The Japanese Army committed numerous atrocities during its pitiless campaigns in China from 1931 to 1945. When the Chinese emerged victorious with the Allies at the end of World War II, many seemed ready to exact retribution for these crimes. Rather than resort to violence, however, they chose to deal with their former enemy through legal and diplomatic means. Focusing on the trials of, and policies toward, Japanese war criminals in the postwar period, Men to Devils, Devils to Men analyzes the complex political maneuvering between China and Japan that shaped East Asian realpolitik during the Cold War. Barak Kushner examines how factions of Nationalists and Communists within China structured the war crimes trials in ways meant to strengthen their competing claims to political rule. On the international stage, both China and Japan propagandized the tribunals, promoting or blocking them for their own advantage. Both nations vied to prove their justness to the world: competing groups in China by emphasizing their magnanimous policy toward the Japanese; Japan by openly cooperating with postwar democratization initiatives. At home, however, Japan allowed the legitimacy of the war crimes trials to be questioned in intense debates that became a formidable force in postwar Japanese politics. In uncovering the different ways the pursuit of justice for Japanese war crimes influenced Sino-Japanese relations in the postwar years, Men to Devils, Devils to Men reveals a Cold War dynamic that still roils East Asian relations today.

The Japanese Army committed numerous atrocities during its pitiless campaigns in China from 1931 to 1945. Focusing on the trials of Japanese war criminals, Barak Kushner analyzes the political maneuvering and propagandizing in both China and Japan that would roil East Asian relations throughout the Cold War, with repercussions still felt today.

"In the 1930s, Shanghai was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, fortunes made--and lost. 'Lucky' Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison in the States, spotted a craze for gambling and rose to become the Slot King of Shanghai. 'Dapper' Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto with a dream of dance halls--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivaled Ziegfeld's. In 1940 they bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation and genocide. They thought they ruled Shanghai; but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction they left in their wake."--Jacket

The case of Robert Charles Browne, who may be one of America’s most prolific serial killers, was supposed to be a cold one. But that was before three retired buddies took it on. “The score is you one, the other team 48,” wrote Robert Charles Browne in March 2000, from his prison cell in Colorado, where he was serving a life sentence for a girl’s murder. “Seven sacred virgins entombed side by side, those less worthy are scattered wide.” No one in local law enforcement knew what to make of this message. Then three friends, volunteer members of the El Paso Sheriff’s Department cold case squad, decided to write back to Browne. Browne boasted about having killed as many as forty-eight people in a cross-country murder spree spanning twenty-five years. As the old friends parsed the riddles, investigators followed clues leading to a confession and the closure of another heartbreaking case. This is their story. Includes photographs

This important book from a Pulitzer Prize finalist follows the brutal journey a group of men take to cross the Mexican border: "the single most compelling, lucid, and lyrical contemporary account of the absurdity of U.S. border policy" (The Atlantic). In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, the "Devil's Highway." Three years later, Luis Alberto Urrea wrote about what happened to them. The result was a national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a "book of the year" in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

Dick Canidy and the agents of the OSS scour war-torn Poland looking for a rocket scientist who holds the secrets to the Nazis most dangerous weapon in this new entry in W.E.B. Griffin's New York Times bestselling Men at War series. April 1940. By terms of the Soviet Nazi Nonaggression pact, the two dictatorships divided the helpless nation of Poland. Now, the Russians are rounding up enemies of the state in their occupation zone, but one essential target slips away. Dr. Sebastian Kapsky had spent years working with Walter Riedel and Werner von Braun in the early days of rocket science, but as a man with a conscience he refused to continue when he saw the perversion of their work by the Nazis. That makes him the most knowledgeable person about German superweapons outside of Germany. The Germans want him. The Soviets are desperate to grab him, but Wild Bill Donovan knows there's only one man who can find him in the middle of a war zone and get him out—Dick Canidy.

THE STORY: Jabez Stone, young farmer, has just been married, and the guests are dancing at his wedding. But Jabez carries a burden, for he knows that, having sold his soul to the Devil, he must, on the stroke of midnight, deliver it up to him. Shortly before twelve Mr. Scratch, lawyer, enters and the company is thunderstruck. Jabez bids his guests begone; he has made his bargain and will pay the price. His bride, however, stands by him, and so will Daniel Webster, who has come for the festivities. Webster takes the case. But Scratch is a lawyer himself and out-argues the statesman. Webster demands a jury of real Americans, living or dead. Very well, agrees the Devil, he shall have them, and ghosts appear. Webster thunders, but to no avail, and at last realizing Scratch can better him on technical grounds, he changes his tactics and appeals to the ghostly jury, men who have retained some love of country. Rising to the height of his powers, Webster performs the miracle of winning a verdict of Not Guilty.