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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations > Battles & campaigns
The Crusades: A History is the definitive account of a key topic in
medieval and religious history. Jonathan Riley-Smith, a world
authority on the subject, explores the organisation of a crusade,
the experience of crusading and the crusaders themselves, producing
a textbook that is as accessible as it is comprehensive. This
exciting new third edition includes: - Substantial new material on
crusade theory, historiography and translated texts - An expanded
scope that extends the text to cover the decline of crusading in
the nineteenth century - Valuable pedagogical features, such as a
revised bibliography, maps, illustrations and a brand new
chronology This book is essential reading for all students and
scholars seeking to understand the Crusades and their significance
in world history.
The Vietnam War is one of the defining conflicts of the twentieth
century: not only did it divide American society at every level;
the conflict also represented a key shift in Asian anti-colonialism
and shaped the course of the Cold War. Despite its political and
social importance, popular memory of the war is dominated by myths
and stereotypes. In this incisive new text, John Dumbrell debunks
popular assumptions about the war and reassesses the key political,
military and historical controversies associated with one of the
most contentious and divisive wars of recent times. Drawing upon an
extensive range of newly accessible sources, Rethinking the Vietnam
War assesses all aspects of the conflict - ranging across domestic
electoral politics in the USA to the divided communist leadership
in Hanoi and grassroots antiwar movements around the world. The
book charts the full course of the war - from the origins of
American involvement, the growing internationalization of the
conflict and the swing year of 1968 to bitter twists in Sino-Soviet
rivalry and the eventual withdrawal of American forces. Situating
the conflict within an international context, John Dumbrell also
considers competing interpretations of the war and points the way
to the resolution of debates which have divided international
opinion for decades.
Both the courage and the inhumanity displayed during wartime are
chronicled in these three diaries penned by Ray Parkin, who served
during World War II. Engaging narratives and pictures detail his
experience on the "HMAS Perth in the Sunda Strait battle with the
Japanese naval force that eventually sunk his ship. Also recounted
are Parkin's 15 months as a prisoner of war, during which he helped
construct the Burma-Siam railway. Details of his final 12 months of
captivity in a crowded tramp steamer reveal the endurance of
soldiers who survived submarine attacks and weathered a typhoon.
These stories provide a single man's perspective on the war but
also offer insight into the Japanese way of thinking and the
traumas of combat.
A German view of war at sea
It is inevitable that most books in English on any conflict in
which British Forces were engaged tend to view the subject from a
British perspective. The number of accounts or histories from the
other side of the battle smoke translated and published in English
are Hard to find and in the minority, they are therefore essential
for any student who seeks a well-rounded view of a historical
event. The great actions at sea during the First World War were few
in number so it is fortunate that we have been left with this
account by von Hase, who was both a German and a sailor in the
service of his country. The book is part history and part a report
from an eyewitness and it examines in depth the momentous Battles
of Kiel and Jutland fought in the Skagerrak. An invaluable source
work on the Imperial German Navy at War.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
This book is an intimate account of an ordinary individual's
extraordinary life journey that transcends both cultural and social
boundaries. Th e author was born and lived in Korea during his
formative years, and has been living in the United States for the
following 47 years. Th is individual's unique story of his
environment is informative and his approach to his life time
challenges highlights every passage of the book. Th e book is
thoughtprovoking as well as enlightening...a rare gem in its
subject, style, and exposition. This book enlightens and entertains
its readers at the same time eff ortlessly.
A great war correspondent reports from the Great War
Richard Harding Davis is well regarded as a writer of fiction, but
it is for his work and writings as a journalist-particularly when
covering the battle front-that posterity has awarded him the
accolade 'the first famous American war correspondent.' Davis'
first experience as a war correspondent was during the
Spanish-American War and he later covered the Boer War in South
Africa. The outbreak of the Great War saw him travelling to Europe
and once there his pursuit of the story and vital information
propelled him through many theatres of the conflict. The passage of
time filters away those who have experienced momentous events until
the few who are remembered are those who have left a written
record. Each account is beyond value when their number is finite,
but occasionally we are blessed not only with an invaluable account
but also a fine author to convey it. By this time Davis had
perfected his craft and these two books brought together by Leonaur
for good value demonstrate that perfectly. They are augmented here
with some of Davis' letters sent during the Great War. This was to
be Davis' last campaign on returning home to New York he fell ill
and died suddenly in 1916 aged just 52 years old. Available in
softcover and hardback with dust jacket for collectors.
With a New Introduction by Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for
the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Originally
published three years before the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973,
this important book was not a polemic, but a sober account of the
Vietnam conflict from the perspective of international law. Framed
in reference to the Nuremberg Trials that followed the Second World
War, it described problems the United States may have to face due
to its involvement in the Vietnam conflict. After presenting a
general history of war crimes and an account of the Nuremberg
Trials, Taylor turns his attention to Vietnam. Among other points,
he examined parallels between actions committed by American troops
during the then-recent My Lai Massacre of 1968 and Hitler's SS in
Nazi-occupied Europe. Commissioned for this edition, Ferencz's
introduction evaluates Taylor's study and its lessons for the
present and future. When this book was published in 1970, Telford
Taylor had concluded that U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam
was an American tragedy: "Somehow we failed ourselves to learn the
lessons we undertook to teach at Nuremberg." What were those
lessons? How acceptable were they? Which laws of war could
realistically be enforced on a raging battlefield against an
implacable foe? Forty years later, it is worth re-examining how it
came about that this powerful and humanitarian country could have
come to be seen by many as a giant "prone to shatter what we try to
save. -From the Introduction by Benjamin B. FerenczTelford Taylor
1908-1998] was chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg
Trials. Later Professor of Law at Columbia University, he was a
vigorous opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy and an outspoken
critic of U.S. actions during the Vietnam War. His books include
Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich (1952),
Grand Inquest: The Story of Congressional Investigations (1955) and
The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992).
Benjamin Ferencz, a member of Taylor's legal staff, was the Chief
Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial.
He is the author of Defining International Aggression-The Search
for World Peace (1975), Adjunct Professor of International Law,
Pace University and founder of the Pace Peace Center.
A British Fascist in the Second World War presents the edited diary
of the British fascist Italophile, James Strachey Barnes.
Previously unpublished, the diary is a significant source for all
students of the Second World War and the history of European and
British fascism. The diary covers the period from the fall of
Mussolini in 1943 to the end of the war in 1945, two years in which
British fascist Major James Strachey Barnes lived in Italy as a
'traitor'. Like William Joyce in Germany, he was involved in
propaganda activity directed at Britain, the country of which he
was formally a citizen. Brought up by upper-class English
grandparents who had retired to Tuscany, he chose Italy as his own
country and, in 1940, applied for Italian citizenship. By then,
Barnes had become a well-known fascist writer. His diary is an
extraordinary source written during the dramatic events of the
Italian campaign. It reveals how events in Italy gradually affected
his ideas about fascism, Italy, civilisation and religion. It tells
much about Italian society under the strain of war and Allied
bombing, and about the behaviour of both prominent fascist leaders
and ordinary Italians. The diary also contains fascinating glimpses
of Barnes's relationship with Ezra Pound, with Barnes attaching
great significance to their discussion of economic issues in
particular. With a scholarly introduction and an extensive
bibliography and sources section included, this edited diary is an
invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning more about
the ideological complexities of the Second World War and fascism in
20th-century Europe.
This study uses a comparative analysis of the Malayan Emergency,
the American experience in Vietnam, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM to
examine the role and effectiveness of artillery units in complex
counterinsurgency environments. Through this analysis, four factors
emerge which impact the employment of artillery units: the
counterinsurgency effort's requirement for indirect fires;
constraints and limitations on indirect fires; the
counterinsurgency effort's force organization; and the conversion
cost of nonstandard roles for artillery units. In conclusion, the
study offers five broadly descriptive fundamentals for employing
artillery units in a counterinsurgency environment: invest in
tactical leadership, exploit lessons learned, support the
operational approach and strategic framework, maintain pragmatic
fire support capability, and minimize collateral damage. Finally,
the study examines the role of education for leaders in a
counterinsurgency, and its influence on these imperative
fundamentals.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, began a
war that lasted nearly four years and created by far the bloodiest
theater in World War II. In the conventional narrative of this war,
Hitler was defeated by Stalin because, like Napoleon, he
underestimated the size and resources of his enemy. In fact, says
historian John Mosier, Hitler came very close to winning and lost
only because of the intervention of the western Allies. Stalin's
great triumph was not winning the war, but establishing the
prevailing interpretation of the war. The Great Patriotic War, as
it is known in Russia, would eventually prove fatal, setting in
motion events that would culminate in the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
"
Deathride "argues that the Soviet losses in World War II were
unsustainable and would eventually have led to defeat. The Soviet
Union had only twice the population of Germany at the time, but it
was suffering a casualty rate more than two and a half times the
German rate. Because Stalin had a notorious habit of imprisoning or
killing anyone who brought him bad news (and often their families
as well), Soviet battlefield reports were fantasies, and the battle
plans Soviet generals developed seldom responded to actual
circumstances. In this respect the Soviets waged war as they did
everything else: through propaganda rather than actual achievement.
What saved Stalin was the Allied decision to open the Mediterranean
theater. Once the Allies threatened Italy, Hitler was forced to
withdraw his best troops from the eastern front and redeploy them.
In addition, the Allies provided heavy vehicles that the Soviets
desperately needed and were unable to manufacture themselves. It
was not the resources of the Soviet Union that defeated Hitler but
the resources of the West.
In this provocative revisionist analysis of the war between Hitler
and Stalin, Mosier provides a dramatic, vigorous narrative of
events as he shows how most previous histories accepted Stalin's
lies and distortions to produce a false sense of Soviet triumph.
"Deathride "is the real story of the Eastern Front, fresh and
different from what we thought we knew.
Normandy 1944. Like most of his comrades Ken Tout was just 20 years
old. Not until many years later did he feel able to gather their
memoirs in three Hale books, "Tank!", "Tanks, Advance!" and "To
Hell with Tanks!". Now these adventures are condensed into this one
continuous narrative. Follow the ordinary young lads of the
Northamptonshire Yeomanry through the massive enemy defences on
Bourguebus Ridge, to the snows of the Ardennes, to the night
crossing of the River Rhine, and finally to Grote KerkI, where they
celebrated with liberated Dutch citizens. They were not
professional soldiers but young conscripts willing to 'do their
bit', knowing that their Shermans were outgunned by the enemy's
much heavier Tiger and Panther tanks. "By Tank: D Day to VE Days"
vividly recalls, in one complete volume, the whole experience of
battle with utter authenticity: the fear, confusion, boredom,
excitement and grief.
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