**A vivid insider's account of a life in intelligence, special operations, and strategy from the Cold War to the war with al-Qa’ida • "[An] illuminating and richly detailed memoir." —The New York Times Book Review"Deeply insightful...A sweeping and breathtaking journey that gives the reader unprecedented access to the courage, sacrifice, and bravado of our nation’s finest warriors, in their finest hours." —Admiral William H. McRaven, author of Wisdom of the Bullfrog

**A vivid insider's account of a life in intelligence, special operations, and strategy from the Cold War to the war with al-Qa’ida • "[An] illuminating and richly detailed memoir." —The New York Times Book Review"Deeply insightful...A sweeping and breathtaking journey that gives the reader unprecedented access to the courage, sacrifice, and bravado of our nation’s finest warriors, in their finest hours." —Admiral William H. McRaven, author of Wisdom of the Bullfrog

Literary historians have long held the view that the plays of the Greek dramatist, Sophocles deal purely with archetypes of the heroic past and that any resemblance to contemporary events or individuals is purely coincidental. In this book, Michael Vickers challenges this view and argues that Sophocles makes regular and extensive allusion to Athenian politics in his plays, especially to Alcibiades, one of the most controversial Athenian politicians of his day.Vickers shows that Sophocles w...

Traveling cross continent, the author explores several prominent, and many virtually "secret" sites of American antiquity. All relate to civilizations and cultures which preceded the arrival of the European-some, by many 1000s of years.While the focus is on the Great Valley of the Mississippi and the stupendous and mysterious Moundbuilders, the working context is modern America. And it is knowledgeable Americans whom the author encounters along the Trail who provide support and gui...

Since the eighteenth century, classical scholars have generally agreed that the Greek playwright Aristophanes did not as a matter of course write "political" plays. Yet, according to an anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse wanted to know about the government of Athens, Plato sent him a copy of Aristophanes' Clouds.In this boldly revisionist work, Michael Vickers convincingly argues that in his earlier plays, Aristophanes in fact co...

GRACE & MERCY GOT MY SIX is Michael L. Vickers' personal testimony of faith, family, resilience, and the unmistakable presence of God throughout a lifetime of experiences.Born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, Vickers grew up in the historic Cleveland Court housing community during a pivotal period in American history. As a young boy, he witnessed the realities surrounding the Civil Rights Movement while also being grounded in church, family, community, and a grow...

Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war was the arena for a dramatic battle between politics and religion in the hearts and minds of the people. Fear and Loathing in Ancient Athens, originally published in German but now available for the first time in an expanded and revised English edition, sheds new light on this dramatic period of history and offers a new approach to the study of Greek religion. The book explores an extraordinary range of events and topics, and will be an ...

An acclaimed journalist on contemporary China lays bare the country's two-decade quest for global dominance and how the Chinese Communist Party coopted what Western leaders have long considered their most powerful tool in the fight for liberal democracy—capitalism—to expand its illiberal influence worldwide.Bethany Allen, the award-winning China reporter for Axios, shows that by tying profits to political acquiescence the Chinese Communist Party is forcing...

From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet.The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships -- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean -- roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and s...

A brilliant, invigorating account of the great writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who played the dangerous games of espionage, dissidence and subversion that changed the course of the Cold War.During the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the competing creeds of capitalism and communism. They could also lead to exile, imprisonment or execution if they offended those i...

A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era.Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agen...

A groundbreaking exposé that convincingly challenges the popular image of Edward Snowden as hacker turned avenging angel, while revealing how vulnerable our national security systems have become--as exciting as any political thriller, and far more important.After details of American government surveillance were published in 2013, Edward Snowden, formerly a subcontracted IT analyst for the NSA, became the center of an international controversy: Was he a hero, traito...