Weapons

Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51....

Authors Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff take a riveting inside look at an elite unit within the Pentagon—the Defense Innovation Unit, also known as Unit X—whose mission is to bring Silicon Valley’s cutting-edge technology to America’s military.

The virus now known as Stuxnet was unlike any other piece of malware built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it proved that a piece of code could escape the digital realm and wreak actual, physical destruction....

From New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb....

Few people are aware that John Moses Browning - a tall, humble, cerebral man born in 1855 and raised as a Mormon in the American West - was the mind behind many of the world-changing firearms that dominated more than a century of conflict....

In 1967, a bullet cost 13 cents, and no one gave Uncle Sam a bigger bang for his buck than the Fifth Marine Regiment Sniper Platoon...

In Night Hunters, air power historian William P. Head provides the first detailed study of the development and deployment of the AC-130 gunship....

A comprehensive study of the missile system that formed a critical component of the United States' nuclear arsenal....

This book by military strategist Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., is the definitive take on the race for military dominance in the twenty-first century....

At the time of his tragic death in February 2013, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, was finishing a book that retold American history through the lens of a hand-selected list of firearms....

While the Battle of Kursk has long captivated World War II aficionados, it has been unjustly overlooked by historians....

In November 1921, the first purpose-built aircraft carrier was launched by the Japanese, followed a year later by the launch of the British Hermes. The conversion of battle cruisers into aircraft carriers after World War I required the consideration of issues....

The first of two ground-breaking volumes on the Waterloo campaign, this audiobook is based upon a detailed analysis of sources old and new in four languages....

George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one....

In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare, but also the very structure of power in the West....

Starting with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies....

The night of 16 May, 1943: Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9000-lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it....

This essential, pause-resister narrative on the history of drone warfare by the acclaimed author of Rumsfeld explores how this practice emerged....

Nerve agents are the world's deadliest means of chemical warfare. Toxic recounts the grisly history of these weapons of mass destruction: a deadly suite of invisible, odorless killers....

Robert Oppenheimer was among the most brilliant and divisive of men....

In a narrative that moves like a thriller, Rhodes sheds light on the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s....

General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer were the two men chiefly responsible for the building of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, code name The Manhattan Project. Edward Teller assesses General Groves' contributions—and Oppenheimer's—while reflecting on the awesome legacy of their work.

Britain was the first country to ever suffer a ballistic missile attack from beyond its borders. This book tells the story of that attack....

The first-ever inside look at the US military’s secretive Remotely Piloted Aircraft program - equal parts techno-thriller, historical account, and war memoir....

A brilliant and bloody examination of the axe's foundational role in human history, from prehistoric violence, to war and executions, to newspaper headlines and popular culture.