In 1899, on the eve of the Boer War, Captain Charles Cox from Parramatta took 100 Australian cavalrymen to train with the British army in England. These military apprentices became British soldiers as well as Australian ones. But everything went wrong. Publicity got in the way of cavalry drill which, in any case, the Australians were allowed to shirk. The debacle ended with Cox volunteering his little command for the Boer War, with the British making him get the consent of his government and his men, and finally with a murder on a lonely farm in South Africa. There was no more talk of Australian fighting men morphing into colonial members of the British army. Still, the newspapers said the venture was a brilliant success, that Australians had proved themselves natural warriors, that the British Empire was stronger for what happened-all of which Australians rejoiced to hear. It was, in the end, a kind of victory.

This biography of Admiral Thomas C. Hart is important not only because it is the story of a man whose central guiding force in life was the U.S. Navy, but also because it is a study of some fifty-five significant years of American history. This book, based in part on the twenty-one volume Hart diary, investigates the forces and circumstances that shaped Hart’s actions during a memorable and influential career that spanned three wars and was followed by brief service in the U.S. Senate. From his earliest days on the faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was dedicated to academic reform, to his ‘second” career in elected office, Hart could always be found amid controversy. His appointment as commander of the Asiatic fleet, a billet he wanted and was led to believe he would get, was partly the result of uneasy relationship with FDR. Here, enlivened with Hart’s naval and diplomatic experiences in the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies, vantage points that provided him with an excellent perspective on the opening stages of the Pacific War. James Leutze provides us with Hart’s firsthand account of the Lanikai-Isabel incident, the hazardous foray ordered by Roosevelt in 1941. Although, ostensibly, the purpose of the maneuver was to garner information on the movements of the Japanese fleet, Hart clearly considered that Roosevelt’s intention was to provoke the Japanese. In descriptive detail, James Leutze relates Hart’s war experiences, both professional and private, and examines his controversial relationships with other, equally strong-minded naval leaders. Particularly burdensome at times were Hart’s difficulties with the brilliant, but egotistical and quixotic, Douglas MacArthur. Hart’s role as commander of the naval forces of the American, British, Dutch, and Australian military command is carefully analyzed by Leutze. The ABDA never became effective, and, because of Allied jealousies and internal political pressures, Hart was eventually removed from his command. Leutze shows us, with compassion, a man given heavy responsibility, and then virtually ignored by his own government. Blunt, outspoken, aloof, and occasionally referred to as “Terrible Tommy,” Admiral Thomas C. Hart was nevertheless respected and admired, an inspiration to his fellow officers. Here is the fascinating story of a man who had an enduring influence on U.S. naval and diplomatic history.

Thirteen-year-old Bani, though born in Jerusalem, has lived from infancy with his uncle in beautiful Susa, the city of the Persian King Artaxerxes. Now, his Uncle Nehemiah wants to leave his position of high honor as Cupbearer to the King to return to Jerusalem, a city in ruins and beset by every kind of trouble! Nehemiah's request of the king, permission to return to help his own people, could so easily—in an empire riddled with political intrigue—be misconstrued as treasonous scheming. Bani himself is given an unexpected part to play, the outcome of which is to forever change his life. Seen through the eyes of Bani, this novel dramatizes a turning-point of history, in 445 BC, when—through confrontation and daring risks—Judaism was re-established in the Promised Land, and purified for her unfolding mission.

"“The People’s Victory is a mirror for each of us to see our own power to fight for justice and create the change we want to see in our world.” – Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California In 1996, a small group of Americans from all walks of life banded together to create one of the most miraculous political victories in modern American history. Opponents attacked the issue of marriage equality as amoral and a direct threat to families. Allies warned that it was a generation away from being practicable and a selfish drain of precious political capital. A stirring oral history told by those who almost inexplicably found themselves fighting on the front lines, The People's Victory recounts the successes – and the setbacks – that only served to strengthen everyone’s resolve to resist, fight, and bring equal marriage rights to an entire nation. Through it all, these love warriors found their voice and home in Marriage Equality USA, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots organization of its kind. While high profile books, articles and documentaries have covered the judicial and legislative machinations, this book puts a human face on the people who made the everyday personal sacrifices to keep the movement alive. The People’s Victory shares deeply moving personal testimonies of over sixty people, from Marvin Burrows, who was forced out of his home and lost many treasured possessions after losing his lost his partner of fifty years; to Kate Burns, who risked arrest for the first time when she stood up for her relationship; to Mike Goettemoeller, who pushed his mother in a wheelchair with Marriage Equality USA to fulfill her dream of marching in a Pride parade. Edie Windsor, the triumphant lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States vs. Windsor recounts shouting down a major LGBTQ organization with “I’m 77 years old and I can’t wait!!” when they attempted to belittle marriage as a critical issue. Writer and producer Del Shores shares the touching moment his young teenage daughter used tears and laughter to console him after the passage of Proposition 8 in California dealt a blow to the cause. The People’s Victory is an inspirational roadmap for anyone who has felt passionately about an issue, but has questioned whether one person’s contribution can make a difference. These candid accounts once again prove that every movement for important social change must be built on the acts of everyday. In fact, that is the only way the people have ever been victorious. In his introduction, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom writes: “I hope these stories inspire you to resist, to fight, to win and in the end write the next stories in our continuing push for a more just and perfect union.”

This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America’s modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi Wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies. Caldwell comprehensively examines these four wars through the lens of a strategic architecture to explain how and why their outcomes were so dramatically different. He defines a strategic architecture as an interlinked set of continually evolving policies, strategies, and operations by which combatant states work toward a desired end. Policy defines the high-level goals a nation seeks to achieve once it initiates a conflict or finds itself drawn into one. Policy makers direct a broad course of action and strive to control the initiative. When they make decisions, they have to respond to unforeseen conditions to guide and determine future decisions. Effective leaders are skilled at organizing constituencies they need to succeed and communicating to them convincingly. Strategy means employing whatever resources are available to achieve policy goals in situations that are dynamic as conflicts change quickly over time. Operations are the actions that occur when politicians, soldiers, and diplomats execute plans. A strategic architecture, Caldwell argues, is thus not a static blueprint but a dynamic vision of how a state can succeed or fail in a conflict.

Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in the United States' favor, significant capacity-building efforts, and repeated tactical victories by what many observers call the world's best military, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why military operations to overthrow two developing-world regimes failed to successfully achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no organized way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize and modify or abandon losing strategies; in both cases, US officials believe their strategies are working, even as the situation deteriorates. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.