Many Americans, argues Michael C. C. Adams, think of the Civil War as more glorious, less awful, than the reality. Tourists flock to battlefields, their perceptions of the war often shaped by reenactors who work hard for verisimilitude but who cannot ultimately simulate the horrors of war. In Living Hell, Adams uses the voices of actual participants on the firing line or in the hospital ward to create a virtual historical reenactment. Perhaps because...

Considers how soldiers through the ages have met their deaths in times of war, covering such subjects as weapons and battlefield strategies while offering insight into cultural differences and the nature of military combat.

Of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died in the Civil War, two-thirds, by some estimates, were felled by disease; untold others were lost to accidents, murder, suicide, sunstroke, and drowning. Meanwhile thousands of civilians in both the north and south perished--in factories, while caught up in battles near their homes, and in other circumstances associated with wartime production and supply. These "inglorious passages," no less than the...

In these pages you will read about some of the nation's fallen heroes. Some were great warriors. Some served their countries quietly and dutifully. All loved America. While only 52 fallen heroes are featured here, Faces of Freedom is a tribute to all who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we -- and our future generations -- may live in peace, secruity and freedom.

A young woman races to save her kidnapped husband, a used bookstore owner deals with the loss of a son on an Afghan battlefield, a mother travels to Kabul to tend to her wounded son, and two Afghans reveal the complexity of their culture.

After the Grove Street fire, three people try to put their lives back together. Susan Marlowe discovers that her deceased husband had a secret and must struggle to forgive him for the sake of their sons. Andrea Morley must grieve in silence for her closest friend because he was someone else's husband. Hanover Falls fire chief, Peter Brennan bears the responsibility for the death of firefighters during the fire. Can he ever stop feeling like he could...

"In 1937 the swath of the globe from India to Japan contained half the world's population, but only two nations with real sovereignty (Japan and Thailand) and two with compromised sovereignty (China and Mongolia). All other peoples in the region endured under some form of colonialism. Today the region contains nineteen major, fully sovereign nations. Tower of Skulls is the first work in any language to present a unified account of the course and titanic...