When Vladimir Putin became President of Russia in 2000, his first priority was to reestablish the intelligence agencies' grip on the country by portraying himself as a strongman protecting Russian citizens from security threats. Despite condemnation by the United Nations, the European Parliament, and European Union, the policy of brutal "ethnic cleansing" in Chechnya continued. For Putin, Islamist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, were a welcome opportunity to rebrand the war against Chechen independence, not as the crushing of a democracy, but as a contribution to President George W. Bush's "War on Terror." In the years that followed, Putin's regime covertly supported and manipulated extremist factions in Chechnya and stage-managed terrorist attacks on its own citizens to justify continuing aggression. US and European condemnation of Russian atrocities in Chechnya dwindled as Russia continued to portray Chechen independence as an international terrorist threat. Chechnya's Prime Minister-in-Exile Akhmed Zakaev, who had to escape Chechnya, faced Russian calls for his extradition from the United Kingdom, which instead granted him political asylum as Russia's increased its oppressive operations.

"It is impossible to reproduce the state of mind of the men who waged war in 1917 and 1918," Edward Coffman wrote in "The War to End All Wars." In "Doughboys on the Great War" the voices of thousands of servicemen say otherwise. The majority of soldiers from the American Expeditionary Forces returned from Europe in 1919. Where many were simply asked for basic data, veterans from four states--Utah, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Virginia--were given questionnaires soliciting additional information and "remarks." Drawing on these questionnaires, completed while memories were still fresh, this book presents a chorus of soldiers' voices speaking directly of the expectations, motivations, and experiences as infantrymen on the Western Front in World War I.

What was it like to kill or maim German soldiers? To see friends killed or maimed by the enemy? To return home after experiencing such violence? Again and again, soldiers wrestle with questions like these, putting into words what only they can tell. They also reflect on why they volunteered, why they fought, what their training was, and how ill-prepared they were for what they found overseas. They describe how they interacted with the civilian populations in England and France, how they saw the rewards and frustrations of occupation duty when they desperately wanted to go home, and--perhaps most significantly--what it all added up to in the end. Together their responses create a vivid and nuanced group portrait of the soldiers who fought with the American Expeditionary Forces on the battlefields of Aisne-Marne, Argonne Forest, Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry, the Marne, Metz, Meuse-Argonne, St. Mihiel, Sedan, and Verdun during the First World War.

The picture that emerges is often at odds with the popular notion of the disillusioned doughboy. Though hardened and harrowed by combat, the veteran heard here is for the most part proud of his service, service undertaken for duty, honor, and country. In short, a hundred years later, the doughboy once more speaks in his own true voice.

Winner of the Blogger's Book Prize, 2021 Shortlisted for the People's Book Prize, 2021 Winner of Best Literary Fiction and Best Multicultural Fiction at American Book Fest International Book Awards, 2021 'An epic account of Viet Nam's painful 20th-century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling... Moving and riveting.' Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer Selected as a Best Book of 2020 by NB Magazine * BookBrowse * Buzz Magazine * NPR * Washington Independent Review of Books * Real Simple * She Reads * A Hindu's View * Thoughts from a Page One family, two generations of women and a war that will change their lives forever Ha Noi, 1972. Huong and her grandmother, Tran Dieu Lan, cling to one another in their improvised shelter as American bombs fall around them. For Tran Dieu Lan, forced to flee the family farm with her six children decades earlier as the Communist government rose to power in the North, this experience is horribly familiar. Seen through the eyes of these two unforgettable women, The Mountains Sing captures their defiance and determination, hope and unexpected joy. Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Viet Nam, celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyen's richly lyrical debut weaves between the lives of a grandmother and granddaughter to paint a unique picture of a country pushed to breaking point, and a family who refuse to give up. 'Devastating... From the French and Japanese occupations to the Indochina wars, The Great Hunger, land reform and the Vietnam War, it's a story of resilience, determination, family and hope in a country blighted by pain.' Refinery29

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the latest chapter in a series of events that have their origins in World War One. The difficult existential questions that emerged before and during this conflict still remain unresolved. Contrary to the claim that wars are not supposed to happen in Europe or that we live in the era of the End of History, the experience of Ukraine highlights the salience of the spell of the past. The failure of the West to take its past seriously has left it confused and unprepared to deal with the current crisis. Unexpectedly fashionable claims about the irrelevance of borders and of nation states have been exposed as shallow myths. The author argues that the West's self-inflicted condition of historical amnesia has encouraged it to disregard the salience of geo-political realities. Suddenly the once fashionable claims that made up the virtues of globalisation appear threadbare. This problem, which was already evident during the global Covid pandemic has reached a crisis point in the battlefield of Ukraine. History has had its revenge on a culture that believes that what happened in the past no longer matters. The Road To Ukraine: How the West Lost Its Way argues that overcoming the state of historical amnesia is the precondition for the restoration of global solidarity.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

What did war look like in the cultural imagination of 1914? Why did men in Scotland sign up to fight in unprecedented numbers? What were the martial myths shaping Scottish identity from the aftermath of Bannockburn to the close of the nineteenth century, and what did the Scottish soldiers of the First World War think they were fighting for? Scotland and the First World War: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Bannockburn is a collection of new interdisciplinary essays interrogating the trans-historical myths of nation, belonging and martial identity that shaped Scotland's encounter with the First World War. In a series of thematically linked essays, experts from the fields of literature, history and cultural studies examine how Scotland remembers war, and how remembering war has shaped Scotland.

A Mail on Sunday book of the year.

In 1940, Europe was on the brink of collapse. Country after country had fallen to the Nazis, and Britain was known as ‘Last Hope Island’, where Europeans from the captive nations gathered to continue the war effort.

In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian and New York Times–bestselling author Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history.

From the Polish and French code breakers who helped crack Enigma, to the Czech pilots who protected London during German bombings, Olson tells the stories of the courageous men and women who came together to defeat Hitler and save Europe.

In the search for the deeper causes of the 'War to end all wars' the reading public has been presented with countless titles by military, diplomatic and intellectual historians. Some of these have, however, been motivated by a desire to show how their authors would have preferred the past events to have been, so as to promote some present-day agenda. This is the fallacy of 'presentism'. John Moses was trained at the Universities of Munich and Erlangen by professors committed to the Rankean tradition of showing 'how it actually was', as far as humanly possible, based on diligent archival research and with the strictest objectivity and emotional detachment. Consequently, both Moses and Overlack have been at pains to identify the essential peculiarity of the Kaiser's Germany and have focused sharply on the question of how its war planning impinged on Australasia.

Chester Nimitz was an admiral's Admiral, considered by many to be the greatest naval leader of the last century. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz assembled the forces, selected the leaders, and - as commander of all U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific Ocean - led the charge one island at a time, one battle at a time, toward victory. A brilliant strategist, he astounded contemporaries by achieving military victories against fantastic odds, outpacing more flamboyant luminaries like General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral "Bull" Halsey. And he was there to accept, on behalf of the United States, the surrender of the Japanese aboard the battleship USS Missouri in August 1945. In this first biography in over three decades, Brayton Harris uses long-overlooked files and recently declassified documents to bring to life one of America's greatest wartime heroes.

A secret mission sends the author to Vietnam's Mekong Delta, the bread basket of old Indo - China. He uncovers a sophisticated enemy supply network unknown to our military hierarchy.

Using intelligence data covertly gathered in Cambodia and analyzed at the Center for Naval Analyses in Arlington, Virginia they discover and destroy Vietcong forces and interdict VC supply lines with a mixture of intrigue and romance.

A U. S. Naval story never told, complete with declassified maps from the Office of Naval Intelligence, and illuminating pictures of Saigon and archaic areas of the Delta taken by the author forty - six years ago, a depiction of "old Saigon" and real relationships between North and South Vietnam are related.

Headquartered in Saigon, the true interaction between our Navy and Army ( MACV ) brass couched in the background of wartime Saigon, often referred to as the "Paris of the Orient," and Washington, D. C. is insightfully told.

What are you willing to do to survive? What are you willing to endure if it means you might live? 'Achingly moving, gives much-needed hope . . . Deserves the status both as a valuable historical source and as a stand-out memoir' Daily Express 'A story that needs to be heard' 5***** Reader Review Entering Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp, Franci was expected to die. She refused. In the summer of 1942, twenty-two-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labour camps in Hamburg, and finally to Bergen Belsen. Franci, a spirited and glamorous young woman, was known among her fellow inmates as the Prague dress designer. Having endured the transportation of her parents, she never forgot her mother's parting words: 'Your only duty to us is to stay alive'. During an Auschwitz selection, Franci would spontaneously lie to Nazi officer Dr Josef Mengele, and claim to be an electrician. A split-second decision that would go on to endanger - and save - her life. Unpublished for 50 years, Franci's War is an astonishing account of one woman's attempt to survive. Heartbreaking and candid, Franci finds the light in her darkest years and the horrors she faces instill in her, strength and resilience to survive and to live again. She gives a voice to the women prisoners in her tight-knit circle of friends. Her testimony sheds new light on the alliances, love affairs, and sexual barter that took place during the Holocaust, offering a compelling insight into the resilience and courage of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. Above all, Franci's War asks us to explore what it takes to survive, and what it means to truly live. 'A candid account of shocking events. Franci is someone many women today will be able to identify with' 5***** Reader Review 'First-hand accounts of life in Nazi death camps never lose their terrible power but few are as extraordinary as Franci's War' Mail on Sunday 'Fascinating and traumatic. Well worth a read' 5***** Reader Review