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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General
The French and Indian War was but the American front of a much
larger war taking place in Europe, the outcome of which had
significant consequences for both North America and the world. As
the frontier sideshow of the Seven Years' War, being fought between
the powerful English and French empires in the 1760s, the French
and Indian War brought northern America firmly under the control of
Great Britain, and removed the vital French counter-weight used by
native American Indian tribes to block the westward encroachment of
land-hungry English settlers. An excellent introduction to the
study of this pivotal war, The French and Indian War begins with a
detailed timeline that provides both local and global contexts and
a narrative chapter providing a bird's-eye view of the war's
unfolding. Also included are chapters detailing the complex and
fascinating interactions of Native Americans, French settlers,
British colonials, and imperial officials. The work concludes with
a chapter delving into the long-term local and global consequences
of the war. Primary documents, biographical sketches of major
figures, an annotated bibliography, and a thorough index round out
this user-friendly, to-the-point reference guide to one of the
least understood conflicts in American history.
In 1966, a soft-spoken 32-year old man emerged from relative
obscurity and humble background to become Nigeria's Head of State
and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. His name was Lt Col
(later General)Yakubu Gowon. He emerged as the compromise candidate
following the political crisis that engulfed the country after the
July 1966 military coup that had led to the assassination of the
country's first military Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi. At
the end of the Civil War in 1970, General Gowon's doctrine of 'No
Victor No Vanquished' greatly endeared him to many, and he was
variously dubbed 'Abraham Lincoln of Nigeria', 'a soft spoken but
dynamic leader' 'a real gentleman' and 'an almost faultless
administrator'. However, after he was overthrown in a military coup
in July 1975, long knives were drawn out for him, with the hitherto
friendly press and public crying 'crucify him', and now variously
vilifying him as 'weak' and of managing a purposeless
administration that had led to the 'drifting' of the nation. In
this book Professor J. Isawa Elaigwu attempts a scholarly political
biography of someone he believes has rendered great services to the
Nigerian nation despite his weaknesses as a leader. He rejects the
notion that Gowon's nine years in office were 'nine years of
failure' as the General's ardent critics posit, arguing that if it
is possible to identify a number of thresholds in his
administration, it is also possible to identify the approximate
point in time when the strains of his administration became visible
to observers and the public in general. He poses and methodically
seeks answers to a number of fundamental questions: Who was Yakubu
Gowon? Why and how was the reservoir of goodwill and credibility
which he had accumulated by the end of the Civil War expended? What
image of Nigeria did he have when he came into power? And did he
ever achieve his objectives? The book, first published in 1986, has
been revised and expanded for this edition
____________________________________ Dr. J. Isawa Elaigwu is
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Jos, Jos,
Nigeria. He is currently the President of the Institute of
Governance and Social Research (IGSR), Jos, Nigeria. A widely
travelled academic, Professor Elaigwu's works have been widely
published within and outside Nigeria. He has also served as a
consultant to many national and international agencies.
This book provides an in-depth examination of the serious security
implications that Iran's nuclear program has on a region that is
already plagued by insecurity and conflict. Iranian Weapons of Mass
Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race? is an
expert insider's look at Iran's current and potential ability to
wage both conventional and asymmetrical warfare, and the options
available for dealing with a nuclear Iran. Are we on the brink of a
regional nuclear arms race in the Middle East? In this urgent
volume, Anthony Cordesman and Adam Seitz examine how Iran's nuclear
ambitions have already altered security policy for the United
States, Iran's neighbors, and the international community.
Cordesman and Seitz address the full range of issues related to
Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, including its emphasis on medium-
and long-range missiles, the decline of Iran's conventional
military capabilities, and continued Iranian efforts to undercut
the spread of democracy in the region.
With one of Wellington's heavy cavalry regiments during the war in
Iberia
Samuel Broughton was an assistant surgeon for a regiment of militia
before transferring to the 2nd Life Guards. He served with this
elite cavalry regiment throughout the campaigns in Portugal, Spain
and into the South of France and in the concluding battle for
Toulouse. Broughton's take on the campaign as it appears in this
collection of his letters-originally published in 1815-reveals a
man with a keen eye for the details of the countryside through
which he travelled and the habits and cultures of the people he
met. This a very personal account of war from an observant and
thoughtful medical man who clearly wanted to share his experiences
of a journey through wartime. It is rich in period colour making it
ideal background reference material of this fascinating episode of
the Napoleonic War.
Organized around single country studies embedded in key historical
moments, this book introduces students to the shifting and varied
guerrilla history of Latin America from the late 1950s to the
present. It brings together academics and those directly involved
in aspects of the guerrilla movement, to understand each country's
experience with guerrilla warfare and revolutionary activism. The
book is divided in four thematic parts after two opening chapters
that analyze the tradition of military involvement in Latin
American politics and the parallel tradition of insurgency and coup
effort against dictatorship. The first two parts examine active
guerrilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s with case studies
including Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.
Part 3 is dedicated to the Central American Civil Wars of the 1980s
and 1990s in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Part 4 examines
specific guerrilla movements which require special attention.
Chapters include Colombia's complicated guerrilla scenery; the
rivalling Shining Path and Tupac Amaru guerrillas in Peru; small
guerrilla movements in Mexico which were never completely
documented; and transnational guerrilla operations in the Southern
Cone. The concluding chapter presents a balance of the entire Latin
American guerrilla at present. Superbly accessible, while retaining
the complexity of Latin American politics, Latin American Guerrilla
Movements represents the best historical account of revolutionary
movements in the region, which students will find of great use
owing to its coverage and insights.
As Napoleon's French Army retreated, all hope that it could
maintain a hold over the Iberian Peninsula began to fade. By
September of 1813 the Allied Army commanded by the 'captain of the
age'-the Duke of Wellington-stood on the frontier of France within
the area of the estuary of the Bidassoa. Napoleon was being pressed
on two fronts, but he still had a large reserve of veteran troops
stationed in the south of France to call upon. The time had come to
tighten the grip on France. Wellington would now invade it, engage
the southern army which it was hoped would spur the Coalition of
northern European powers to greater endeavours to bring about its
defeat. No longer now an expanding empire, the French were faced
with the defence of their own homeland and Wellington was poised
for a campaign which would bring a large and prosperous region of
it under allied control. It would be a contest bitterly fought as
only those with desperate stakes can be. In this, the second of
Beatson's series on the fall of Revolutionary France published by
Leonaur, the reader is once again taken into the centre of
Wellington's strategic and tactical genius. Every action is
described in detail and complemented by the voices of the soldiers
who experienced those momentous times.
Understanding how leaders make foreign policy and national security
decisions is of paramount importance for the policy community and
academia. This book explores how leaders such as Trump, Obama,
Netanyahu and others make decisions using the Applied Decision
Analysis (ADA) method. The chapters gathered here analyse the
decisions made by key political figures around the world, past and
present, in order to shed light on how these decisions are made and
what policy implications they have for their own and other nations.
Several chapters also focus on military decision making, including
around pivotal times in history including the second world war and
the evolution of nuclear warfare.
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