World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. Hanson examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. He argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising.

The War of 1812 saw America threatened on every side. Encouraged by the British, Indian tribes attacked settlers in the West, while the Royal Navy terrorized the coasts. By mid-1814, President James Madison's generals had lost control of the war in the North, losing battles in Canada. Then British troops set the White House ablaze, and a feeling of hopelessness spread across the country. Into this dire situation stepped Major General Andrew Jackson....

"John C. McManus, one of our most highly-acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor--a rude awakening for a ragtag militia woefully unprepared for war--to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly-desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and...

A man who is seeking election as president of the United States discovers that his biological parents were Jews. He is Quinn O'Connell, a Jew adopted by Irish Catholic parents and his opponent prepares to exploit this.