Thomas J. Fleming
Personal Information
Description
American historian and historical novelist
Books
The spoils of war
In Tel Aviv, Commander Alan Craik, a US Navy veteran agrees to check out the death of a former Navy enlisted employee. He plans to be out the door and on to his real work in half an hour. But the task quickly turns dangerous, and what should have been a routine investigation becomes something very ugly.Nominal American allies in Israel withhold or alter information; nominal colleagues at home set up their own operation to satisfy the political needs of Washington; a wife betrays her husband and deceit and distrust prove to be the only common denominator. When Mike Dukas, a dogged, cynical special agent of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service joins the investigation, it leads them all from Tel Aviv to Gaza and the Greek island of Lesvos to Jerry Piat, a renegade CIA officer. With agents of Mossad and the Palestinian Authority always close behind them, Alan Craik demands the answers to some far-reaching questions. What are the rules in modern conflict? Where is honour? And what is the cost of telling the truth?
The Cold War
Uses contemporary documents to explore the development of the Cold War struggle, the consequences in the 1950s and 1960s, and the lasting effects on American social and cultural patterns.
Loyalties
The golden door
The walled city of Weld is under attack from ferocious flying creatures that raid in the night, bringing death and destruction. The Warden calls for Volunteers to find and destroy the Enemy who is sending the invaders. The heroes of Weld answer the call one by one, never to return. Rye is officially too young to go, but his brothers are among the lost, and he must find them.
Over there
A well-told narrative of US participation in the most godawful and useless of modern wars. In 1917, on the eve of its entry into WWI, the US was without a single army division. Nineteen months later, the nation’s armed and naval forces had grown to 4 million people, and their deployment had tipped the balance of war in Europe against the Central Powers. Farwell, a vivid chronicler of military forces, generals, and wars (Armies of the Raj: From Mutiny to Independence, 1989, etc.), here describes that extraordinary build-up of American armed might and what it wrought. It’s hard to imagine a better, and better-written, tale of the US’s first military venture on European soil. What the book lacks in fresh insights or perspective it makes up for in compactness, comprehensiveness, balance, and style. Perhaps never before have so many topics about this Great War been covered with such economy and to such effect. We learn of storied generals and unknown doughboys, preparedness and weaponry, trench warfare and African-Americans in battle, and campaigns and peace maneuvers—as well as the horrors of the battlefront. And we learn of them always with an apt story, a telling statistic, or a sharp portrait’such as of the fabled Sergeant Alvin York or the “Lost Battalion.” It’s regrettable, however, that little of the stupidity and absurdity of war (so brilliantly brought to life in the works of Paul Fussell) finds its place in Farwell’s account.Nevertheless, someone looking for an introduction to this part of American history will find the basics of what should be known in this book. A fine place to go for a narrative history of its subject.
The good shepherd
The mission of Commander George Krause of the United States Navy is to protect a convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships making their way across the icy North Atlantic from America to England. There, they will deliver desperately needed supplies, but only if they can make it through the wolfpack of German submarines that awaits and outnumbers them in the perilous seas. For forty eight hours, Krause will play a desperate cat and mouse game against the submarines, combating exhaustion, hunger, and thirst to protect fifty million dollars' worth of cargo and the lives of three thousand men. Acclaimed as one of the best novels of the year upon publication in 1955, The Good Shepherd is a riveting classic of WWII and naval warfare from one of the 20th century's masters of sea stories.
Benjamin Franklin
Describes the life and notable accomplishments of Ben Franklin, eighteenth-century American printer, statesman, writer, and inventor.
Дуэль
The Great Divide
How differing views of governance played out during the first four US presidential admininstrations, focusing on Washington (federalist) and Jefferson (antifederalist).
Remember the morning
Catalyntie is a Dutch woman living in pre-Revolutiomary America, struggling to come to terms with the conflicts created by growing up captive in a Seneca Indian village.