National Network for Equitable Library Service

An insider's guide: how to join the Roman legions, wield a gladius, storm cities, and conquer the world. Your emperor needs you for the Roman army! The year is AD 100 and Rome stands supreme and unconquerable from the desert sands of Mesopotamia to the misty highlands of Caledonia. Yet the might of Rome rests completely on the armored shoulders of the legionaries who hold back the barbarian hordes and push forward the frontiers of empire.

From Andrew X. Pham, the award-winning author of *Catfish and Mandala*, a son’s searing memoir of his Vietnamese father’s experiences over the course of three wars. *The Philadelphia Inquirer* hailed Andrew Pham’s debut, *Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam*, for evoking “the full sadness of the human condition...

Counting the Days is the story of six prisoners of war imprisoned by both sides during the conflict the Japanese called the "Pacific War." As in all wars, the prisoners were civilians as well as military personnel. Two of the prisoners were captured on the second day of the war and spent the entire war in prison camps: Garth Dunn, a young Marine captured on Guam who faced a death rate in a Japanese prison 10 times that in battle; and Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, who suffered the ignominy of being Japanese POW number 1.

"A heartfelt celebration of the flying life." -The New York Times. When Clyde Edgerton was four years old, his mother took him to the local airport to see the planes. For Edgerton, it was love at first sight. Eighteen years later, she would take him to the same airport to catch a flight to Texas for Air Force pilot training. In Solo, Edgerton tells the story of his lifelong love affair with flying, from his childlike wonder to his job as a fighter pilot flying reconnaissance over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The acclaimed ancient world historian presents an accessible and authoritative account of the Macedonian Wars of the 3rd century, BCE. While the Roman Republic was struggling for survival against the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, Philip V of Macedon attempted to take advantage of its apparent vulnerability by allying with Hannibal and declaring war. The Romans first negated this threat by deploying allies to keep Philip occupied in Greece and Illyria.

Japan’s lightning march across Asia during World War II was swift and brutal. Nation after nation fell to Japanese soldiers. How were the Japanese able to justify their occupation of so many Asian nations? And how did they find supporters in countries they subdued and exploited? Race War! delves into submerged and forgotten history to reveal how European racism and colonialism were deftly exploited by the Japanese to create allies among formerly colonized people of color.

"Intense and absorbing... If you buy only one book on the Vietnam War, this is the one you want." - Chicago Tribune. Christian G. Appy's monumental oral history of the Vietnam War is the first work to probe the war's path through both the United States and Vietnam. These vivid testimonies of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975.

Today, in violence-torn regions across the globe, 20 million children have been uprooted, orphaned, or injured by war, famine, and poverty. This is their story . . . and ours. In this powerful and unforgettable book—by turns painful, funny, terrifying, and triumphant—Charles London takes us into the world of refugee children, celebrating their unique skills for survival and reflection. Their remarkable stories and drawings chill the blood and touch the heart, offering an indelible, first-hand portrait of the war that rages beyond the headlines.

An Los Angeles Times Best Book 2003. A chilling, beautifully written narrative of African war. Sierra Leone is the world’s most war-ravaged country. There, in a West African landscape of spectacular beauty, rampaging soldiers—many not yet in their teens—have made a custom of hacking off the hands of their victims, then letting them live as the ultimate emblem of terror. The country is so anarchic and so desperate that, forty years after independence, its people long to be recolonized. And the West wants to save it.

An in-depth and troubling look at a little-known group of immigrants-non-citizen soldiers who enlist in the US military. While the popular image of the US military is one of citizen soldiers protecting their country, the reality is that nearly 5 percent of all first-time military recruits are noncitizens. Their reasons for enlisting are myriad, but many are motivated by the hope of gaining citizenship in return for their service.