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Books > History > World history > From 1900
In "Selling Air Power," Steve Call provides the first comprehensive
study of the efforts of post-war air power advocates to harness
popular culture in support of their agenda. In the 1940s and much
of the 1950s, hardly a month went by without at least one blatantly
pro-air power article appearing in general interest magazines.
Public fascination with flight helped create and sustain
exaggerated expectations for air power in the minds of both its
official proponents and the American public. Articles in the
"Saturday Evening Post," "Reader's Digest," and "Life" trumpeted
the secure future assured by American air superiority. Military
figures like Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Curtis E. LeMay,
radio-television personalities such as Arthur Godfrey, cartoon
figures like "Steve Canyon," and actors like Jimmy Stewart played
key roles in the unfolding campaign. Movies like "Twelve O'Clock
High ," "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell," and "A Gathering of
Eagles" projected onto the public imagination vivid images
confirming what was coming to be the accepted wisdom: that
America's safety against the Soviet threat could best be guaranteed
by air power, coupled with nuclear capability. But as the Cold War
continued and the specter of the mushroom cloud grew more prominent
in American minds, another, more sinister interpretation began to
take hold. Call chronicles the shift away from the heroic,
patriotic posture of the years just after World War II, toward the
threatening, even bizarre imagery of books and movies like
"Catch-22," "On the Beach," and "Dr. Strangelove." Call's careful
analysis goes beyond the public relations campaigns to probe the
intellectual climate that shaped them and gave them power. "Selling
Air Power" adds a critical layer of understanding to studies in
military and aviation history, as well as American popular culture.
Party-States and their Legacies in Post-Communist Transformation is
a unique investigation into the construction, operation,
self-destruction and transition of Hungarian politics from the
1960s to the mid- 1990s. It presents a rich picture which draws
upon an extraordinary body of data and provides not just simply a
retrospective theoretical analysis of the system, but details of
everyday life within the state apparatus. This remarkable book
includes extensive interviews with over four hundred key
individuals in the party, state and the economy from 1975 onwards.
In addition, Dr Csanadi draws upon other unique empirical research
including internal memos and secret state documents as well as a
full range of studies by East and West European scholars to reveal
the realities of the system as observed by those closest to it. She
not only considers the workings of the system during the communist
era, but also analyses the legacy it continues to exert on the
period of the transformation. As such the book contributes to our
understanding of the Hungarian transformation and sheds new light
on how party states worked throughout Eastern and Central Europe
during the communist era and what the consequences of their
self-similar features on the transformation are. In addition the
book offers comparisons with other formerly centrally planned
systems to reveal the structural differences in the distribution of
power in party states and the very different legacies they leave
for post-communist transformation. This comprehensive book will be
welcomed by researchers, academics and postgraduates interested in
the politics, economics, history and political science of Hungary
and other East and Central European countries in transition.
Evan Burr Bukey explores the experience of intermarried couples -
marriages with Jewish and non-Jewish partners - and their children
in Vienna after Germany's seizure of Austria in 1938. These
families coped with changing regulations that disrupted family
life, pitted relatives against each other, and raised profound
questions about religious, ethnic, and national identity. Bukey
finds that although intermarried couples lived in a state of fear
and anxiety, many managed to mitigate, delay, or even escape Nazi
sanctions. Drawing on extensive archival research, his study
reveals how hundreds of them pursued ingenious strategies to
preserve their assets, to improve their 'racial' status, and above
all to safeguard the position of their children. It also analyzes
cases of intermarried partners who chose divorce as well as persons
involved in illicit liaisons with non-Jews. Jews and Intermarriage
in Nazi Austria concludes that although most of Vienna's
intermarried Jews survived the Holocaust, several hundred Jewish
partners were deported to their deaths and children of such couples
were frequently subjected to Gestapo harassment.
This book is open access and available on
www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched.
Greg Burgess's important new study explores the short life of the
High Commission for Refugees (Jewish and Other) Coming from
Germany, from its creation by the League of Nations in October 1933
to the resignation of High Commissioner, James G. McDonald, in
December 1935. The book relates the history of the first stage of
refugees from Germany through the prism of McDonald and the High
Commission. It analyses the factors that shaped the Commission's
formation, the undertakings the Commission embarked upon and its
eventual failure owing to external complications. The League of
Nations and the Refugees from Nazi Germany argues that, in spite of
the Commission's failure, the refugees from Nazi Germany and the
High Commission's work mark a turn in conceptions of international
humanitarian responsibilities when a state defies standards of
proper behaviour towards its citizens. From this point on, it was
no longer considered sufficient or acceptable for states to respect
the sovereign rights of another if the rights of citizens were
being violated. Greg Burgess discusses this idea, amongst others,
in detail as part of what is a crucial volume for all scholars and
students of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and modern Jewish history.
The Shock of America is based on the proposition that whenever
Europeans contemplated those margins of their experience where
change occurred over the last 100 years or more, there, sooner or
later, they would find America. How Europeans have come to terms
over the decades with this dynamic force in their midst, and what
these terms were, is the story at the heart of this text. Masses of
Europeans have been enthralled by the real or imaginary prospects
coming out of the USA. Important minorities were at times deeply
upset by them. Sometime the roles were reversed or shaken up. But
no-one could be indifferent for long. Inspiration, provocation,
myth, menace, model: all these categories and many more have been
deployed to try to cope with the Americans. Attitudes and
stereotypes have emerged, intellectual resources have been
mobilised, positions and policies developed: all trying to explain
and deal with the kind of radiant supremacy the Americans built in
the course of the twentieth century. David Ellwood combines
political, economic, and cultural themes, suggesting that American
mass culture is a distinctively incisive form of American power
over time. The book is structured in three parts; a separation
based on the proposition that America's influence as a decisive
force for or against innovation was present most conspicuously
after Europe's three greatest military-political conflicts of the
contemporary era: the Great War, World War II, and the Cold War. It
concludes with the emotional upsurge in Europe which greeted the
arrival of Obama on the world scene, suggesting that in spite of
all the disappointments and frictions of the years, the US still
retained its privileged place as a source of inspiration for the
future across the Western world.
Belzec was the prototype death camp and precursor of the killing
centers of Sobibor and Treblinka. Secretly commissioned by the
highest authority of the Nazi State, it acted outside the law of
both civil and military conventions of the time. Under the code
"Aktion Reinhardt," the death camp was organized, staffed and
administered by a leadership of middle-ranking police officers and
a specially selected civilian cadre who, in the first instance, had
been initiated into group murder within the euthanasia program.
Their expertise, under bogus SS insignia, was then transferred to
the operational duties to the human factory abattoir of Belzec,
where, on a conveyor belt system, thousands of Jews, from daily
transports, entered the camp and after just two hours, they lay
dead in the Belzec pits, their property sorted and the killing
grounds tidied to await the next arrival. Over a period of just
nine months, when Belzec was operational Galician Jewry was totally
decimated: 500,000 lay buried in the 33 mass graves. The author
takes the reader step by step into the background of the "Final
Solution" and gives eyewitness testimony, as the mass graves were
located and recorded. This is a publication of the "Yizkor Books in
Print Project" of JewishGen, Inc 376 pages with Illustrations. Hard
Cover
A British territorial battalion during the First World War
The Sherwood Foresters were described before the outbreak of the
Great War as part of the 'best territorial brigade in the kingdom.'
These were part time soldiers mainly from Nottinghamshire and
Derbyshire and, of course, they derived their regimental name from
the great forest of Sherwood, legendary haunt of Robin Hood. The
magnitude of the 1914-18 war demanded a huge and steady supply of
manpower from Britain and its colonies and so the attrition of the
early period of the war made the mobilisation of the Territorial
Force inevitable. Thus it was that these amateur soldiers, together
with others who had volunteered, were destined to fight their war
on the Western Front and in the author of this book they had an
able chronicler to record their services. Most regimental histories
of this period include a list of engagements which reads like a
history of the war and this book is no exception; here are the
Salient, the Hohenzollern Redoubt, Vimy Ridge and the Somme
together with descriptions of the regiment's achievements at
Gommecourt, Bellacourt, Lens, St. Elie, Hill 70, Gorre, Essars and
other iconic engagements. It was not until the last bullet had been
fired that the men who survived marched home again.
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 argues that Franklin D. Roosevelt's work-of which the New
Deal was a prime example-was rooted in a definitive political
ideology tied to the ideals of the Progressive movement and the
social gospel of the late 19th century. Roosevelt's New Deal
resulted in such dramatic changes within the United States that it
merits the label "revolutionary" and ranks with the work of
Washington and Lincoln in its influence on the American nation. The
New Deal was not simply the response to a severe economic crisis;
it was also an expression of FDR's well-developed political
ideology stemming from his religious ideas and his experience in
the Progressive movement of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Third American Revolution describes
the unfolding of his New Deal response to the crisis of the
Depression and chronicles the bitter conservative opposition that
resisted every step in the Roosevelt revolution. The author's
analysis of Roosevelt's political thought is supported by FDR's own
words contained in the key documents and various speeches of his
political career. This book also documents FDR's recognition of the
dangers to democracy from unresponsive government and identifies
his specific motivations to provide for the general welfare.
Provides a chronology of FDR's career Contains photographs of FDR
and New Deal moments as well as edited versions of FDR's documents
and speeches Includes a bibliography of works and documents cited
This oral history of the air war in Vietnam includes the stories of
more than thirty pilots who all had one thing in common-after
returning from Southeast Asia and separating from the service, they
were hired as pilots by Western Airlines. As the chapters begin,
Bruce Cowee tells his story and introduces us to each pilot. The
interesting theme is that all of these men served in Southeast Asia
and in most cases never knew each other until they came home and
went to work for Western Airlines. Each of the pilots featured in
this book is the real thing, and in an age of so many "Wannabees,"
it is reassuring to know that each of them was a pilot for Western
Airlines and someone who Bruce worked with or knew professionally.
The stories span a 9 year period, 1964 - 1973, and cover every
aspect of the Air War in Southeast Asia. These 33 men represent
only a small fraction of the Vietnam veterans hired as pilots by
Western Airlines, but this book pays tribute to all of them.
By 1945, both the US State Department and US Intelligence saw
Czechoslovakia as the master key to the balance of power in Europe
and a chessboard for the power-game between East and West. In this
book, Igor Lukes illuminates the early stages of the Cold War in
postwar Prague. He paints a critical portrait of Ambassador
Laurence Steinhardt and shows that although Washington understood
that the outcome of the crisis in Prague might shape the political
trends elsewhere in Europe, it ignored signs that democracy in
Czechoslovakia was in trouble. A large section of the book deals
with US Intelligence in postwar Prague. The American intelligence
officials who served in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948 were
committed to the mission of gathering information and protecting
democracy. Yet they were defeated by the Czech and Soviet
clandestine services that proved to be more shrewd and better
informed. Indeed, Lukes reveals that a key American officer may
have been turned by the Russians. Consequently, as the Communists
moved to impose their dictatorship, the American Embassy was
unprepared and helpless.
Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa carefully
examines US policy towards the southern African region between
1974, when Portugal granted independence to its colonies of Angola
and Mozambique, and 1984, the last full year of the Reagan
administration's Constructive Engagement approach. It focuses on
the role of Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, the key facilitator
of international diplomacy towards the dangerous neighborhood
surrounding his nation. The main themes include the influence of
race, national security, economics, and African agency on
international relations during the height of the Cold War. Andy
DeRoche focuses on key issues such as the civil war in Angola, the
fight against apartheid, the struggle for Namibia's independence,
the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, and bilateral US/ Zambian
relations. The approach is traditional diplomatic history based on
archival research in Zambia and the USA as well as interviews with
key players such as Kaunda, Mark Chona, Siteke Mwale, Vernon
Mwaanga, Chester Crocker, and Frank Wisner. The result offers an
important new insight into the nuances of US policy toward southern
Africa during the hottest days of the Cold War.
What really caused the failure of the Soviet Union's ambitious
plans to modernize and industrialize its agricultural system? This
book is the first to investigate the gap between the plans and the
reality of the Soviet Union's mid-twentieth-century project to
industrialize and modernize its agricultural system. Historians
agree that the project failed badly: agriculture was inefficient,
unpredictable, and environmentally devastating for the entire
Soviet period. Yet assigning the blame exclusively to Soviet
planners would be off the mark. The real story is much more
complicated and interesting, Jenny Leigh Smith reveals in this
deeply researched book. Using case studies from five Soviet
regions, she acknowledges hubris and shortsightedness where it
occurred but also gives fair consideration to the difficulties
encountered and the successes-however modest-that were achieved.
How do southerners feel about the ways in which the rest of the
country regards them? In this volume, twelve observers of the
modern South discuss its persistent image as a people and place at
odds with mainstream American ideals and values. Ranging from the
South's climate to its religious fundamentalism to its great
outpouring of fiction and autobiography, the contributors show how
and why our perceptions of the region have been continually
refashioned by national/southern tensions, trends, and events. At
the same time, they show that although the nation has sought, time
and again, to change the region, America also has used the South to
expose and modify some of its own darker impulses. As editors Larry
J. Griffin and Don H. Doyle point out, no single approach could
clarify the complexities underlying this persistent notion of a
""Problem South."" Representing a diversity of backgrounds and
interests, the writings in this volume are the products of strong
and independent minds that cut across disciplines, disagree among
themselves, blend contemporary and historical insights, and
confront conventional wisdom and expedient generalities. Filled
with fresh insights into the dynamics of the region's long-troubled
relationship with the rest of the nation, this volume allows us all
to view the current state and future course of the South, as well
as its link to the broader culture and polity, in a new light.
The Bronx Is Burning "meets Chuck Klosterman in this wild
pop-culture history of baseball's most colorful and controversial
decade
"The Major Leagues witnessed more dramatic stories and changes
in the '70s than in any other era. The American popular culture and
counterculture collided head-on with the national pastime, rocking
the once-conservative sport to its very foundations. Outspoken
players embraced free agency, openly advocated drug use, and even
swapped wives. Controversial owners such as Charlie Finley, Bill
Veeck, and Ted Turner introduced Astroturf, prime-time World
Series, garish polyester uniforms, and outlandish promotions such
as Disco Demolition Night. Hank Aaron and Lou Brock set new heights
in power and speed while Reggie Jackson and Carlton Fisk emerged as
October heroes and All-Star characters like Mark "The Bird" Fidrych
became pop icons. For the millions of fans who grew up during this
time, and especially those who cared just as much about Oscar
Gamble's afro as they did about his average, this book serves up a
delicious, Technicolor trip down memory lane.
""
An American journalist with the German Army
Until the United States of America came into the First World War
on the side of the Allies in 1917, it was a neutral nation
considered, in theory at least, to have no interest in the outcome
of the war. This enabled American journalists to visit both sides
of the battle lines and this in turn enabled the author of this
book, Edward Lyell Fox, to gain access to the German war effort in
considerable depth and detail. Accounts of the Great War from the
German perspective are not common in the English language and so
this book provides interesting insights from a neutral viewpoint.
Fox visited the Western Front and was present as the conflict at
Ypres broke out. He also accompanied the German Army through the
Flanders campaign and later visited the Russian Front with German
forces. He was an eyewitness at the Battle of Augustowo Wald in
East Prussia-an overwhelming German victory. Fox concludes his book
with an account of the work of the American Red Cross on the battle
front. This is an interesting book for students who seek both a
different view of the conflict and an examination of less familiar
battles fronts.
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.
No Prejudice Here chronicles a heretofore untold story of civil
rights in modern America. In embracing the Western urban
experience, it relates the struggle for civil rights and school
desegregation in Denver, Colorado. It chronicles early legislative
and political trends to promote Denver as a racially tolerant city,
which encouraged African-Americans to move to the urban center for
opportunities unique to communities in the postwar American West
while nonetheless trying to maintain segregation by limiting
educational and employment opportunities for minorities. Dynamic
historian Summer Cherland recounts this tension over six decades,
with specific attention to the role of community control efforts,
legislative and political strategies, and the importance of youth
activism. Her insightful study provides an overview of the seminar
1974 Supreme Court case Keyes v. Denver Public Schools No. 1, and
traces the community's reaction to court decisions until the city
was released from federal oversight twenty years later. Cherland's
book proves that civil rights activism, and the need for it, lasted
well beyond the years that typically define the civil rights
movement, and illustrates for our contemporary consideration the
longstanding struggle in urban communities for justice and
equality.
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