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From Axis Victories to the Turn of the Tide is a history of the critical campaigns of World War II and highlights the "visible" turning point battles of the war in 1942 and 1943. By focusing not only on what happened but also on why, Alan Levine's novel approach to the subject questions whether the Axis ever had any hope of winning the war. As the Nazis conquered Poland in their march toward domination, the war began its inevitable spread across the world. Levine looks at the war from a geographical perspective, examining events on both the eastern and western fronts-such as the battles of Britain, the Atlantic, Stalingrad, and Midway-to determine how operations in these areas affected its overall path. Levine also scrutinizes key events that began to turn the war's outcome in favor of the Allies. These decisive moments include the entry of the United States into the war and the defeat of the German thrust to the vital Soviet oilfields of the Caucasus. From Axis Vict...

From Kirkus Reviews: A friendly yet not uncritical biography of the secretary of state in the Lincoln and Andrew Johnson Cabinets. Taylor--who chronicled his father's life in General Maxwell Taylor (1987)- -offers neither much original scholarship nor a fresh approach, but writes smoothly and with balance. Why did Seward, front-runner for the 1860 GOP presidential nomination, lose his party's nod to the relatively unknown Lincoln, and why has he been so completely eclipsed by him since? Taylor depicts a politico whose manifold talents were often undermined by his own ambiguity (even Seward admitted that he ""found myself an enigma to myself'). Intellectual, shrewd, diligent, convivial, and even charitable toward enemies, Seward was also willing to trim his sails in pursuit of political objectives. Linking up with Albany political boss Thurlow Weed, he worked ably for liberal causes as New York's governor and, later, in the Senate, where he became leader of ...

Revolutionary War officer Nathan Hale, one of America's first spies, said, "Any kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary." A statue of Hale stands outside CIA headquarters, and the agency often cites his statement as one of its guiding principles. But who decides what is necessary for the public good, and is it really true that any kind of service is permissible for the public good? These questions are at the heart of James M. Olson's book, Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying. Olson, a veteran of the CIA's clandestine service, takes readers inside the real world of intelligence to describe the difficult dilemmas that field officers face on an almost daily basis. Far from being a dry theoretical treatise, this fascinating book uses actual intelligence operations to illustrate how murky their moral choices can be. Readers will be surprised to learn that the CIA provides very little guidance on what is, or is not, permis...