Books like Backfire — picked by fans

"God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America."--Otto von Bismarck

America's response to the September 11 attacks spotlighted many of the country's longstanding goals on the world stage: to protect liberty at home, to secure America's economic interests, to spread democracy in totalitarian regimes and to vanquish the enemy utterly.

One of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, Walter Russell Mead, argues that these diverse, conflicting impulses have in fact been the key to the U.S.'s success in the world. In a sweeping new synthesis, Mead uncovers four distinct historical patterns in foreign policy, each… show more.

Each year some sixty billion dollars are spent on foreign aid throughout the world. Whether in donations to charities such as Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE, UNICEF, or the Red Cross, in the form of enormous loans from the World Bank, or as direct payments from one government to another, the money is earmarked for the needy, for relief in natural disasters—floods or famines, earthquakes, or droughts—and for assistance in the development of nations.

The magnitude of generosity from the world’s wealthy nations suggests the possibility of easing, if not eliminating, hunger, misery, and poverty; in truth, however, only a… show more.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Walter McDougall reinterprets the traditions that have shaped U.S. foreign policy from 1776 to the present in "an entertaining and iconoclastic fashion" (Philadelphia Inquirer).

In a concise analysis, McDougall divides American diplomatic history into two stages, which he calls "Old Testament" and "New Testament" phases.

The "Old Testament" phase, which ran from the Revolution to the 1890s, centered on protecting and perfecting America within. The "New Testament" phase, from the Spanish-American War to the present, is more interventionist, featuring competing ideals of containment, expansion, and meliorism. Within the "testament" phases, McDougall goes on to further categorize eight… show more.

The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the formerKabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.

The United States went to Afghanistan on a simple mission: avenge the September 11 attacks and drive the Taliban from power. This took less than two months. Over the course of the next decade, the ensuing fight for power and money—supplied to one of the poorest nations on earth, in ever-greater amounts—left the region even more dangerous than before the first troops arrived.

At… show more.

“Gripping, straight-up, no-nonsense stories about American soldiers and their families. . . simple, tough, and true.”—The New York Times

“Prose that's brave and honest.”—People

“Terrific. . . and terrifically illuminating.”—The Washington Post

An award-winning story collection from the author of The Confusion of Languages.

Through fiction of dazzling skill and astonishing emotional force, Siobhan Fallon welcomes readers into the American army base at Fort Hood, Texas, where U.S. soldiers prepare to fight, and where their families are left to cope after the men are gone. They’ll meet a wife who discovers unsettling secrets when she hacks into her husband’s email,… show more.

This remarkable and bestselling novel from Thanhha Lai, author of the National Book Award–winning and Newbery Honor Book Inside Out & Back Again, follows a young girl as she learns the true meaning of family. 

Listen, Slowly is a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year!

A California girl born and raised, Mai can’t wait to spend her vacation at the beach. Instead, she has to travel to Vietnam with her grandmother, who is going back to find out what really happened to her husband during the Vietnam War.

Mai’s parents… show more.

Winner of the 2008 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize

“[Edward Micus's The Infirmary is] a rarity: a mature debut, a first book of poems with time-tested virtues. . . . Unlike many of the Vietnam poems written at the time of the war or shortly thereafter―poems of anger or protest―Edward Micus's poems are composed, in every sense of that word. They delineate and measure their subjects; they do not advocate or hector; they do not sentimentalize. Many of them, like ‘Ambush Moon' and ‘So We Shot,' will take their places among the very best war poems. . . .… show more.

"Baron Wormser has done something important with TOM O' VIETNAM in the way that he has identified and precisely embraced a stunningly particular historical moment we casually refer to as 'Viet Nam,' as if the name was not a country but a dark shroud of moral collapse that hangs over us still. More remarkably, he has constructed this narrative from the point of view of a combat soldier, fighting in the American War in Viet Nam. Somehow there is a deep legitimacy to this soldier's story because Wormser has been excruciatingly precise in his consideration and use of details—what Hemingway… show more.

The year is 1970; the war in Vietnam is five years from over. The women's movement is newly resurgent, and feminists are summarily reviled as "libbers." Inette Miller is one year out of college-a reporter for a small-town newspaper. Her boyfriend gets drafted and is issued orders to Vietnam. Within their few remaining days together, Inette marries her US Army private, determined to accompany him to war.

There are obstacles. All wives of US military are prohibited in country. With the aid of her newspaper's editor, Miller finagles a one-month work visa and becomes a war reporter. Her newspaper cannot… show more.