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This new collection of essays, from leading British and Canadian scholars, presents an excellent insight into the strategic thinking of the British Empire. It defines the main areas of the strategic decision-making process that was known as 'Imperial Defence'. The theme is one of imperial defence and defence of empire, so chapters will be historiographical in nature, discussing the major features of each key component of imperial defence, areas of agreement and disagreement in the existing literature on critical interpretations, introducing key individuals and positions and commenting on the appropriateness of existing studies, as well as identifying a raft of new directions for future research.
Plastic bags, newspapers, pizza boxes, razors, watches, diapers, toothbrushes ... What makes a thing disposable? Which of its properties allows us to treat it as if it did not matter, or as if it actually lacked matter? Why do so many objects appear to us as nothing more than brief flashes between checkout-line and landfill? In An Ontology of Trash, Greg Kennedy inquires into the meaning of disposable objects and explores the nature of our prodigious refuse. He takes trash as a real ontological problem resulting from our unsettled relation to nature. The metaphysical drive from immanence to transcendence leaves us in an alien world of objects drained of meaningful physical presence. Consequently, they become interpreted as beings that somehow essentially lack being, and exist in our technological world only to disappear. Kennedy explores this problematic nature and looks for possibilities of salutary change.
In light of technological advances and multiplying irregular conflicts, conventional wisdom suggests airpower as the ideal, low-cost means of conducting modern warfare—and the air control method adopted by the British between the two world wars seems to back this up. Swift and precise targeting from above was considered more humane, after all, sparing civilians as well as British soldiers during punitive expeditions in unruly colonial regions. But what conventional wisdom misses, and this book makes clear, is how the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) innovative approach actually worked—relying on British airmen on the ground at least as much as on airborne technology to control restive tribes an...
The Far Northeast: 3000 BP to Contact is the first volume to synthesize archaeological research from across Atlantic Canada and northern New England for the period spanning from 3000 years ago to European contact. Recently, notions of the “Woodland period” in the broader Northeast have drawn scrutiny from experts due to increasing awareness that its hallmarks—such as horticulture, village formation, mortuary ceremonialism, and the advent of various technologies—appear to be less synchronous than once thought. By paying particular attention to the Far Northeast and its unique (yet sometimes marginal) position in Woodland discourse, this work offers a much-needed in-depth look at one of the best-documented cases of hunter-gatherer persistence and adaptation at the eve of European contact. Penned by academic, government, and cultural-resource-management archaeologists, the seventeen chapters in The Far Northeast: 3000 BP to Contact draw on decades of research in considering this period, both in terms of variability within the region, and integration with broader cultural patterns in the Northeast and beyond. Published in English.
A Passion for the Past celebrates the late archaeologist James F. Pendergast. The book includes twenty-two essays on subjects ranging from archaeological ethnicity to Native perspectives on archaeology, and features several texts on the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, a subject dear to Pendergast’s heart.
An acclaimed military historian examines the vital role of British naval intelligence from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Cold War. In this comprehensive account, Andrew Boyd brings a critical new dimension to our understanding of British naval intelligence. From the capture of Napoleons signal codes to the satellite-based systems of the Cold War era, he provides a coherent and reliable overview while setting his subject in the larger context of the British state. It is a fascinating study of how naval needs and personalities shaped the British intelligence community that exists today. Boyd explains why and how intelligence was collected and assesses its real impact on policy a...
This book explores innovation within the Royal Navy from the financial constraints of the 1930s through to the refocusing of the Royal Navy after 1990.
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was the first formal agreement of its type reached by a Western 'great' power with a non-Caucasian nation in the modern era. As such, it represented an important milestone diplomatically, strategically and culturally. This book brings together many leading experts who examine the different aspects of the Alliance in its different stages before, during and after the First World War, who explore the reasons for its success and for its end, and who reach a number of interesting and innovative conclusions on the agreement's ultimate importance.
Examines how military culture forms and changes, as well as its impact on the effectiveness of military organizations.
A major re-interpretation of international relations in the period from 1919 to 1939. Avoiding such simplistic explanations as appeasement and British decline, Keith Neilson demonstrates that the underlying cause of the Second World War was the intellectual failure to find an effective means of maintaining the new world order created in 1919. With secret diplomacy, alliances and the balance of power seen as having caused the First World War, the makers of British policy after 1919 were forced to rely on such instruments of liberal internationalism as arms control, the League of Nations and global public opinion to preserve peace. Using Britain's relations with Soviet Russia as a focus for a re-examination of Britain's dealings with Germany and Japan, this book shows that these tools were inadequate to deal with the physical and ideological threats posed by Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism and Japanese militarism.