noteworthy in their detail. Sweeping in scope and, as the title indicates, unapologetically patriotic, this book honors the American way at home and abroad with its firm emphasis on "human dignity and prosperity."-- Publishers Weekly

A Patriot’s History of the Modern World provides a new perspective on our extraordinary past—and offers lessons we can apply to preserve American exceptional­ism today and tomorrow.

Why does the story of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion touch us? Like all great entertainment, their journey resonates. We see ourselves in the characters and likewise wish we possessed the power, the brains, the heart, and the courage to make our own dreams come true.

So what are your dreams? What do you want? Is it a promotion? Improving a relationship? Rescuing a child? Finding a new job? Saving a marriage? Getting a degree? Finding the love of your life? Making a difference in your community? This book will help you get whatever you consider worthwhile in life.
Simply put, when you unleash the power of personal accountability it will energize you in lifealtering ways, giving you a concrete boost that enhances your ability to think, to withstand adversity, to generate confidence, and to increase your own natural emotional, mental, and intellectual strength. Roger Connors and Tom Smith know this because they’ve seen it work in their own lives and witnessed it in the lives of some of the most successful and influential people in the world.
The authors first introduced this powerful accountability philosophy in the New York Times bestseller The Oz Principle. Since then, millions have come to know them as “The Oz Guys” and they have gone on to help leaders all over the world teach and apply the principles you’re about to learn. Principles that have generated billions of dollars of wealth—along with a host of even more important results. Devotees of The Oz Principle have brought lifesaving medications to market, created better education in community colleges, greatly surpassed charity fund-raising goals, and improved medical practices in battlefield hospitals.

In The Wisdom of Oz, Connors and Smith present the practical and powerful principles of personal accountability in simple, down-to-earth terms that you can apply in your homes, schools, communities, churches, and volunteer groups. The book will help you strengthen family relationships, improve friendships, motivate children, increase value on the job, improve health and financial well-being, or achieve whatever it is you most desire.

Drawing on engaging stories about those who have overcome great odds—including South African president Nelson Mandela, Polish WWII hero Irena Sendler, and everyday men and women—Connors and Smith demonstrate that by taking personal ownership of your goals and accepting responsibility for your performance, you also take control of your success.

You will read stories about people just like you who learned to beat their struggles, like the New York area fisherman who fell off his lobster boat and was adrift at sea for twelve hours in the chilly Atlantic . . . but survived. You will learn the traits that allowed a college senior who landed flat on her face in a 600-meter race to jump up and win. Or a thirteen-year-old soccer player who moved from the bench to the starting lineup.

You will discover that while no one will ever wave a wizard’s wand and magically solve all your problems, there is a way to experience the near magical impact of personal accountability.

A gripping and page-turning thriller that explores themes of power, information, secrecy and war in the twentieth century. From the author of the three-volume historical epic 'The Baroque Cycle' and Seveneves. Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that have shaped the past century. He weaves together the cracking of the Axis codes during WWII and the quest to establish a free South East Asian 'data haven' for digital information in the present.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War.

In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908– 1987), the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a “hearts and mind” diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America’s giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and blueblood diplomats who favored troop build-ups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people. Through dozens of interviews and access to neverbefore-seen documents―including long-hidden love letters―Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and the crashing fall of the roguish “T. E. Lawrence of Asia” from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called “ugly American,” this “engrossing biography” (Karl Marlantes) rescues Lansdale from historical ignominy and suggests that Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With reverberations that continue to play out in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Road Not Taken is a biography of profound historical consequence. 54 photographs; 3 maps

“Judicious and absorbing…Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, brings solid credentials to this enterprise…Here he draws on a range of material, official and personal…What emerges is a picture of a man who from an early point possessed an unusual ability to relate to other people, a stereotypically American can-do optimism, an impatience with bureaucracy and a fascination with psychological warfare.”
- Fredrik Logevall, The New York Times Book Review

“The Road Not Taken is an impressive work, an epic and elegant biography based on voluminous archival sources. It belongs to a genre of books that takes a seemingly obscure hero and uses his story as a vehicle to capture a whole era.... Mr. Boot’s full-bodied biography does not ignore Lansdale’s failures and shortcomings―not least his difficult relations with his family―but it properly concentrates on his ideas and his attempts to apply them in Southeast Asia. ... The Road Not Taken gives a vivid portrait of a remarkable man and intelligently challenges the lazy assumption that failed wars are destined to fail or that failure, if it comes, cannot be saved from the worst possible outcome.”
- Robert D. Kaplan, The Wall Street Journal

“Max Boot capably and readably tracks the fascinating but ultimately depressing trajectory of this shadowy figure, who, as a murky undercover operative and a literary and cinematic avatar, looms over or lurks behind some of the crucial moments in U.S. foreign policy in the decades following World War II, culminating in its greatest disaster.”
- James G. Hershberg, Washington Post

“In this fine portrait of Edward Lansdale, Max Boot adds to his well-deserved reputation as being among the most insightful and productive of contemporary historians. This is a superb book. Diligently researched and gracefully written, it builds on a comprehensive analysis of Lansdale’s triumphs in the post–World War II Philippines to provide much new material, and expose old myths, about one of the most fascinating, and in many ways ultimately saddest, members of the supporting cast in the later war in Vietnam.”
- Lewis Sorley, National Review

“Edward Lansdale is probably the greatest cold warrior that most Americans have never heard of. Max Boot has written a fascinating account of how this California college humorist, frat boy and advertising executive evolved into a counterinsurgency expert before the term was even coined…. Max Boot has become one of the master chroniclers of American counterinsurgency efforts, and his biography of Mr. Lansdale is a tribute to a guy who recognized the threat of insurgency in a post-World War II environment where most American leaders saw only brute force as a solution to any political-military problem…. This book should be read in Baghdad and Kabul, not only by Americans, but by local leaders.”
- Gary Anderson, Washington Times

“Boot marshals sharp, devastating anecdotes to show how Lansdale’s ideas were dismissed or misunderstood by his contemporaries. . . . The stories this volume tells about voluntary isolation and lack of knowledge, vision, or respect for anything outside U.S. security culture, in all its violent, self-reinforcing whiteness and maleness, have a terrible timelessness to them . . . . We are in his debt for writing a book about another time that challenges us to raise those questions in ours.”
- Heather Hurlburt, Washington Monthly

“A brilliant biography of the life―and a riveting description of the times―of Edward Lansdale, one of the most significant figures in post-WWII Philippines and then Vietnam. Just as David Halberstam did in The Best and the Brightest, Max Boot uses superb storytelling skills to cast new light on America's agonizing involvement in Vietnam. The Road Not Taken not only tells Edward Lansdale's story with novelistic verve but also situates it wonderfully in the context of his tumultuous experiences―and offers important lessons for the present day.”
- General David Petraeus (U.S. Army, Ret.)

“Max Boot, one of the premier military historians writing today, has created a fascinating portrait of Edward Lansdale, a maverick in the mold of T.E. Lawrence. But The Road Not Taken is much more than a biography, begging comparison with monumental narratives like Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie. Boot gives us a compelling look back on the Vietnam tragedy, showing that it was by no means the inevitable result of forces beyond the control of our political and military leaders. ”
- Philip Caputo, author of Rumor of War

“I couldn’t stop reading this engrossing biography of Edward Lansdale, a man who loved his country’s ideals and who secretly fought for them in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Washington, DC. Lansdale’s story is relevant today, because he was a key figure in the debate over how and how not to use military force to achieve American foreign policy aims. Through Lansdale’s efforts we got it right in the Philippines, but no one listened to him in Vietnam. He was forgotten by the time we moved into Afghanistan and Iraq. I fervently hope our policy makers read this book.”
- Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn

“As one of the last few links to Lansdale, who was also one of his closest on-the-ground collaborators, I can attest that this biography of him is the best, most accurate, revealing and complete portrait yet produced. Even with all I knew, I learned a great deal more that was new which broadened my understanding of this extraordinary man. The very human way he helped the Filipino and Vietnamese people defend their inalienable rights is a shining model to be followed by current and future generations of Americans assigned abroad to assist fragile nations.”
- Rufus Phillips, author of Why Vietnam Matters

Former Army Ranger Tucker Wayne and his war dog Kane are thrust into a global conspiracy that threatens to shake the foundations of American democracy in this second exciting Sigma Force spinoff adventure from New York Times bestselling authors James Rollins and Grant Blackwood.

“[A]nother outstanding adventure. Fans of Tom Clancy, Brad Thor, or Rollins’ previous titles will enjoy this, and hopefully Wayne and Kane will appear again, perhaps in the next Sigma Force title.” --Booklist

“Kane, a Belgian Malinois, is the standout character, more than just a plot device and never anthropomorphized. His point-of-view chapters reveal his loyalty, fear, intelligence, and even a desire for revenge. Kane’s a good boy!” --Publishers Weekly

Tucker Wayne’s past and his present collide when a former army colleague comes to him for help. She’s on the run from brutal assassins hunting her and her son. To keep them safe, Tucker must discover who killed a brilliant young idealist—a crime that leads back to the most powerful figures in the U.S. government.

From the haunted ruins of a plantation in the deep South to the beachheads of a savage civil war in Trinidad, Tucker and Kane must discover the truth behind a mystery that leads back to World War II, to a true event that is even now changing the world . . . and will redefine what it means to be human.

With no one to trust, they will be forced to break the law, expose national secrets, and risk everything to stop a madman determined to control the future of modern warfare for his own diabolical ends. But can Tucker and Kane withstand a force so indomitable that it threatens our very future?

From Publishers Weekly

Former Army Ranger Tucker Wayne and his canine partner, Kane, face a new state-of-the-art threat in bestseller Rollins and Blackwood's inventive sequel to 2014's The Kill Switch. Global media magnate Pruitt Kellerman seeks to destabilize political hot spots and murder those in his way with a fleet of military drones. Secret teams under his control use research stolen from famed WWII cryptanalyst Alan Turing to develop drones capable of thinking autonomously, hacking enemy computer systems, and instigating chaos with social media disinformation. Tucker leads a team of intelligence analysts who race to decrypt the drones' malicious code. The action ranges from the swamps of Alabama and New Mexico nuclear test sites to the beaches of Trinidad and the mountains of Serbia. Kane, a Belgian Malinois, is the standout character, more than just a plot device and never anthropomorphized. His point-of-view chapters reveal his loyalty, fear, intelligence, and even a desire for revenge. Kane's a good boy!

"I began to daydream about the jungle...."

On April 6, 1940, explorer and future World War II spy Theodore Morde (who would one day attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler), anxious about the perilous journey that lay ahead of him, struggled to fall asleep at the Paris Hotel in La Ceiba, Honduras.

Nearly seventy years later, in the same hotel, acclaimed journalist Christopher S. Stewart wonders what he's gotten himself into. Stewart and Morde seek the same answer on their quests: the solution to the riddle of the whereabouts of Ciudad Blanca, buried somewhere deep in the rain forest on the Mosquito Coast. Imagining an immense and immaculate El Dorado–like city made entirely of gold, explorers as far back as the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés have tried to find the fabled White City. Others have gone looking for tall white cliffs and gigantic stone temples—no one found a trace.

Legends, like the jungle, are dense and captivating. Many have sought their fortune or fame down the Río Patuca—from Christopher Columbus to present-day college professors—and many have died or disappeared. What begins as a passing interest slowly turns into an obsession as Stewart pieces together the whirlwind life and mysterious death of Morde, a man who had sailed around the world five times before he was thirty and claimed to have discovered what he called the Lost City of the Monkey God.

Armed with Morde's personal notebooks and the enigmatic coordinates etched on his well-worn walking stick, Stewart sets out to test the jungle himself—and to test himself in the jungle. As we follow the parallel journeys of Morde and Stewart, the ultimate destination morphs with their every twist and turn. Are they walking in circles? Or are they running from their own shadows? Jungleland is part detective story, part classic tale of man versus wild in the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Lost in Shangri-La. A story of young fatherhood as well as the timeless call of adventure, this is an epic search for answers in a place where nothing is guaranteed, least of all survival.

During World War II, a 15-year-old girl meets a young Jewish refugee in a New York shelter and soon learns the history behind her city through interaction with her new friend, as well as the barriers that exist when different cultures unite. Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

"Bat-Ami realistically frames questions about tolerance and its absence," said Publishers Weekly of this novel set in 1944 Oswego, N.Y., where America's only refugee camp is set up to accommodate Jews fleeing Europe. Adam, a 15-year-old Yugoslav Jew, begins a romance with a local girl. Ages 12-up.

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