Potomac Books Inc : 472 books

The presidency is a special office. Along with the vice president, the victorious candidate is our only nationally elected official, and the position has come to symbolize American government worldwide. In many ways, the office is greater than the people who have occupied it.In the 200-plus years of...

Revolutionary War officer Nathan Hale, one of AmericaÆs first spies, said, ôAny kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary.ö A statue of Hale stands outside CIA headquarters, and the agency often cites his statement as one of its guiding principles. But who decides...

In October 2001, the Bush administration sent Amb. James F. Dobbins, who had overseen nation-building efforts in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, to war-torn Afghanistan to help the Afghans assemble a successor government to the Taliban. From warlords to exiled royalty, from turbaned tribal chieftains...

In Jaime Suchlickis engaging style, Cuba: From Columbus to Castro and Beyond provides a detailed and sophisticated understanding of the Cuba of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In addition to its concise narrative history, CUBA details the current political climate, economy, and the regimes future. Suchlicki...

The White House Situation Room is arguably the most important facility in the most important building in the world. As the presidentÆs intelligence and alert center, it provides vital communication and crisis management capabilities to the chief executive and his advisers. It can also be ôan island...

As the fifth full year of AmericaÆs global war on terrorism continues, statistics concerning terrorist attacks show a disturbing trend: from a twenty-one-year high in 2003, attacks tripled in 2004 and then doubled in 2005. And as the incidence of terrorist attacks increased, so has the number of terrorists....

According to President Bush, ôthe American people are saferö as a result of invading Iraq. True, Saddam Hussein has been removed from power. But al Qaeda, the group that planned and carried out the attacks on September 11, remains at large. Meanwhile, the White House has conceded that Saddam Hussein...

Shortly before the United States declared war on Great Britain in June 1812, Congress came within two votes of declaring war on Napoleon BonaparteÆs French empire. For six years, France and Britain had both seized American shipping. While common wisdom says that America was virtually an innocent in...

Who works in an embassy? What do diplomats actually do? Inside a U.S. Embassy offers an up-close and personal look into the lives of the diplomats and specialists who make up the U.S. Foreign Service, taking readers inside embassies and consulates in more than fifty countries, providing detailed descriptions...

Congress at War reviews the historical record of the U.S. Congress in authorizing, funding, overseeing, and terminating major military operations. Refuting arguments that Congress cannot and should not set limits or conditions on the use of U.S. armed forces, this book catalogs the many times when previous...

Theodore Roosevelt and World Order presents a new understanding of TRÆs political philosophy while shedding light on some of todayÆs most vexing foreign policy dilemmas. Most know that Roosevelt served as New York police commissioner during the 1890s, warring on crime while sponsoring reforms that...

War stories are mostly innocent fables and understood as such by both the teller and the hearer. However, they have long been used for political and national purposes, and those about the war in Vietnam were no exception, as painfully evidenced in the 2004 presidential campaign. John Kerry campaigned...

Is any war a ôgood warö? In Worshipping the Myths of World War II, the author takes a critical look at what he sees is AmericaÆs dedication to war as panacea and as WashingtonÆs primary method for leading the world. Articulating why he believes the lessons of World War II are profoundly relevant...

Approximately 100,000 deaths per year in the United States result from preventable medical errors. This figure is about twice the number of people who die in car accidents and five times the number of murder victims annually, and twenty times the number of servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan...