Books by William Nester

No previous book has explored deeper or broader into Napoleon's seething labyrinth of a mind and revealed more of its complex, fascinating, provocative, and paradoxical dimensions. This is Napoleon as has never been seen before.

Insurgencies are like the hydra, the many-headed beast of Greek mythology. Once one begins, the measures a government takes to eliminate militants¿to cut off the insurgency¿s head¿can provoke countless others to join the enemy ranks. Tactical victories often breed strategic defeats. Traditional ¿search, destroy, and withdraw¿ missions that rely on firepower to wipe out rebels frequently destroy the livelihoods and loved ones of innocent people caught in the cross fire. U.S. troops have seen the pattern repeated as their initially successful offensives toppled enemy regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq but soon transformed into grueling guerrilla wars.Hearts, Minds, and Hydras outlines the reasons for these worsening situations. The most crucial were self-defeating decisions made by the George W. Bush administration, whose neoconservatism and hubris rather than careful analysis of genuine threats, national interests, and reasonable options shaped its policies. Although the Americans were eventually able to contain and diminish the insurgency in Iraq, the one in Afghanistan not only steadily intensified but also spread into neighboring Pakistan. The near abandonment of the war in Afghanistan and the neoconservative campaign in Iraq were godsends for al Qaeda and all other enemies of the United States. Then, as Americäs position deteriorated in both wars, the neoconservatives became even more determined to stay the course. William Nester analyzes some of the more prominent dilemmas haunting American policymakers now struggling to win in Afghanistan, fight terrorism in the United States, and reshape their relationship with Pakistan. In doing so, he reveals the nature of that all-too-real monster of insurgency, what feeds it, and how to starve it.

For Britain, the last French and Indian War of 1754-1760 dwarfed all earlier conflicts. From a wider historical perspective, this text studies the struggle for North America in the previous two centuries, such as the French-British conflict and the role of the Amerindians and other European powers.

From 1789 to 1800, the Federalist and Republican parties held opposing visions for America's future.

"Haunted Victory: The American Crusade to Destroy Saddam and Impose Democracy on Iraq" explores the dynamic trajectory of beliefs, actions, and their consequences in what will forever be debated as among the most controversial and costly operation in U.S. history in terms of American security, power, wealth, and honor. While many others have written about the Iraq War, William Nester unveils the moral dilemmas that entangled the George W. Bush administration and the American public through each stage of planning, selling, fighting, and attempting to end the Iraq War. He includes vivid revelations of the administration's private tugs-of-war over whether to invade Iraq and then how to fight that war. Nester pulls no punches and discloses who deserves credit for what went right and who deserves condemnation for what went wrong. In his engaging style, Nester has written a page-turner. General readers, students, and experts alike will eagerly welcome Haunted Victory for its concise and comprehensive analysis of the key facets of the Iraq War.

During 1763 and 1764, a loose coalition of Native American tribes ranging from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River and from the Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes revolted against the oppression and neglect of their newly installed British masters.

The Revolutionary Years, 1775-1789, reveals how the nation's leaders asserted power during the fourteen crucial years from the Revolution's first shots at Lexington in April 1775 to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.

By 1756 the wilderness war for control of North America that erupted two years earlier between France and England had expanded into a global struggle among all of Europe's Great Powers.