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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General
This book follows an approach that combines the viewpoints of both
the realists and the idealists in dealing with the issues of
conflict and peace. The ideas, models, and peace processes it
proposes take into consideration the imperatives of real life
without abandoning the dreams of a more peaceful and just world.
The shared homeland model, as developed here, provides hope that
ethnic conflict can be resolved in a manner that satisfies a
group's need for recognition and cultural particularism, as well as
its need for economic development, security, and regional activity.
The book also defines and integrates steps of political conflict
resolution into one theory that produces one of the first textbooks
on the subject.
A hopeless mission in a hostile land
This is an essential book for anyone interested in warfare in
Afghanistan. The author, Henry Brooke was given a brigade to
command in the field, but soon found himself cooped up behind the
walls of Kandahar surrounded by hostile tribesmen within an equally
hostile environment. In his writings Brooke makes it clear that he
has little faith in his mission from the outset. Inevitably his
misgivings are well founded as his force became beset by threats of
fanatical attacks from within the city as well as from enemies
without. True to the pattern of the British experience of the
region a disaster threw a defeated army back to Kandahar and soon
the noose was tightened so that the villages under its very walls
became 'no go zones.' This is an account of the Second Afghan War
that resonates with chilling parallels to the modern conflict.
It is often said that a woman must do a job twice as well as a man
in order to get half the credit. This is particularly true of women
in law enforcement. Women have been involved in various forms of
policing for the last 100 years, but it wasn't until the Equal
Employment Act of 1970 that women could move from the job of meter
maids to patrol and detective work. Yet less than 1% of all
top-level cops are women, and there remain significant obstacles in
the career paths of women in the force. This book looks at the
history of women police officers and provides first-hand accounts
of women at every level, including those who drop out. It addresses
discrimination, competition, lack of mentoring, differential
treatment and sexual harrassment, examining what issues play into
the decision to stick it out or leave that many policewomen face.
It also considers the family issues these women return home to at
the end of the day. It is often said that a woman must do a job
twice as well as a man in order to get half the credit. This is
particularly true of women in law enforcement. Women have been
involved in various forms of policing for the last 100 years, but
it wasn't until the Equal Employment Act of 1970 that women could
move from the job of meter maids to patrol and detective work. Yet
less than 1% of all top-level cops are women, and there remain
significant obstacles in the career paths of women in the force.
This book looks at the history of women police officers and
provides first-hand accounts of women at every level, including
those who drop out. It addresses discrimination, competition, lack
of mentoring, differential treatment, and sexual harrassment. It
looks at what plays into the decision to stick it out or leave that
many policewomen face. It also considers the family issues these
women return home to at the end of the day. Unlike other treatments
of the subject, Alt and Wells show how women have changed police
work into a more community-oriented model of policing, reduced
police violence, served as a strong force to promote a more
effective response to domestic violence within police departments,
and helped with community-police relations. With a combination of
first-hand accounts, careful research, and lively analysis, the
authors are able to convey the actual experiences of women who have
made their careers behind the shield.
It is one thing to study history and it's quite another to have
lived it. John J. (Pat) Ryan, a retired USAF lieutenant colonel has
done just that. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1920, he grew
up during the Great Depression. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Pat
applied for and was accepted into the U.S. Army Aviation Cadet
program. To fly had been his lifelong dream and WWII gave him his
chance to make it come true. He was one of the blessed ones that
survived combat in WWII, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, and the
Berlin Airlift.
His story starts at a time when aircraft and autos were scarce,
family radios and television were non-existent, movies were silent
and in black and white. During the Great Depression many families
had to learn to do more with less to survive. For some people, WWII
created jobs in both civilian and military areas. The fortunate
ones were those who survived and didn't lose too many family
members and friends. Pat was one of the lucky ones.
It was in Japan on loan to the CIA where he met his wife-to-be,
Mae, during the Korean War. She had been in the OSS in Italy in
WWII and at the post-war Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. They had
started to write a book of their lives but Mae was stricken with
terminal cancer and passed away only five days after she gave final
approval to her publisher. The book is entitled "A Woman Ahead of
Her Time. The Last Mission" completes the dream Ryan shared with
his wife, and it brings home the lessons of war and humanity, of
responsibility and faith, of family and love.
Come fly as his co-pilot through a life of adventures,
struggles, victories and defeats as he tries to live his life as
truly, honestly and fully as any man can.
This book investigates the expanding involvement of China in
security cooperation in Africa. Drawing on leading and emerging
scholars in the field, the volume uses a combination of analytical
insights and case studies to unpack the complexity of security
challenges confronting China and the continent. It interrogates how
security considerations impact upon the growing economic and social
links China has developed with African states.
A soldier of revolution
The wars of the French Revolution are justifiably dominated by the
masterful figure of Napoleon. His rapid rise to power, initially as
general, then as First Consul and ultimately as Emperor has created
the popular perception of the epoch. But by the time Napoleon began
his meteoric rise to power the revolution itself was well
established. The author of this book Moreau de Jonnes was a true
child of the revolutionary period. Taken from his studies as a
future lawyer in 1791 he never again returned to his intended
profession. He was drafted into the National Guard during the
doomed attempt at constitutional monarchy and thereafter into the
Marine Artillery where he began an experience of continual war for
the next 15 years. We follow de Jonnes to the siege of Toulon, to
engagements against the Royal Navy at sea, to Quiberon Bay, the
Irish Rebellion and finally to service in the Caribbean. This is an
unusual and rare first hand account of the early years that formed
the First Empire and is not to be missed by any student of the
period.
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into
spears: let the weak say I am strong.-Joel 3:10
Beating Plowshares into Swords inaugurates an extraordinarily
ambitious effort by Paul Koistinen to compose a comprehensive and
wide-ranging study on the economics of American warfare from the
colonial period to the present. When completed, this multi-volume
project will stand as the definitive work on a complex subject that
until now has been superficially treated or completely ignored.
Koistinen focuses not upon battlefields and battles but upon the
means used to make and sustain the armies and navies that have
fought in such horrific arenas. Drawing upon a vast array of
sources in a number of diverse fields, he analyzes how America has
mobilized itself for the conduct of war. He argues that to fully
understand that process we must closely examine the complex
interrelations among economic, political, and military institutions
within the context of relentless modernization and technological
innovation.
In this first volume, Koistinen describes how an undeveloped
"preindustrial" economy forced Americans to fight defensive wars of
attrition like the Revolution and the War of 1812. By the time of
the Mexican War, however, a gradually maturing economy allowed the
U.S. to use a much more offensive-minded strategy to achieve its
goals. The book concludes with an exhaustive examination of the
Civil War, a conflict that both anticipated and differed from the
total wars of the industrialized era. Koistinen demonstrates that
the North relied upon its enormous economic might to overwhelm the
Confederacy through a strategy of annihilation, while the South
bungled its own strategy of attrition by failing to mobilize
effectively a much less-developed economy.
With this and subsequent volumes, Koistinen's sweeping synthesis
provides a panoramic view that enlarges and in significant ways
alters our vision of the turbulent relationship between war and
society in America.
On May 9, 1940, Adrie de Kievit is a carefree ten-year-old boy who
lives with his parents, Arie and Ko, and his thirteen-year-old
sister Willie in Yselmonde in the Netherlands. The family's life is
about to change drastically. As planes soar low overhead with
cannons firing at them, a neighbor with access to a radio confirmed
that the Dutch are now at war with the German Army. This memoir
offers a firsthand narrative of what it was like growing up under
the backdrop of World War II. While accented with many historical
details, "Winning Three Times" is a personal story of how the war
and the German occupation affected Adrie, his family, their
neighbors, their city, and the country. From food hoarding to
rationing and shortages, "Winning Three Times" recounts with great
detail surviving the war in a small down under the shadow of
Rotterdam. He tells of how his family coped with the hardships such
as no gas, no electricity, no telephone, and little outside
communication. This personal history communicates a story of both
challenge and triumph.
A few months out of college, followed by a sixteen-week course
on how to be a naval officer, author Thomas F. Jaras found himself
standing bridge watches on the USS Vance in the middle of nowhere,
providing navigational aid for aircraft flying to the polar ice.
Now, almost fifty years later, Jaras recalls the three years he
spent aboard the Vance in the 1960s, on the ramparts of the Cold
War.
In his memoir, "In the Trough," Jaras attempts to understand his
love-hate relationship with the USS Vance, an insignificant radar
picket ship that supported Operation Deep Freeze in the Antarctic
Ocean for a year and then spent two years on the Pacific Distant
Early Warning Line. He describes life on an endurance ship afloat
in midocean, battling eighty-foot walls of water crashing over the
bridge.
"In the Trough" chronicles Jaras's transition from a boy to man
as he dreamed of life ashore during long weeks at sea that were
punctuated by short, intense visits to terra firma. Young,
inexperienced, and naive, he feared the best years of his life were
being wasted at sea. He searched desperately for women, love, and a
normal existence while ashore for precious short stints in Tahiti,
New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii. Despite three
stressful, unhappy, and difficult years at sea, Jaras acknowledges
a tearful departure but promised himself to never go to sea
again.
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