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An overdue reassessment of one of the US Navy’s most decorated—and divisive—early commanders, whose legacy remains teetering between heroism and scandalous.

A Double-Edged Sword: The Biography of Commodore Jesse Duncan Elliott, 1782–1845 is a comprehensive and long-overdue portrait of one of the most polarizing figures in early US naval history. Written over the course of a decade and completed shortly before the author’s death, this meticulously researched biography revisits the career of a man once hailed for his military exploits—and later condemned for a myriad of personal controversies—including his perceived missteps while in command.

David F. Long traces Elliott’s rise from promising young officer to commodore, chronicling his leadership during key moments such as the capture of the brig Caledonia, the defense of Fort Erie, and his central—but contested—role in the Battle of Lake Erie. Despite notable contributions to the Navy’s early successes, including his diplomatic work and restoration of the USS Constitution, Elliott’s legacy was clouded by scandal: accusations of cowardice, a notorious duel, a contentious command style, and a drawn-out court-martial that ended his career in disgrace.

Serving as both biography and reflective historical analysis, Long paints a vivid picture of the early US Navy—its rivalries, growing pains, and evolving institutional identity. His balanced account of Elliott’s life, neither excusing his faults nor downplaying his achievements, places the commodore’s story in direct conversation with the challenges and ambitions of a rapidly expanding American maritime power. This is a must read for scholars of naval and military history, early American politics, or anyone interested in the brazen albeit controversial legacy of a forgotten national hero.

A commanding firsthand account of the most successful antisubmarine campaign in U.S. Naval History.

The USS England was a 1200-ton, 306-foot, long-hull destroyer escort. Commissioned into service in late 1943 and dispatched to the Pacific the following February, the England and its crew, in one 12-day period in 1944, sank more submarines than any other ship in U.S. naval history: of the six targets attacked, all six were destroyed. For this distinction, legendary in the annals of antisubmarine warfare, the ship and her crew were honored with the Presidential Unit Citation.

After convoying in the Atlantic, John A. Williamson was assigned to the England—first as its executive officer, then as its commanding officer—from the time of her commissioning until she was dry-docked for battle damage repairs in the Philadelphia Naval Yard fifteen months later. Besides being a key participant in the remarkable antisubmarine actions, Williamson commanded the England in the battle of Okinawa, where she was attacked by kamikaze planes.

Williamson narrates his memoir with authority and authenticity, describes naval tactics and weaponry precisely, and provides information gleaned from translations of the orders from the Japanese high command to Submarine Squadron 7. The author details the challenges of communal life aboard ship and explains the intense loyalty that bonds crew members for life. Ultimately, Williamson offers a compelling portrait of himself, an inexperienced naval officer who, having come of age in Alabama during the Depression, rose to become the most successful World War II antisubmarine warfare officer in the Pacific.
 

The life of David “Mickey” Marcus has become the stuff of legends and myths (even fantasy), conspiracy, wild exaggeration, and untethered embellishment. The image of Marcus cast by the character portrayed by Kirk Douglas in the film version of his life still dominates most evocations of the man, for good or ill. And these days, reactions to the book or film rest mostly on the current headlines rather than the historical context of the struggle in which Marcus died, or the events that cast him as a real-life player in an event marked by destiny. 

Chasing the Shadow: Mickey Marcus’s 200 Days of Destiny is the first comprehensive and balanced biography of David Daniel “Mickey” Marcus, a founder of American Civil Affairs and Military Government doctrine and practice and a seminal figure in early Israeli military history. Far from merely a tribute to Mickey Marcus's legacy, Ossad’s work serves as a critical tool for understanding the realities of mid-20th-century warfare in a Postwar colonial struggle and the dynamics of U.S.-Israeli military and political relations in 1948, the critical year for Israel’s struggle for independence. Indeed, Chasing the Shadow is a valuable read for those interested in Middle East history, Jewish military history, and a fascinating character whose story is told in an engaging, informative, and insightful narrative. 

A compelling naval memoir of Arctic submarine duty—operations, engineering realities, and split‑second leadership choices in Emergency Deep.

Captain Alfred Scott McLaren served as commander of the USS Queenfish (SSN 651) from September 1969 to May 1973, the very height of the Cold War. As commander, McLaren led at least six major clandestine operations, including the first-ever exploration of the entire Siberian Continental Shelf: a perilous voyage detailed in his previous book Unknown Waters.

Emergency Deep: Cold War Missions of a Submarine Commander conveys the entire spectrum of Captain McLaren’s experiences commanding the USS Queenfish, mainly in the waters of the Russian Far East and also off Vietnam. McLaren offers a riveting and deeply human story that illuminates the intensity and pressures of commanding a nuclear attack submarine in some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

Relying on his own notes and records, as well as discussions with former officers and shipmates, McLaren focuses on operational matters both great and small. He recounts his unique perspectives on attack-submarine tactics and exploratory techniques in high-risk or uncharted areas, matters of leadership and team-building and the morale of his crews, and the innumerable and often unforeseen ways his philosophy of command played out on a day-to-day basis, with consequences that ran the gamut from the mundane to the dire and life-threatening.

Readers are also treated to significant new information and insight on submarine strategy, maneuvers, and culture. Such details illuminate and bring to life, with both great humor and gravitas, the intensity and pressures on those engaged in covert missions on nuclear attack submarines.
 

A young officer’s insightful, detailed and steadfast devotion to the Union Navy—told in his own words. 

On May 18, 1862, Henry Willis Wells wrote a letter to his mother telling her in clear terms, “I am fighting for the Union.” Since August 1861, when he joined the US Navy as a master’s mate he never wavered in his loyalty. He wrote to his family frequently that he considered military service a necessary and patriotic duty, and the career that ensued was a dramatic one, astutely and articulately documented by Wells in more than 200 letters home, leaving an invaluable account of daily life in the Union Navy.

Wells joined the navy shortly after the war began, initially on board the Cambridge, attached to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which patrolled the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. He witnessed the Battle of Hampton Roads and the fight between the ironclads CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor. Next, the Cambridge assisted in the blockade of Wilmington, North Carolina. In one instance, the warship chased the schooner J. W. Pindar ashore during her attempt to run the blockade, and Confederate forces captured Henry’s boarding party. After a short prison stay in the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond, his Confederate captors paroled Henry. He travelled back to Brookline, and soon thereafter the Navy Department assigned him to the gunboat Ceres, which operated on the sounds and rivers of North Carolina, protecting army positions ashore. Henry was on board during the Confederate attempt to capture Washington, North Carolina. During this April 1863 attack, Henry was instrumental in the town’s defense, commanding a naval battery ashore during the latter part of the fight.

His exceptional service gained him a transfer to a larger warship, the USS Montgomery, again on the blockade of Wilmington. Later the service assigned him to the Gem of the Sea, part of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. Through his hard work and professionalism, he finally earned his first command. In September 1864, he became the commanding officer of the Rosalie, a sloop used as a tender to the local warships. Later he commanded the schooner Annie, also a tender. At the end of December 1864, however, the Annie suffered a massive explosion, killing all hands, including Wells. He was twenty-three years old when his life and career ended tragically. Wells’s letters document both his considerable achievements and his frustrations. His challenges, triumphs, and disappointments are rendered with candor. I Am Fighting for the Union is a vital and deeply personal account of a momentous chapter in the history of the Civil War and its navies.
 

A compelling story of a unit of Buffalo Soldiers and their white commander fighting on the Italian front during World War II.

The 92nd Division of the Fifth Army was the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during 1944 and 1945, suffering more than 3,200 casualties. Members of this unit, known as Buffalo Soldiers, endured racial violence on the home front and experienced racism abroad. Engaged in combat for nine months, they were under the command of southern white infantry officers like their captain, Eugene E. Johnston. 

Carolyn Ross Johnston draws on her father’s account of the war and her extensive interviews with other veterans of the 92nd Division to describe the experiences of a naïve southern white officer and his segregated unit on an intimate level. During the war, the protocol that required the assignment of southern white officers to command black units, both in Europe and in the Pacific theater, was often problematic, but Johnston seemed more successful than most, earning the trust and respect of his men at the same time that he learned to trust and respect them. Gene Johnston and the African American soldiers were transformed by the war and upon their return helped transform the nation.

This young adult biography introduces middle school readers to a remarkable woman who founded the Women’s Army Corps, served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and ran a media empire that included the Houston Post newspaper and radio and TV stations.

Winner, Gold Medal for Biography, Military Writers Society of America, 2015

Oveta Culp Hobby (1905–1995) had a lifetime of stellar achievement. During World War II, she was asked to build a women’s army from scratch—and did. Hobby became Director of the Women’s Army Corps and the first Army woman to earn the rank of colonel. President Eisenhower chose her as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, making her the second woman in history to be appointed to a president’s cabinet. When she wasn’t serving in the government, Hobby worked with her husband, former Texas governor William P. Hobby, to lead a media empire that included the Houston Post newspaper and radio and TV stations. She also supported the Houston community in many ways, from advocating for civil rights for African Americans to donating generously to the Houston Symphony and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Oveta Culp Hobby is the first biography of this important woman. Written for middle school readers, it traces her life from her childhood in Killeen to her remarkable achievements in Washington, DC, and Houston. Debra Winegarten provides the background to help young adult readers understand the times in which Hobby lived and the challenges she faced as a woman in nontraditional jobs. She shows how Hobby opened doors for women to serve in the military and in other professions that still benefit women today. Most of all, Oveta Culp Hobby will inspire young adults to follow their own dreams and turn them into tangible reality.

Illuminates the early American period in the upper Caribbean

Scourge of the Caribbean explores the mysterious and dramatic life and career of Charles E. Hawkins, a relatively unknown naval figure in early national America. Hawkins’s action-packed life at sea in his brief but accomplished career reveals much about an era when the rules of the maritime world, especially in the Caribbean, were in flux. For the US Navy and its commanders, the Caribbean presented an untold number of ambiguities: revolutionary juntas, privateering, piracy, and deadly disease, all within some of the most beautiful landscapes and waterscapes on earth.

Hawkins, from a well-connected family, took to the sea as a midshipman in the US Navy. Stalled promotion, economic setbacks, and blunted opportunities stymied the young officer, but ambition, combined with varied experiences and maritime pursuits, presented other prospects. At a time when individual agency mattered most, Hawkins stepped outside traditional boundaries of conduct on numerous occasions. Hawkins followed a mentor into the Mexican navy and became the most successful and feared raider of Spanish ships, earning the sobriquet “scourge” because of his raids along Cuba’s northern coast. In 1835, Hawkins joined the Texas independence movement against Mexico. Within the historical narrative are lurid accounts of adultery, affairs of honor, a bloody assassination, and complicated maritime legal battles. Based on prodigious research, this lively tale will appeal to those interested in maritime and early American history and the upper Caribbean in the Age of Sail.

A Marine’s highly personal memoir reliving the hellish days of a pivotal conflict of the Vietnam War.

Con Thien, located only two miles from the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Vietnam, was a United States Marine Corps firebase that was the scene of fierce combat for months on end during 1967. Staving off attacks and ambushes while suffering from ineffectual leadership from Washington as well as media onslaughts, courageous American Marines protected this crucial piece of land at all costs. They would hold Con Thien, but many paid the ultimate price. By the end of the war, more than 1,400 Marines had died and more than 9,000 sustained injuries defending the “Hill of Angels.”

For eight months, James P. Coan’s five-tank platoon was assigned to Con Thien while attached to various Marine infantry battalions. A novice second lieutenant at the time, the author kept a diary recording the thoughts, fears, and frustrations that accompanied his life on “The Hill.” Time in the Barrel: A Marine’s Account of the Battle for Con Thien offers an authentic firsthand account of the daily nightmare that was Con Thien. An enticing and fascinating read featuring authentic depictions of combat, it allows readers to fully grasp the enormity of the fierce struggle for Con Thien.

The defenders of Con Thien were bombarded with hundreds of rounds of incoming rockets, mortars, and artillery that pounded the beleaguered outpost daily. Monsoon downpours turned the red laterite clay soil into a morass of oozing mud, flooded bunkers and trenches, and made Con Thien a living hell. .Being at Con Thien came to be ruefully referred to by the Marines stationed there as "time in the barrel” because they were targets as easy as fish in a barrel.
 
More than a retelling of military movements, Coan’s engrossing narratives focus on the sheer sacrifice and misery of one Marine’s experience in Vietnam. Through his eyes, we experience the abysmal conditions the Marines endured, from monsoon rainstorms to the constant threat of impending attack. Climatic moments in history are captured through the rare, personal perspective of one particularly astute and observant participant.