In July 1969, while the world was expectant about the upcoming first manned landing on the moon, two little-known Central American States crossed sabers in what was derogatorily coined by the media as 'The Soccer War'. Far from a simple out-of-hand sports passion, this conflict had its complicated origins back in the early 20th century when the North American companies United Fruit and its rival, Standard Fruit, operated in Honduras - and both deemed it necessary to import workers from El Salvador, since the locals were insufficient in numbers. What followed was an exodus of more than 300,000 Salvadorans who settled in Honduras - and for a while, the latter country's government saw this with good eyes. That is until the early 1960s, when political changes and the liberalization of the region's commerce through the Common Market Treaty made it painfully evident that the country that benefited the most from it was El Salvador, while Honduras would be destined to carry a heavy economic burden. Inevitably, it chilled the relations between the two countries and had a direct bearing in the treatment from the Hondurans towards the Salvadoran peasants. Amidst sporadic violence against the immigrant peasants, the two governments began negotiations aimed at solving the immigration problem and signed three agreements. However, while the negotiations were taking place, clandestine armed groups were organized in Honduras with the purpose of harassing and controlling the Salvadoran people living in that country. This situation was worsened by a coup d'etat that brought to the presidency the Honduran General Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, who had a very different point of view than his predecessor regarding the immigrants' situation. Shortly after, the expelling of thousands of Salvadorans began. The return of the peasants to El Salvador brought a series of problems for that country, since all were returning unemployed and needing food, clothing and some kind of shelter - all of this in the midst of an economic crisis that not even the advantages obtained through the Common Market Treaty had been able to alleviate. Thus, it didn't take long for the Salvadoran society to begin clamoring for some sort of military response against Honduras. With this delicate political background, the eliminatory rounds for the Jules Rimet World Soccer Cup (to be held in Mexico the next year) began - and during these, the national teams of El Salvador and Honduras would have to face each other in order to obtain a classification. During those games, the violence against Salvadoran immigrants in Honduras increased and caused strong protests from the Salvadoran Government, which ended in the rupturing of diplomatic relations and followed by additional border incidents, which included the strafing of a Honduran airliner while it was taking off from Nueva Ocotepeque. Eleven days later, the war began. This book, backed by more than 20 years of research, explores meticulously the actions undertaken by both countries in the air and on the ground during this short but intense confrontation, and that saw the last dogfights between World War II-era piston-engine aircraft in the world. Besides an impressive selection of photos, the book also features a section of color profiles and markings, and a set of tables detailing the identities of the aircraft operated by both countries during the conflict.

Part diary and part reportage, The Soccer War is a remarkable chronicle of war in the late twentieth century. Between 1958 and 1980, working primarily for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered twenty-seven revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Here, with characteristic cogency and emotional immediacy, he recounts the stories behind his official press dispatches—searing firsthand accounts of the frightening, grotesque, and comically absurd aspects of life during war. The Soccer War is a singular work of journalism.

"Long before the Confederacy was crushed militarily, it was defeated economically," writes Charles L. Dufour. He contends that with the fall of the critical city of New Orleans in spring 1862 the South lost the Civil War, although fighting would continueøfor three more years. On the Mississippi River, below New Orleans, in the predawn of April 24, 1862, David Farragut with fourteen gunboats ran past two forts to capture the South's principal seaport. Vividly descriptive, The Night the War Was Lost is also very human in its portrayal of terrified citizens and leaders occasionally rising to heroism. In a swift-moving narrative, Dufour explains the reasons for the seizure of New Orleans and describes its results.

Teenage dogcatcher Jason Montgomery and his sentient power armor, H.O.B.A.R.T., return to twenty-fourth-century America to destroy their archenemies, the Robot Spiders, in a fantastical adventure that allows readers to control the course of the story. Original.

Award-winning sports columnist Michael Rosenberg chronicles the extraordinary days of campus unrest and civil turmoil during the Vietnam War years as seen through the prism of two legendary (and highly conservative) college football coaches, Ohio State's Woody Hayes and Michigan's Bo Schembechler. The Vietnam War . . . Nixon . . . Kent State . . . The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of total turmoil in America-the country was being torn apart by a war most people didn't support, young men were being taken away by the draft, and racial tensions were high. Nowhere was this turmoil more evident than on college campuses, the epicenters of the protest movement. The uncertain times presented a challenge to two of the greatest football coaches of all time. Woody Hayes, the legendary archconservative coach of Ohio State, feared for the future of America. His protégé and rival, Bo Schembechler of the University of Michigan, didn't want to be bothered by these "distractions." Hayes worshipped General George S. Patton and was friends with President Richard Nixon. Schembechler befriended President Gerald Ford, a former captain and team MVP for the Wolverines. In this enthralling book, Michael Rosenberg dramatically weaves the campus unrest and political upheaval into the story of Hayes and Schembechler. Their rivalry began with Schembechler arriving in protest-heavy Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the height of the Vietnam War. It ended with Hayes wondering what had happened to his country. War As They Knew It is a sobering and fascinating look at two iconic coaches and a different generation.

Twenty years ago, the Persian Gulf War captured the attention of the world as the first test of the U.S. Army since the Vietnam War and the first large-scale armor engagement since World War II. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and his subsequent ouster by the U.S.-led coalition are keys to understanding today's situation in the Middle East. The coalition partnerships cemented in that initial operation and in the regional peacekeeping operations that followed provided the basis for a growing series of multinational efforts that have characterized the post-Cold War environment. Moreover, the growing interoperability of U.S. air, sea, and land forces coupled with the extensive employment of more sophisticated weapons first showcased in Desert Storm have become the hallmark of American military operations and the standard that other nations strive to meet.

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.