By Kevin Seabrooke

Full Story

The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works, America’s Innovation Machine (Josh Dean, Dutton, New York, NY, 496 pp., May 19, 2026 $36 HC)

Ike and Winston: World War, Cold War, and an Extraordinary Friendship (Jonathan W. Jordan, Dutton, New York, NY, 576 pp., May 12, 2026 $40 HC)

American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington (H. W. Brands, Doubleday, New York, NY, 640 pp., May 12, 2026 $40 HC)

The Navigator’s Letter: The True Story of Two WWII Airmen, a Doomed Mission, and the Woman Who Bound Them Together (Jan Cress Dondi, Union Square & Co., New York, NY, 400 pp., 2026 $32.50 HC)

Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull (Tom Clavin, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 352 pp., May 12, 2026 $32 HC)

Sea Wolves in Warm Waters: The U-Boat Battle in the Caribbean (Clement Richards, Amazon, 290 pp., maps/photos, May 2, 2026 $24.95 HC)

Decoding the Devil: Black Women Codebreakers and the Secret War Against Stalin’s Bomb (Sarah Valentine, Harper, New York, NY, 368 pp., June 2, 2026 $30 HC)

Resisting Nazism: True Stories of Resistance to the World’s Most Dangerous Ideology, from 1920 to the Present (Luke Berryman, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, NY, 296 pp., 2026 $27 HC)

Ghosts of Sicily: The True Story of the Naval Intelligence Agents Who Courted the Mob to Fight Nazis in America and the Battlefields of Italy (Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll, Harper Select, New York, NY, 304 pp., 2026 $29.99 HC)

Short Bursts

The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece (Stephan Talty, Dutton, New York, NY, 320 pp., June 9, 2026 $35 HC) The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) “Greek desk” in Cairo employed the unlikeliest of spies—academics, classicists, and other specialists who supported the protection of Greek cultural heritage during World War II.

1942: Hitler’s Gamble for Victory (Richard Hargreaves, Osprey, New York, 496 pp., 8 pp. b&w photos, June 16, 2026 $40 HC) The author spent 15 years researching in archives, museums and libraries across Europe examining Hitler’s ambitious spring and summer campaigns in the Soviet Union and Africa in 1942.

Backcountry Resistance: South Carolina’s Militia and the Fight for American Independence (Carl P. Borick, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 272 pp., 10 b&w halftones, 6 b&w tables, 4 maps, 2026 $27.99 HC) From the director of South Carolina’s Charleston Museum, this book provides fascinating detail on the lives of a militia composed of farmers and tradesmen that staunchly resisted the British army in the southern theater of the Revolutionary War.

Iraq 2003: Precision Warfare Comes of Age (Michael Napier, Gareth Hector, Illustrator, Osprey Publishing, New York, NY, 96 pp. with 65 photos and 16 pp. of color illustrations, maps, 2026 $25 SC) Examines in great detail— with artwork, diagrams, photos and maps, the role of aircraft in the largest air campaign of the 21st century—the U.S.-led Coalition that invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussain in 2003.

Reflections of War: Forgotten Photographic Archives of the Second World War Hardcover (Peter Deleuran, The History Press, Cheltenham, UK, 208 pp., 2026 $49.99 HC) After discovering a trove of nearly 300 glass negatives and photos from WWII press releases in 2020, Deleuran made a deal with the company that owns the rights to restore the photos for their archives in exchange for producing this visual time capsule.

The Last of the Old Breed: An Oral History of the Final Marines from World War II (Scott Davis, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 336 pp., May 19, 2026 $35 HC) An oral history of U.S. Marines in the Pacific Theater of World War II, featuring more than 130 veterans, ranging in age from 90 to 103—some of the last witnesses to the brutal struggle against Imperial Japan.

Vietnam: My War—Over Five Decades Later (James Ike Schaap Ph.D., 436 pp., 100+ images, 2024 $25.95 SC) The author shares his personal experience as a low-ranking combat Marine rifleman and later, MP, in Vietnam in 1965-66—as well as his continuing struggle with the reality of surviving and living with PTSD.

Kings Mountain 1780: The Tide Turns in the South (David Smith, author; Graham Turner, Illustrator, Osprey Publishing, New York, NY, 96 pp., battle art, maps, 3-D diagrams, photographs, April 21, 2026 $25 SC) In 1780, the Patriot militia and Overmountain Men—Appalachian Mountain frontiersmen—marched 300 miles to defeat Major Patrick Ferguson and his Loyalists at Kings Mountain.

Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War (Sean Michael Wiswesser, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 288 pp., April 21, 2026 $36.95 HC) Chock-full of detailed stories about the Russian Intelligence Services, from a veteran CIA officer—and an expert on Russian history and culture who is fluent in the language—who has debriefed many Russian intelligence officers and defectors.

Lords of the Salt Road: The Norse Earls of Orkney and the Viking World (Angus Konstam, Osprey, New York, NY, 320 pp., 8-page color plate section, June 2, 2026 $30 HC) The lands of their semi-autonomous empire once covered much of Scotland—400-miles from Shetland down to the Clyde Estuary in the 11th century. The influence of the Norse earls of Orkney extended as far as Scandinavia, continental Europe and even the Mediterranean.

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