One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic city-states of Athens and Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens and the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.

China is fast becoming a true rival of the United States, and in this surprising, convincing book, two major foreign policy thinkers delve into the perilous consequences of this new dynamic.

“A scholarly and cautionary collection of essays focusing on what [Fiss] views as the post-9/11 debasements of key provisions of the Constitution” (Kirkus Reviews). A leading legal scholar for more than thirty years, Owen Fiss’s focus was civil procedure and equal protection. But when the War on Terror began to shroud legal proceedings in secrecy, he realized the bulwarks of procedure that shield the individual from the awesome power of the state were dissolving, perhaps irreparably, and that it was time for him to speak up. The ten chapters in this volume cover the major legal battlefronts of the War on Terror from Guantánamo to drones, with a focus on the constitutional implications of those new tools. The underlying theme is Fiss’s concern for the offense done to the US Constitution by the administrative and legislative branches of government in the name of public safety and the refusal of the judiciary to hold the government accountable. A War Like No Other is an essential intellectual foundation for all concerned about constitutional rights and the law in a new age. “Fiss is one of our most clear-eyed and hard-edged constitutional analysts, and this critique of the damage done to our constitutional heritage in the name of waging a war on terror is the most devastating I have seen.” —Stanley N. Katz, director of the Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies “An essential contribution from one of the country’s foremost legal scholars.” —Jonathan Hafetz, former senior attorney for the National Security project of the ACLU “Thought-provoking.” —Publishers Weekly

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Harry Truman's administration began searching for an American response to the clash in Indochina between Frech colonialism and Vietminh communism in 1945. Thirty years and five administrations later, Gerald Ford and his aides tried unsuccessfully to solicit additional aid for South Vietnam from a reluctant Congress. For Truman, Ford, and every American leader in between, the dilemma in Vietnam hung ominously over the presidency. In Shadow on the White House, seven prominent historians examine how the leadership of six presidents and an issue that grew into a difficult and often unpopular war shaped each other. Focusing on the personalities, politics, priorities, and actions of the presidents as they confronted Vietnam, the authors consider the expansion of presidential power in foreign-policy formulation since World War II. In their analyses, they chronicle the history of executive leadership as it related to Vietnam, assess presidential prerogatives and motives on war and peace issues, and clarify the interconnection between the modern presidency and the nation's frustrating, tragic, and humiliating failure in Southeast Asia. Although other histories have been written about the Vietnam experience, this book is the first systematic and comparative survey on presidential leadership as it relates to the war issue. It is organized by presidential administrations, giving a detailed examination of each president's decisions and policies. Based on the most recently opened archival sources, the essays provide a framework on which to hang the kaleidoscopic events of the war. -- Amazon.com.