History - Military - Weapons

Pivotal to modern warfare, tanks have dominated the battlefield for over a century. Get up close to more than 400 military colossuses with this definitive visual guide to armored vehicles. In 1916, the British built a vehicle that could pound the battlefield impervious to...

Preserved in China for more than 2,000 years before it was brought to the West by the French, this compact little book is widely regarded as the oldest military treatise in the world. Rumored to have been used by Napoleon in his campaigns to...

With mountains of documentation, mostly from government and corporate sources, Sutton shows that Soviet military technology is heavily dependent on U.S. and allied gifts, "peaceful trade" and exchange programs. We've built for, sold or traded, or given outright to the Communists everything from copper...

This book is a compilation of step-by-step instructions for how to build nine different types of catapults and trebuchets, including plans for: A PVC Pipe Trebuchet, A Tabletop Trebuchet, The World Famous Floating Arm Trebuchet, The Historical WarWolf Trebuchet, A Rat-Trap Catapult, The Mangonel...

A groundbreaking account of how firearms changed Europe and the world In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later...

A "well-researched and very readable new biography" (The Wall Street Journal) of "the Thomas Edison of guns," a visionary inventor who designed the modern handgun and whose awe-inspiring array of firearms helped ensure victory in numerous American wars and holds a crucial place in...

"I thought I knew the story but learned much that I didn't know. Outstanding!"-- Richard Rhodes"This is historical research at its best." -- Dan CarlinPresident Truman's choice to drop the atomic bomb is the most debated decision in the 20th Century. But what if...

How the character of war is changing and how militaries can successfully adapt to meet the challenge This book by military strategist Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., is the definitive take on the race for military dominance in the twenty-first century. It shows how militaries...

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 bestseller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and...

Tales of American combat and comradery in World War II all connected to the iconic rifle of the era, the M1 Garand. An award-winning author puts one such rifle into the hands of a series of vets, records their stories, and gathers their signatures...

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WUNDERWAFFE is about the Third Reich's weapons of last resort, but it is a book unlike any other on the subject. The author, a former military journalist, has done extensive research on three continents, in the archives of many countries,...

From award-winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb Paveway, the first "smart" bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb,...

Explore the scientific crescendo of the Manhattan Project through newly contextualized and never-before-seen photographs from Los Alamos National Laboratory's legacy collections--some just declassified. Twenty-one days before the world learned of the atomic bomb through its wartime use against Japan, a team of scientists led...

Military demolitions are the destruction by fire, water, explosive, and mechanical means of areas, structures, facilities, or materials to accomplish a military objective. The U.S. Army Explosives and Demolitions Handbook is a guide to the use of explosives in the destruction of military obstacles...

They can be swift, silent, and deadly. That's why armed guerrillas are feared by even the largest, best-equipped fighting forces. No tank, rocket-propelled grenade, or infantry battalion can match the guerrilla team's ability to exact brutality with precision, instill fear in enemy hearts, and...

This official U.S. manual is the complete guide to using and dismantling boobytraps. Little is more dangerous to U.S. forces fighting insurgents in hot spots around the world than improvised explosive devices. It's the weapon of choice for under-funded forces aimed to attack American...

You don't need to be a trained soldier to fully appreciate this edition of the U.S. Army Improvised Munitions Handbook (TM 31-210). Originally created for soldiers in guerilla warfare situations, this handbook demonstrates the techniques for constructing weapons that are highly effective in the...

Shortlisted for the 2024 Financial Times Business Book of the Year 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: from the two...

Shortlisted for the 2024 Financial Times Business Book of the Year "An exceedingly important book!" --General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Director of the CIA "Essential reading for understanding how technology will change the future of warfare." --Chris Miller, New York Times bestselling...

The fully illustrated distilled knowledge of W.E. Fairbairn, legendary SOE instructor in unarmed combat, and co-inventor of the Sykes-Fairbairn knife, who learned his deadly skills in 30 years on the Shanghai waterfront. It has been suggested that Fairbairn was the inspiration for Q Branch,...