The closest we've ever come to the end of the world
""DEFCON-2 is the best single volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis published and is an important contribution to the history of the Cold War. Beyond the military and political facts of the crisis, Polmar and Gresham sketch the personalities that created and coped with the crisis. They also show us how close we came to the edge without becoming sensationalistic."" --Larry Bond, bestselling author of Dangerous Ground
Spy-satellite and aerial-reconnaissance photos reveal that one of the United States's bitterest enemies may be...
The closest we've ever come to the end of the world
""DEFCON-2 is the best single volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis published and is an impo...
The true story that inspired the feature film Bridge of Spies
In this new edition of his classic 1970 memoir about the notorious U-2 incident, pilot Francis Gary Powers reveals the full story of what actually happened in the most sensational espionage case in Cold War history. After surviving the shoot-down of his reconnaissance plane and his capture on May 1, 1960, Powers endured sixty-one days of rigorous interrogation by the KGB, a public trial, a conviction for espionage, and the start of a ten-year sentence. After nearly two years, the U.S. government obtained his...
The true story that inspired the feature film Bridge of Spies
In this new edition of his classic 1970 memoir about the notorious U-...
Aircraft Carriers is the definitive history of world aircraft carrier development and operations. Norman Polmar s revised and updated, two-volume classic describes the political and technological factors that influenced aircraft carrier design and construction, meticulously records their operations, and explains their impact on modern warfare. Volume I provides a comprehensive analysis of carrier developments and warfare in the first half of the twentieth century, and examines the advances that allowed the carrier to replace the battleship as the dominant naval weapons system. Polmar...
Aircraft Carriers is the definitive history of world aircraft carrier development and operations. Norman Polmar s revised and updated, two-volu...
In the post-1945 era, the aircraft carrier has remained a valued weapon despite the development of nuclear weapons, cruise and ballistic missiles, and highly capable submarines. At times, as in the early days of the Korean and Vietnam Wars and in the Falklands conflict, carriers alone could deploy high-performance aircraft to the battlefield. In other operations, such as enforcing the no-fly zones and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, only carriers could provide the bases needed for sustained combat and support operations.
This second volume of Norman Polmar's landmark...
In the post-1945 era, the aircraft carrier has remained a valued weapon despite the development of nuclear weapons, cruise and ballistic missiles, and...
Norman Polmar's book is a behind-the-scenes look at thirty-two important U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. These entries are based on the author's -Historic Aircraft- column, appearing in Naval History. The aircraft selected, some famous and others virtually unknown, represent a mix of types: fighters, dive-bombers, patrol planes, transports, trainers, and helicopters, including the Pitcairn XOP-1 autogiro, the first rotary-wing aircraft to be operated by the Navy and Marines. They span the period from the Vought VE-7, the first type to take off from the Navy's first carrier, the USS...
Norman Polmar's book is a behind-the-scenes look at thirty-two important U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. These entries are based on the author's ...
The world entered the atomic age in August 1945, when the B-29 Superfortress nicknamed Enola Gay flew some 1,500 miles from the island of Tinian and dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The "Little Boy" bomb exploded with the force of 12.5 kilotons of TNT, nearly destroying the city. Three days later, another B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The Japanese government, which had been preparing a bloody defense against an invasion, surrendered six days later. The aircraft was the primary artifact in an exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum from 1995 to 1998. The original,...
The world entered the atomic age in August 1945, when the B-29 Superfortress nicknamed Enola Gay flew some 1,500 miles from the island of Tinian and d...
Submarines had a vital, if often unheralded, role in the superpower navies during the Cold War. Their crews carried out intelligence-collection operations, sought out and stood ready to destroy opposing submarines, and, from the early 1960s, threatened missile attacks on their adversary's homeland, providing in many respects the most survivable nuclear deterrent of the Cold War. For both East and West, the modern submarine originated in German U-boat designs obtained at the end of World War II. Although enjoying a similar technology base, by the 1990s the superpowers had created submarine...
Submarines had a vital, if often unheralded, role in the superpower navies during the Cold War. Their crews carried out intelligence-collection operat...
Hyman G. Rickover was not long removed from his Jewish roots in Poland when he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922. After a respectable career spent mostly in unglamorous submarine and engineering billets, he took command of the U.S. Navy's nuclear propulsion program and revived his career, being retired--involuntarily--some thirty years later in early 1982. He was not only the architect of the nuclear Navy but also its builder. In the process, he erected a network of power and influence that rivaled those who were elected to high office, and that protected him from them when his...
Hyman G. Rickover was not long removed from his Jewish roots in Poland when he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922. After a respectable care...
The closest we've ever come to the end of the world
""DEFCON-2 is the best single volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis published and is an important contribution to the history of the Cold War. Beyond the military and political facts of the crisis, Polmar and Gresham sketch the personalities that created and coped with the crisis. They also show us how close we came to the edge without becoming sensationalistic."" --Larry Bond, bestselling author of Dangerous Ground
Spy-satellite and aerial-reconnaissance photos reveal that one of the United States's bitterest enemies may be...
The closest we've ever come to the end of the world
""DEFCON-2 is the best single volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis published and is an impo...
