Bomber Command
By Max Hastings
WWII / Aviation / British Military

RAF Bomber Command began the war in 1939 with a few Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons flying blind through the night and ended it with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes able to burn whole German cities in a single raid. Drawing on dozens of interviews with veterans, Max Hastings argued the campaign did not significantly shorten the war, a conclusion that angered some RAF veterans, including Bomber Command's wartime chief Arthur Harris, and set off a heated debate in the press when the book appeared in 1979.

$2.99

Arnhem
By Roy Urquhart
WWII / ETO / British Military / Memoir

Dropped miles from the bridge they were meant to seize, the men of the 1st British Airborne Division fought nine days at Arnhem waiting for relief that never came. Their commander, Major-General Roy Urquhart, who spent part of the battle hiding in an attic while German troops patrolled the street outside, tells the story of Operation Market Garden's 'bridge too far' with surprising frankness and even some humor.

$1.99

Battles of Ancient China
By Chris Peers
Ancient / China

From the Battle of Mu in 1027 BC to the fall of Chung Tu in 1215 AD, Chris Peers uses 10 battles to trace how Chinese warfare evolved over more than 2,000 years. Along the way he takes apart the Western myths that the Chinese were unwarlike or purely defensive, along with newer claims that they were far ahead of the West, by comparing their methods with Western practice of the same era.

$2.99

The Pity of War: Explaining World War I
By Niall Ferguson
WWI / British Military

Britain's decision to fight in 1914, based on naive assumptions about German aims, turned a continental conflict into a world war, argues Niall Ferguson in this revisionist history. Expect an argument-driven book about why the war happened and why most men went to fight it with little reluctance.

$2.99

Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer
By G. Moxley Sorrel
American Civil War / Confederate Military / Memoir

G. Moxley Sorrel became Longstreet's chief of staff at 23, sstaying by his side from Manassas and Fredericksburg to Gettysburg and the Wilderness, where Longstreet was shot by his own men, before taking a brigade in William Mahone's division and being badly wounded at Hatcher's Run. Published in 1905, his memoir offers a staff officer's portraits of the Confederate commanders he worked alongside.

$0.99

Military History of Late Rome 518–565
By Ilkka Syvänne
Roman Military / Byzantine

Justinian's armies reconquered North Africa, Italy, and southern Spain while Rome fought Persia in the east and barbarians in the Balkans. Ilkka Syvänne covers the reigns of Justin I and Justinian I with detailed analysis of battles such as Dara, Callinicum, Tricamarum, and Busta Gallorum, and follows Belisarius, Narses, and the lesser-known generals around them.

$3.99

Reasons in Writing: A Commando's View of the Falklands War
By Ewen Southby-Tailyour
Falklands War / British Military / Memoir

Years before the invasion, Royal Marine officer Ewen Southby-Tailyour commanded a small detachment on the Falklands and charted its waters, filling a notebook with data on harbors, inlets, and landing spots, so in 1982 he became the inshore navigational adviser to the amphibious commanders. Told largely through his diaries and letters from the 1970s posting and the war, it is a personal record with a deep feel for the islands themselves.

$0.50

Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War
By William Manchester
WWII / Pacific / USMC / Memoir

Haunted decades later by dreams of his younger self, the Marine sergeant who became the biographer of Churchill and MacArthur returned to the Pacific battlefields and wove the island campaigns together with his own war, which ended with his wounds on Okinawa. William Manchester fought only on Okinawa, and readers should know he uses that experience to describe battles like Guadalcanal and Tarawa that he never saw, so it reads as part history and part memoir.

$2.99