Revolutionary War:

1776 by David McCullough

David McCullough tells the story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence - when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

The Glorious Cause by Jeff Shaara

The conclusion of an epic series on the American Revolution that began with Rise to Rebellion. As with his previous historical novels (he's adamant that they are just that and not histories), this one is told from the perspectives of various historical players. George Washington is prominent, as are Benjamin Franklin, the under-appreciated Nathanial Greene, and, intriguingly, Britain's Lord Cornwallis.

The Hornet's Nest by Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter brings to life the Revolutionary War as it was fought in the Deep South. He reminds us that much of the fight took place there, in a struggle of great and small battles of terrible brutality, with neighbor turned against neighbor, the Indians' support sought by both sides, and no quarter asked or given.

Saratoga by David Garland

Capt. James Skoyles marches back into the Hudson Valley, led by Gen. John Burgoyne, and prepares for round two of the Revolutionary War. For the first book in his series, Garland has done his homework when it comes to the troop movements and maneuvers—Skoyles is attached to the 24th Foot of the British Army—and does not shy away from gory scenes of floggings and scalpings, and his commanders give grand speeches in the British and American camps while eschewing proper battlefield behavior and sipping brandy.

Washington and Caesar by Charles Cameron

This historical novel dramatizes the American Revolution from the dual viewpoints of George Washington and Caesar, Washington's "dogs boy" slave who escapes Mount Vernon to become a soldier in the Loyal Ethiopians, a unit of runaway slaves who fought alongside the British in exchange for manumission.

Civil War:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author's great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman's odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada's struggle to revive her father's farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby.

Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara

As the war gathers momentum, Stonewall Jackson wins his reputation by a series of stinging victories over ineptly led Union forces. Lee, finally given command of the Confederate forces, recognizes that this strange, devout, and dangerous man is his greatest weapon. For a time, it truly seems as if God is on their side and that Lee will lead his army to final victory against overwhelming odds.

A Country of Our Own: a Novel of the Civil War at Sea by David Poyer

The sea is the unusual backdrop for this second volume in a series (after Fire on the Waters) following the career of Ker Claiborne, hero of the haplessly inadequate Confederate Navy. Claiborne leads his intrepid crew on a series of high adventures that find their climax in a stunning sea battle.

Never Call Retreat by Newt Gingrich & William R. Forstchen

Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen conclude their inventive trilogy with this remarkable answer to the great “what if” of the American Civil War: Could the South have indeed won?

March by Geraldine Brooks

From Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, Mr. March, who has gone off to war leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. In Brooks's telling, Mr. March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism.

World Wars:

Atonement by Ian McEwan

McEwan typically writes scathing little fables, but this book sounds almost sagalike: it sweeps from prewar Britain to Dunkirk to a family reunion in 2001, propelled by a dark moment when three children lost their innocence.

Angels in the Gloom by Anne Perry

After Chaplain Joseph Reavley is badly wounded in Flanders attempting to rescue fellow Brits under fire, he returns home to bucolic St. Giles for rehabilitation, but finds the village consumed by issues raised by the war. This local vicar questions fundamental beliefs in the wake of mounting casualties.

Double Cross Blind by Joel Ross

Seven days before the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, U.S. Sgt. Tom Wall escapes a British asylum intent on avenging his unit, which fell into a bloody battle in Crete. Shell-shocked, sleep deprived, and recovering from painful hand surgery, Tom is convinced that he knows who betrayed him: his older brother, Earl, now with the American embassy in London. But Earl is missing, and even Earl's wife, Harriet, a Special Ops executive, does not know where he is. When MI5 officials catch Tom, they offer him a deal: pose as Earl to extract sensitive information from Sondegger, a captured Nazi spy, and maintain the integrity of one of the most closely kept secrets of the war, the Twenty Committee.

Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow

Stewart Dubinsky is not especially close to his father, David Dubin. Even their names are different, yet David's death prompts Stewart to try and find out more about this enigmatic man. He uncovers some startling information: that his father was engaged to another woman before his mother, and that he was court-martialed during the Battle of the Bulge. Dubinsky decides to write a family history, starts digging, and uncovers a manuscript his father wrote about his war experiences that is alternately moving and horrifying, vindicating, and vilifying. It shines light on a side of his parents that he never knew.

The Runner by Christopher Reich

Devlin Judge is an American lawyer in Europe as part of the International Military Tribunal to try Nazi war criminals. Haunted by his own demons, Judge has a secret agenda -- to find the Nazi responsible for his brother's death: a man named Erich Seyss. An elite member of Hitler's SS and former Olympic sprinter known as the White Lion, Seyss has just escaped from an American P.O.W. camp. Determined to avenge his brother and bring Seyss to justice, Judge is plunged into immediate pursuit, menaced at every turn by forces determined to keep him from his prey.

The Thin Red Line by James Jones

The World War II infantry men of C-for-Charlie Company are about to land on an atoll in the Pacific called Gaudalcanal. Some will earn medals. Others will do anything to avoid a muddy grave. But they will all discover the thin red line that divides the sane from the mad.

Flight of Eagles by Jack Higgins

It is the early days of World War II, and two brothers find themselves on opposite sides. Max and Harry Kelso were born in the United States of a German mother and an American father. They were separated as boys when their mother took Max with her to Germany. Now he has grown up to become a feared pilot with the Luftwaffe and Harry is a Yank ace in the RAF. Each has kept track of the other's progress, but neither could possibly predict the extraordinary circumstances under which they are about to meet again.

Breaking the Tongue by Vyvyane Loh

This novel chronicles the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. Central to the story is a Chinese family. Claude, the son, raised along with his sister to be more British than the British, is profoundly ashamed of his own heritage. Humphrey, the father whose allegiance to the Empire blinds him to the idea of defeat, is also blind to his decorative wife, Cynthia. Observing everything is Grandma Siok, whose sage advice and quotations from the ancient Art of War fall on deaf ears. And then there is Ling-Li, the elusive young woman - part nurse, part warrior - who guards secrets.

Vietnam:

Alone in the Valley by Kenneth Waymon Baker

Enter the story of 19-year-old Daniel Perdue and his year as a grunt, pursuing an elusive enemy through the steamy jungles of the Central Vietnamese Highlands. From the moment the boy soldier touches down until he is airborne and on his way home again, the author makes sure the reader hears every sound, sees every sight, feels every emotion as his young hero faces the rigors of war and changed forever, a man who will return acquire the instincts of a warrior.

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.

Lizzie's War by Tim Farrington

Portraying the ravages of war as well as the dark humor of a soldier navigating life in the trenches, the clash of a mother's everyday duties with her unspoken desires, and the age-old conflict between God and humanity, Lizzie's War is an unforgettable family epic.

Fields of Fire & Lost Soldiers by James Webb

Webb's novels paint portraits of two Vietnams: one ravaged by war and another, modern Vietnam charged with hopes for the future but haunted by the ghosts of its war-torn past. Lost Soldiers is a novel of revenge and redemption that tells where Vietnam is headed and where it has been. And Fields of Fire, according to Tom Wolfe, is the finest of the Vietnam novels.

Nam-A-Rama by Phillip Jennings

Jennings' unpredictable novel of Vietnam is an American classic in the making, a not-so-longing look at the absurdity of a war in which the damned and the innocent share the same hootch, the same Commander-in-Chief, and sometimes even the same body-bag.

Of Rice and Men by Richard Galli

This book chronicles the Army's little known "Civil Affairs" soldiers who courageously roam hostile war zones, not to kill or to destroy, but to build, to feed, and to heal. Unprepared, uncertain, and naive, they find it impossible to make the skeptical population fall in love with them. But it's thrilling to watch them try.

Up Country by Nelson Demille

In DeMille's latest, Paul Brenner is back into the army's Criminal Investigative Division to check out a murder committed 30 years ago in Vietnam.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Weapons and good-luck charms carried by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam here represent survival, lost innocence and the war's interminable legacy. O'Brien's meditations--on war and memory, on darkness and light--suffuse the entire work with a kind of poetic form, making for a highly original, fully realized novel.

Gulf Wars:

The Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth

Readers who are intrigued by behind-the-scenes machinations of the Gulf War can eavesdrop on the major players as well as some fictional creations in this workmanlike thriller from the author of The Day of the Jackal (1971) and The Odessa File (1972). Saddam Hussein has invaded Kuwait, and the British send Mike Martin of the elite Special Air Services into deep cover in Kuwait City on an intelligence-gathering mission.

Prayer at Rumayla by Charles Sheehan-Miles

This book is a blistering account of the Gulf War that will be very difficult to put down and impossible to forget. The story of Chet Brown, who arrived home from the Gulf War in the spring of 1991 to find that the war was only beginning, is bluntly honest in its language and description. Betrayed by his friends and lover, ignored by his family, Brown travels across the country in an attempt to find answers to questions he doesn’t even know to ask.

Sword of Valor by Tom Willard

War in Iraq:

Terrorist by John Updike

Ahmad, an 18-year-old high school student, is the son of an Irish American mother and an Egyptian father. He has taken up the Islamic faith of his father so completely that he is obsessed with distancing himself from the unclean infidel, which is how he views the New Jersey community in which he lives. The high-school guidance counselor, who attempts to steer young Ahmad in a direction he feels is more suitable and productive, is a compelling and oddly attractive supporting character, who, as it turns out, plays a vital role in a deadly plot into which Ahmad tumbles like the naive, easily manipulated adolescent he is. This marvelous novel can be accurately labeled as a 9/11 novel, but it deserves also the label of masterpiece for its carefully nuanced building up of the psychology of those who traffic in terrorism.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Froer

A nine-year old loses his father in the World Trade Center collapse, and struggles with his grief and memories of his Dad's frantic voice on the answering machine. This book addresses how 9/11 changed our world and our proximity to terror and death.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

a masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man — a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before.

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