John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever -- the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft -- the F-15 and F-16. Still others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu. They know only half the story.Boyd, more than any other...

One might think that after thousands of years of wondering and several hundred years of scientific investigation, human beings would have reached broad agreement about how they, and other living organisms, arrived on planet Earth, and roughly when. But this is not the case. Many millions of people in the western world (including almost half the American public) believe that we were divinely created more or less in our present form just a few thousand years ago. Many millions of others are ...

The author of American Patriot details the life of an innovative U.S. Marine Corps veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.From the earliest days of his thirty-four-year military career, Victor "Brute" Krulak displayed a remarkable facility for applying creative ways of fighting to the Marine Corps. He went on daring spy missions, was badly wounded, pioneered the use of amphibious vehicles, and masterminded the invasion of Okinawa. In K...

During the course of his military career, Bud Day won every available combat medal, escaped death on no less than seven occasions, and spent 67 months as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, along with John McCain. Despite sustained torture, Day would not break. He became a hero to POWs everywhere -- a man who fought without pause, not a prisoner of war, but a prisoner at war.Upon his return, passed over for promotion to Brigadier General, Day retired. But years later, with his chil...

The veteran biographer provides readers with an unprecedented look at the defining characteristics that made Robert Lee Scott a uniquely American hero.Robert Lee Scott ("Scotty") was larger than life. A decorated Eagle Scout who barely graduated from high school, the young man from Macon, Georgia, with an oversize personality used dogged determination to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a famed fighter pilot.First capturing national attention during Wo...

John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever—the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft—the F-15 and F-16. Still others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu. They know only half the story.Boyd, more than any other perso...

During the course of his military career, Bud Day won every available combat medal, escaped death on no less than seven occasions, and spent 67 months as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, along with John McCain. Despite sustained torture, Day would not break. He became a hero to POWs everywhere—a man who fought without pause, not a prisoner of war, but a prisoner at war.Upon his return, passed over for promotion to Brigadier General, Day retired. But years later, with his childre...

No part of America scars its children as does the south.In this incandescent memoir, Robert Coram tells how a rough-edged boy escaped from a nowhere little town in rural southwest Georgia and became an accomplished writer.With a flawless ear and an unblinking eye, Coram escorts us across a unique landscape, capturing the nuances of life in a small southern town during the 1950s, not by writing of the romantic south, but rather of a south that can be narrow and harsh and bru...

From the earliest days of his thirty-four-year military career, Victor "Brute" Krulak displayed a remarkable facility for applying creative ways of fighting to the Marine Corps. He went on daring spy missions, was badly wounded, pioneered the use of amphibious vehicles, and masterminded the invasion of Okinawa. In Korea, he was a combat hero and invented the use of helicopters in warfare. In Vietnam, he developed a holistic strategy in stark contrast to the Army's "Search and Destroy" meth...

Robert Lee Scott was larger than life. A decorated Eagle Scout who barely graduated from high school, the young man from Macon, Georgia, with an oversize personality used dogged determination to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a famed fighter pilot.First capturing national attention during World War II, Scott, a West Point graduate, flew missions in China alongside the legendary "Flying Tigers," where his reckless courage and victories against the enemy made headlines. Upon...

A top-secret manual for training CIA field agents in deception and sleight-of-hand was thought to be a rumor…until a single surviving copy was discovered in the agency’s archives.In 1953, a top-secret manual teaching agents sleight-of-hand and other deception techniques was written for the CIA by America’s then most famous magician. All copies were believed destroyed by the CIA’s purge of the infamous MKULTRA documents in 1973, and there was no proof of the manual’s existence . . ....

The long-hidden truth about America’s black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for a better nationThe American frontier is one of our most cherished and enduring national images. We think of the early pioneers who settled the wilderness as courageous, independent—and white.This version of history is simply wrong. Starting in our nation’s earliest years, thousands of free African Americans were building hundreds of settlements in the Northwest Territory, a ...