The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam
By Martin Windrow
French Indochina / Vietnam

To lure the elusive Viet Minh into a pitched battle, the French flew thousands of paratroopers and legionnaires into a remote valley near the Laotian border. Instead, the French found themselves trapped in a 56-day siege that ended France's empire in Indochina and set the stage for America's entry into Vietnam. Martin Windrow's widely praised account gives full weight to both armies, spending a large chunk of the book detailing the evolution of the Viet Minh and the state of France’s post-WWII colonial forces in Indochina, and the brutal endurance of the men on each side.

$2.99

The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
By Mike Duncan
Ancient / Roman Military

Everyone knows Caesar crossed the Rubicon, but the Roman Republic's slide toward collapse began two generations earlier, with the murders of the Gracchi brothers, the war against Jugurtha, and the bitter rivalry between Marius and Sulla that ended in civil war and Sulla's dictatorship. Mike Duncan tells the story with the same lively style that made his podcast series, The History of Rome, a hit. Though be aware this is a political history as much as a military one.

$1.99

Argentine Fight for the Falklands
By Martin Middlebrook
Falklands War / Argentine Military

Most histories of the Falklands War are told from the British side, but not this one. Martin Middlebrook was the only British historian granted open access to the Argentines who fought it, interviewing everyone from the admiral who planned the invasion to the commanders at Goose Green and Port Stanley and soldiers of all ranks. Steering clear of the sovereignty debate, he sticks to the military story, showing how Argentina's forces were organized, how their commanders reacted, and what the soldiers suffered through the shame and disillusionment of defeat.

$1.99

Trafalgar: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sea Battle in History
By Nicholas Best
Napoleonic Wars / Naval / British Military

With Napoleon's army massed at Boulogne for the invasion of England, the French and Spanish fleets set off on a cat-and-mouse chase with the Royal Navy that ran from the Mediterranean to the West Indies and back before ending in a murderous point-blank battle off the Spanish coast that would cost the life of England’s Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson. Nicholas Best tells the story through eyewitnesses from the gun decks to the admirals' cabins, capped by a minute-by-minute account of Trafalgar itself.

$0.99

Low Level Hell: A Scout Pilot in the Big Red One
By Hugh L. Mills Jr.
Vietnam / Aviation / U.S. Military / Memoir

Army scout pilots like Hugh Mills Jr. went hunting for enemy troops in Vietnam by skimming the treetops in tiny, egg-shaped OH-6 Loach helicopters. Not surprisingly, they were often magnets for enemy fire. Mills was shot down 16 times, and wounded thrice, during his three tours in Vietnam with the 1st Infantry Division's air cavalry. Along the way, he also earned three Silver Stars, helped develop the Army's aero scout tactics, and was later inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame. This is his story in his own words.

$1.99

The Third Reich at War: 1939-1945
By Richard J. Evans
WWII / German Military

The final volume of Richard J. Evans's highly regarded trilogy about the Third Reich follows Nazi Germany from the invasion of Poland to its collapse in 1945, tracing how a nation mobilized for a war of conquest and racial genocide and destroyed itself and much of Europe in the process. Evans covers the military campaigns, but his real focus is German society at war, from the economy and home front to the Holocaust and the plots against Hitler, so readers wanting detailed treatments of individual battles should look elsewhere.

$1.99

Torpedo: The Complete History of the World's Most Revolutionary Naval Weapon
By Roger Branfill-Cook
Military Technology / Naval

For centuries navies knew the surest way to sink a ship was a hole below the waterline, but nobody could reliably put one there until the self-propelled torpedo arrived in the late 1800s. Suddenly small, cheap boats could threaten the mightiest battleships afloat. Roger Branfill-Cook traces the weapon from Robert Fulton's early experiments through Whitehead's breakthrough, and the great torpedo actions of both World Wars to the present day. Heavily illustrated with photos and technical drawings, it was the first dedicated history of the torpedo in more than thirty years.

$2.99

The Jena Campaign 1806
By F.N. Maude
Napoleonic Wars / Battles of Jena and Auerstedt

While Prussia's generals argued and split their forces, Napoleon swept into Germany in three mutually supporting columns, and on a single day in October 1806 he smashed one Prussian army at Jena while Marshal Davout, badly outnumbered, crushed the other at Auerstedt. Colonel F.N. Maude, a British officer and authority on Napoleon's campaigns, draws on French and Prussian archives to analyze every move along with the strengths and weaknesses of both armies. It's a classic analytical study by an author who died in 1933, so expect close analysis and maps over vivid storytelling.

$0.99