You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Colonel Thomas Pride was central to one of the English Civil War's key events: the arrest and exclusion of 140 Members of Parliament at Westminster in December 1648. Those that remained in the House of Commons - the Rump - voted to bring King Charles I to trial, resulting in the first and only public execution of a British Monarch. But while this monumental episode of early modern history - "Pride's Purge" - is renowned, the life of the army officer behind it remains shrouded in obscurity. Cromwell's Buffoon is a detailed and engaging account of the life of soldier and regicide, Colonel Thomas Pride, a Somerset farmer's son who fought his way through the Civil Wars to become one of the Engli...
Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.
This is a philosophical treatise on war written by an Oxford grad who served in Afghanistan.
The first institutional examination of the British army's learning and innovation process during the First World War.
A TLS and a Prospect Book of the Year A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the British military today. Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Britain has changed enormously. During this time, the British Army fought two campaigns, in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. This book questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed from assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews with many soldiers and officers who served, as well as the politicians who directed them, the allies who accompanied them, and the family members who loved and — on occasion — lost them, it is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam, who spent a year in the army when he was 18, returned a decade later to see how the institution had changed. His book examines the relevance of the armed forces today — their social, economic, political, and cultural role. This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.