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The first major synthesis of the war since 2001, drawing upon a host of newly declassified documents, presidential tapes, and overlooked foreign sources to give the most comprehensive look to date of the war that still haunts America.
On the eve of World War II, the British army was more an international police force than a combat ready fighting force. This book examines its transformation in a look at Great Britain's top commanders in the field.
For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives (short and lively) - wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again. Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great sleigh-drive against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.
Many anthropological accounts of warfare in indigenous societies have described the taking of heads or other body parts as trophies. But almost nothing is known of the prevalence of trophy-taking of this sort in the armed forces of contemporary nation-states. This book is a history of this type of misconduct among military personnel over the past two centuries, exploring its close connections with colonialism, scientific collecting and concepts of race, and how it is a model for violent power relationships between groups.
For seven weeks in 1929, the Republic of China and the Soviet Union battled in Manchuria over control of the Chinese Eastern Railroad. It was the largest military clash between China and a Western power ever fought on Chinese soil, involving more that a quarter million combatants. Michael M. Walker's The 1929 Sino-Soviet War is the first full account of what UPI's Moscow correspondent called "the war nobody knew"—a "limited modern war" that destabilized the region's balance of power, altered East Asian history, and sent grim reverberations through a global community giving lip service to demilitarizing in the wake of World War I. Walker locates the roots of the conflict in miscalculations ...
Learning the Lessons of Modern War uses the study of the recent past to illuminate the future. More specifically, it examines the lessons of recent wars as a way of understanding continuity and change in the character and conduct of war. The volume brings together contributions from a group of well-known scholars and practitioners from across the world to examine the conduct of recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. The book's first section consists of chapters that explore the value of a contemporary approach to history and reflect on the value of learning lessons from the past. Its second section focuses on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chapters on ...
Contains seven case studies evaluating Confederate and Union generals who might be considered "capable failures": officers of high pre-war reputation, some with distinguished records in the Civil War. Explores the various reasons these men suffered defeat such as flaws of character, errors of judgment, lack of preparation, or circumstances beyond their control. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The signing of the Paris Agreement in 1973 ended not only America's Vietnam War but also Richard Nixon's best laid plans. After years of secret negotiations, threats of massive bombing and secret diplomacy designed to shatter strained Communist alliances, the president had to settle for a peace that fell far short of his original aims.
This book investigates the use and utility of military force in modern war. After the Cold War, Western armed forces have increasingly been called upon to intervene in internal conflicts in the former Third World. These forces have been called upon to carry out missions that they traditionally have not been trained and equipped for, in environments that they often have not been prepared for. A number of these ‘new’ types of operations in allegedly ‘new’ wars stand out, such as peace enforcement, state-building, counter-insurgency, humanitarian aid, and not the least counter-terrorism. The success rate of these missions has, however, been mixed, providing fuel for an increasingly loud...