This book presents the major findings and selected highlights from Climate Change Impacts in the United States, the third National Climate Assessment. The National Climate Assessment assesses the science of climate change and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century. It documents climate change related impacts and responses for various sectors and regions, with the goal of better informing public and private decision-making at all levels. A team of more than 300 experts, guided by a 60-member National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, produced the full report. The assessment draws from a large body of scientific peer-reviewed research, technical input reports, and other publicly available sources; all sources meet the standards of the Information Quality Act. The report was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, the 13 Federal agencies of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the Federal Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability.

Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the earliest days of the republic's founding, primarily over theexistence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way topaper over the division of the country into two camps: one that was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed “half slave and half free,” and that could not stand.Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passionsand emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring states' rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic of being convinced that they were “worth” three of the soldierson the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the professionof arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrinkto nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and minié ball.

The most comprehensive account to date of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and aftermath, this volume includes unprecedented details on the impact on the Pentagon building and personnel and the scope of the rescue, recovery, and caregiving effort. It features 32 pages of photographs and more than a dozen diagrams and illustrations not previously available.