I'm about halfway through Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth (author of Day of the Jackal). It's flat out fascinating - a complete manual of how to overthrow a small African dictatorship, going into insane levels of detail over every facet of such an operation. For research the author met with mercenaries and arms dealers, posing as an interested party in throwing a coup of New Guinea. The balls on this guy.
There's a movie with Christopher Walken that's also pretty good, though it's less interested in the actual mechanics of throwing a coup.
The mapping of Terra Australis by Robert Clancy. It's about $30 bucks on amazon but it's a fascinating read on how my country was mapped. For instance, in the 1750s for instance there were really only 2 areas that hadn't been mapped yet. Terra Australis and Northern Canada with all the ice. You had the occasional Dutch explorer like Abel Tasman make a pass and draw a rough map but it wasn't till Matthew Flinders in 1760 charted the southern coastline and much of Tasmania. His map were used by the local British Admiralty establishing the penal colonies in Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney till about 1820 when more detailed maps of coastal features started to be made.