By the time of the dropping of the atom bomb in August 1945, the United States military situation in the Pacific was in disarray. As an Army staff officer stated simply, "The capitulation of Hirohito saved our necks."In 1944, a year earlier, success seemed near, but squabbling in the military command and the logistical challenges of launching a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland soon took their toll, and by the time of V.E. Day it was questionable whether the United States was up to the task of endingthe war in the Pacific. An exhausted American public was calling for troops to come home and for the country to return to manufacturing consumer items instead of arms. Republican politicians called for the Allies to back away from the demand for unconditional surrender. The politically powerfulconstituency of GIs won legislative victories, allowing soldiers more easily to leave the military and depleting units just as they most needed experienced soldiers. Weaving together analysis of grand strategy with a vivid narrative depicting the brutal, debilitating, and often terrifying experienceof combat, Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio bring to life the final year in the Pacific. They explore the lives of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines who faced illness, drenching rain, and tenacious Japanese opponents. They also evoke the grand, clashing personalities of Douglas MacArthur andGeorge C. Marshall, who warned of "the agony of enduring battle," and shed light on the views of President Roosevelt, who doubted Americans' understanding of the conflict and worried about a public mood that oscillated between overconfidence and despair. After the bloodletting on Iwo Jima andOkinawa, the war against Japan seemed more repugnant and less meaningful than the struggle against Germany. It is in this context, of military emergency and patience wearing thin, that a new president, Harry S. Truman, made the decision to deploy the atomic bomb.This remarkable, gripping narrative challenges assumptions about the inevitability of the war's outcome, the consequences of the "Europe first" strategy, and the wisdom of America's leaders.

On May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day-shortened to "V.E. Day"-brought with it the demise of Nazi Germany. But for the Allies, the war was only half-won. Exhausted but exuberant American soldiers, ready to return home, were sent to join the fighting in the Pacific, which by the spring and summer of 1945 had turned into a gruelling campaign of bloody attrition against an enemy determined to fight to the last man. Germany had surrendered unconditionally. The Japanese would clearly make the conditions of victory extraordinarily high. In the United States, Americans clamored for their troops to come home and for a return to a peacetime economy. Politics intruded upon military policy while a new and untested president struggled to strategize among a military command that was often mired in rivalry. The task of defeating the Japanese seemed nearly unsurmountable, even while plans to invade the home islands were being drawn. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall warned of the toll that "the agony of enduring battle" would likely take. General Douglas MacArthur clashed with Marshall and Admiral Nimitz over the most effective way to defeat the increasingly resilient Japanese combatants. In the midst of this division, the Army began a program of partial demobilization of troops in Europe, which depleted units at a time when they most needed experienced soldiers. In this context of military emergency, the fearsome projections of the human cost of invading the Japanese homeland, and weakening social and political will, victory was salvaged by means of a horrific new weapon. As one Army staff officer admitted, "The capitulation of Hirohito saved our necks." In Implacable Foes, award-winning historians Waldo Heinrichs (a veteran of both theatres of war in World War II) and Marc Gallicchio bring to life the final year of World War Two in the Pacific right up to the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, evoking not only Japanese policies of desperate defense, but the sometimes rancorous debates on the home front. They deliver a gripping and provocative narrative that challenges the decision-making of U.S. leaders and delineates the consequences of prioritizing the European front. The result is a masterly work of military history that evaluates the nearly insurmountable trials associated with waging global war and the sacrifices necessary to succeed.

Why did Winthrop Rockefeller, scion of one of the most powerful families in American history, leave New York for an Arkansas mountaintop in the 1950s? In this richly detailed biography of the former Arkansas governor, John A. Kirk delves into the historical record to fully unravel that mystery for the first time. Kirk pursues clues threaded throughout Rockefeller’s life, tracing his family background, childhood, and education; his rise in the oil industry from roustabout to junior executive; his military service in the Pacific during World War II, including his involvement in the battles of Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa; his postwar work in race relations, health, education, and philanthropy; his marriage to and divorce from Barbara “Bobo” Sears; and the birth of his only child, future Arkansas lieutenant governor Win Paul Rockefeller. This careful examination of Winthrop Rockefeller’s first forty-four years casts a powerful new light on his relationship with his adopted state, where his legacy continues to be felt more than half a century after his governorship.

Here is an important new examination of the work of American German Jewish artist Eva Hesse, one of the most significant figures in twentieth century art. Using exciting new feminist approaches and taking as her starting point two key works, Corby reveals the way in which Hesse has been constructed as a 'woman artist' and explores the overlooked legacy of the Holocaust and refugee life in her art practice. Considering creativity and the feminine, trauma and historiography, and providing a reassessment of Hesse's relationship with her mother and its impact on her work, the book also confirms the importance of drawing practice within Hesse's wider oeuvre.

• Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction • A New York Times Notable Book • A Best Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Washington Independent Review of Books, and more! The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont “Matthew F. Delmont’s book is filled with compelling narratives that outline with nuance, rigor, and complexity how Black Americans fought for this country abroad while simultaneously fighting for their rights here in the​ United States. Half American belongs firmly within the canon of indispensable World War II books.” —Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” Half American is American history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.

For fans of Ender’s Game, Red Rising, and The Hunger Games comes an explosive, epic science fiction debut... Cities vanished, gone in flashes of world-shattering destruction. An alien race had come to make Earth theirs, bringing a power so far beyond human technology it seemed like magic. It was nearly the end of the world—until we learned to seize the power, and use it to fight back. The war has raged for five centuries. For a cadet like Jax, one of the few who can harness the enemy’s universe-altering force, that means growing up in an elite military academy, training for battle at the front—and hoping he is ready. For Naomi, young nomad roaming the wilds of a ruined Earth, it means a daily fight for survival against the savage raiders who threaten her caravan. When a new attack looms, these two fledging warriors find their paths suddenly intertwined. Together with a gifted but reckless military commander, a factory worker drafted as cannon fodder, a wild and beautiful gunfighter, and a brilliant scientist with nothing to lose—they must find a way to turn back the coming invasion, or see their home finally and completely destroyed.