Across 3,000 miles and over eight decades, this epic new people's history of the Cold War makes eye-opening sense of a defining 20th-century conflict—and how it continues to shape our world today.Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of World War Two, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. It divided Europe from north to south for a staggering forty-five years. Crossing it in either direction was always a political act; in ma...

Tim Phillips' book tells the human story of the siege - of the terrible toll that thirst, hunger and sleeplessness took on the hostages, of the bravery of those who dealt with the terrorists, such as the elderly headmistress of the school and the doctor who tried to relieve the suffering of the young children. Phillips also looks at the authorities' response to the siege and finds it severely wanting. He has spent time in Beslan researching the book, talking to those involved and those aff...

Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of WWII, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. It divided Europe from north to south for forty-five years. Crossing it in either direction was always a political act; in many cases, it was a crime to even talk about doing so. New generations have grown up since these borders came down, freed from the restrictions of the Cold War era. But what has the Iron Curtain left in its wake?Timothy Phillips travels...

New York Times bestseller: The true behind-the-scenes story of the manhunt for the 9/11 mastermind is "a page-turner" ( Minneapolis Star-Tribune).From the author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968, this is a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Mark Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded.After mastermind...

A New York Times BestsellerThe world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights.In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spann...

"The Cage is a tightly written and clear-eyed narrative about one of the most disturbing human dramas of recent years. . . . A riveting, cautionary tale about the consequences of unchecked political power in a country at war. A must-read." —Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Fall of BaghdadIn the closing days of the thirty-year Sri Lankan civil war, tens of thousands of civilians were killed, according to United N...

Objective Troy tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens. It follows Barack Obama’s campaign against the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs and his eventual embrace of the targeted killing of suspected militants. And it recounts how the president directed the mammoth machinery of spy agenc...

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Looming Tower—and “one of the most lucid writers on the subject of Islamic extremism” (The New York Review of Books)—come ten powerful investigative pieces, an essential primer on jihadist movements in the Middle East and the attempts of the West to contain them.In these pages, Lawrence Wright examines al-Qaeda as it experiences a rebellion from within and spins off a growing web of worldwide terror. H...

Less than a year before 9/11, Michael Petrou trekked through al Qaeda's backyard in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. He was back in Central Asia within weeks of the attacks -- this time as a reporter, slipping into Afghanistan as rockets and tracer bullets lit up the night sky, carrying notebooks, stolen blankets, and a satellite phone.In the decade that followed, Petrou has returned repeatedly to the greater Middle East, where political Islam, liberalism, ethnic and religious nationa...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITING“A gripping narrative and a stunning piece of investigative journalism… [that] gives us the human side to the story of two young men who must be understood as more than monsters” (Christian Science Monitor)The National Book Award winning journalist recounts how the American dream went wrong for two immigrants, and the nightmare that resulted**On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs exploded near the finis...

Although the war in Afghanistan is now in its endgame, the West’s struggle to eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda is far from over. A decade after 9/11, the war on terror has entered a new phase and, it would seem, a new territory. In early 2010, Al Qaeda operatives were reportedly “streaming” out of central Asia toward Somalia and the surrounding region.Somalia, now home to some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, was already the world’s most failed state. Two decades of anar...

If the rise of Islamic State can overthrow powerful states in a matter of weeks, what kind of a secure future can the world expect? After more than a decade of the war on terror, security specialists thought that Islamist paramilitary movements were in decline; the threat from ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Qaida in Yemen, the chaos in Libya and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan have all shown that to be wishful thinking. Once again the West is at war in the Middl...