Michael Kerrigan

Of all the threats to peace and democracy in the world today, few are more disturbing than that of biological or chemical warfare. These weapons are cheap to make and easy to use, which has made them the ideal choice for a new and sinister breed of terrorists. Protecting against Biological and Chemical Attack is a fascinating introduction to the main types of biological and chemical weapons, including their history, applications, and limitations....

The office of the American President has evolved dramatically over the last 200 years, from George Washington's heroic posturing as leader of a renegade nation, to calculated cunning as commander of a nuclear superpower. This colourful inventory of presidential transgressions reveals that every modern scandal is the descendant of remarkably similar predecessors. Detailing the disgraces of all forty-four Presidents, from sexual skirmishes to CIA cover-ups,...

Artist, soldier, politician, madman? We know the headlines, we know about the atrocities, but what do we really know of the man at the heart of it all? Hitler looks behind the image of the dictator and explores his childhood, his military service during World War I, his artistic aspirations, the formation of his political and religious views, his troubled love life, his rise to power and his life as dictator. From an ordinary background, Adolf Hitler...

No nation in history has valued individual freedom more highly than the United States of America. Its people's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is enshrined in the Constitution. But even the most free, democratic society cannot allow its members to do entirely as they want. Every civilization has had its code of values, its system of laws––and each has defended that system by punishing wrongdoers. America has led the world...

America has always been a nation of immigrants. In addition to the approximately 1 million immigrants who enter the United States legally each year, millions more enter without documentation or overstay their visas. It is the job of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to help hard working immigrants in search of a better life to enter the U.S. legally while keeping out terrorists and other foreign nationals who would seek to harm the nation. CBP,...

On 26 April 1986, the unthinkable happened near the Ukrainian town of Pripyat: two massive steam explosions ruptured No. 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, immediately killing 30 people and setting off the worst nuclear accident in history. The explosions were followed by an open-air reactor core fire that released huge amounts of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere for the next nine days, spreading across the Soviet Union,...

The Templars, the Knights Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights – the chivalric orders founded during the Crusades evoke romantic images of warrior monks who were fierce but spiritual, chaste and pious yet battle-ready. But what were they really like? How did their organisations form, rise and decline? And how much of what we think about them is myth? The Knights Templar tells the stories of the major and minor military orders from the 11th century...

Five of the first eleven emperors of Rome were assassinated and another two killed themselves rather than face the fury of their subjects. Nero sang while Rome burned. Caligula proclaimed himself a god. If not mad enough already, he also gave one of his horses a place on the senate. Rome rejoiced when many emperors died, only to find that they hated the next one just as much. From the death of Julius Caesar in 44BC to the fall of Rome in 476AD, Dark...

Crime drains our society of billions of dollars every year and takes an appalling toll in terms of death and fear. Eliminating crime entirely is not possible, but prevention is. Police officers bravely patrol our cities and towns to keep us safe. But they cannot do it alone. There are many things we can do to help protect ourselves against crime. Under the expert guidance of police forces, ordinary citizens throughout the United States have come together...