Once regarded as a backwoods frontier skirmish, the War of 1812 has become an object of increasing historical scrutiny. A new consensus is emerging among scholars which views the Second War with England as a defining moment in the history of North America. This reference tool enables users to view this important conflict from a variety of American, British, and Canadian perspectives. Compiled by a recognized authority, this bibliography describes over 850 printed primary sources, including letters, diaries, journals, and memoirs. In addition to the usual army and navy accounts, the book also includes narratives by women, clergy, politicians, diplomats, merchants, and Native Americans.

This volume is specifically designed to direct users to select historical data quickly and easily. Topically, it consists of three sections, covering military, naval, and civilian narratives. Each entry has detailed annotation, discussing bibliographic information, names and dates of the author, the time period covered, the writer's rank, organization, or social position, and the historical places and events mentioned in passing. Inclusive in scope and highly detailed, this bibliography is a valuable addition to any historical collection.

Up the Indus to Ghuznee and Kabul
William Taylor, the author of this book, was a trooper in H.M 4th Light Dragoons in India as the campaign began to place Shah Shuja on the throne of Afghanistan. The Afghan people rejected the choice of the Imperial interlopers and preferred their own choice, Dost Mohammed. So the stage was set for the First Afghan War and one of Britain's most catastrophic military disasters. Taylor takes on the campaign of the Indus from the horse soldiers perspective. It was a hot, dusty affair of battle, sniping from hidden tribesmen, the storming of citadels and the knife in the dark within a harsh and uncompromising land. A must for all those interested in warfare in Afghanistan and the British Army on campaign during the Victorian era.

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 is the most important legislation to affecting U.S. national defense in the last 50 years. This act resulted from frustration in Congress and among certain military officers concerning what they believed to be the poor quality of military advice available to civilian decision-makers. It also derived from the U.S. military's perceived inability to conduct successful "joint" or multi-service operations. The act, passes after four years of legislative debate, designated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the principal military advisor to the President and sought to foster greater cooperation among the military services. Goldwater-Nichols marks the latest attempt to balance competing tendencies within the Department of Defense, namely centralization versus decentralization and geographic versus functional distributions of power. As a result of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has achieved prominence, but his assignment is somewhat contradictory: the spokesman and thus the advocate for the Commander in Chief, while simultaneously the provider of objective advice to the President. While the act did succeed in strengthening the CINCs' authority and in contributing to the dramatic U.S. achievements in the Gulf War, the air and ground campaigns revealed weaknesses in the CINCs' capability to plan joint operations. In addition, the increased role of the military in ad hoc peacekeeping operations has challenged the U.S. military's current organizational structure for the quick deployment of troops from the various services. Rapid technological advances and post-Cold War strategic uncertaintyalso complicate the U.S. military's organizational structure.

Much has been documented about US soldiers' involvement in the Korean War. In this memoir, one officer details the little-known events of the battle of the Koto-ri Pass in North Korea in 1950. Chosin Reservoir narrates the role of the First Platoon, Battery A, Fiftieth AAA Battalion, X Corps, US Army, in facilitating the withdrawal of the First Marine Division from the Chosin Reservoir.

Providing firsthand insight into the realities of war, author Merrill Harper, a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Army, tells the story of how one army officer and three enlisted men were able to break up a ten thousand man Chinese ambush on Koto-ri Pass, killing 7,500 Chinese and running the rest over the next mountains within six hours.

In addition to chronicling the war-related events in North Korea in 1950, Harper, a soldier who was wounded twenty-four times, discusses his career leading up to the battle and shares other details from his twenty-two years of service in the military.

Much of the world reaped a peace dividend with the end of the Cold War, yet Asia has seen little reduction in tensions and military spending. Three Cold War era conflicts-those dividing China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and India and Pakistan-remain unresolved. Other regional powers, as well as the United States, continue to be concerned about these volatile disputes. North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile development, China's opposition to Taiwan's pursuit of independence, and Pakistan's longstanding dispute with India have all received increasing media attention. This is the first volume using a common approach to examine post-Cold War changes in these three volatile dyads.

The book's case studies detail the evolution of each country's security policy and its shifting mix of alliances. The authors analyze U.S. interests and discuss how U.S. intervention affects strategic calculations of the conflicted states. This mechanism allows gives the readers a truer understanding of the conflicts and how they interact within the Asian security system in general. Each of the dominant theoretical frameworks of international relations-neo-realism, neo-liberalism, and constructivism-offer crucial insights into this complicated situation.

Making offical history from all over the world accessible, this volume and its companion complement and bring Robin HighaM's 1970 classic work, "Official Histories" up to date. Each chapter, written by staff of the relevant historical office, gives both historiographical background and information on the volumes published by that office. Covering Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, and India, this volume provides a plethora of information, as does the companion volume on the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific Rim.

Buried in official history volumes is a lot of fine and useful history, and official volumes deserve to be perused. This book will make those histories available to scholars and graduate students and will be especially useful to those concerned with military, social, and diplomatic history as well as medicine.

England's capture of Canada in 1760 was the culmination of the French and Indian War and of a century and a half of conflict between Britain and France for control of the North American continent. During that long period, there were several English military efforts to evict the French, but all failed. Therefore, at the war's start, few among the English entertained serious thoughts of totally evicting France from all of Canada. Nor did the French consider such a result a serious possibility. Drawing heavily on primary sources, Brecher tells the dramatic story of why the war's outcome differed so sharply from original expectations. He does so from the vantage point of France, while demonstrating in greater depth than has been available to date the linkages between France's American policy and involvement in the Seven Years' War.

Brecher provides an unprecedently full-scale analysis of the political, military, social, and economic conditions of mid-18th-century France and its North American colony, New France. That analysis also examines the direct connection between those internal conditions and the results for France of the war that ended in 1763. In doing so, Brecher assesses France's military strategy and major battles in Europe and America, as well as the diplomatic goals Versailles set for itself in the conduct of the war. Further, he describes why France concurred in leaving not only Canada, but also the vast Louisiana territory, to be divided between England and France's belated wartime ally, Bourbon Spain. Finally, Brecher explains the longer-term implications of the war for North American development and for the future of France. This is an important study for students and scholars of French and colonial American history and for the broad reading public, as well as those interested in the more recent Quebec problem.

The first comprehensive account in English of how the Portuguese Armed Forces prepared for and conducted a distant counterinsurgency campaign in its African possessions with very limited resources, choosing to stay and fight despite the small odds for success. The Portuguese military crafted its doctrine and implemented it to match the guerrilla strategy of protracted war, and in doing so, followed the lessons gleaned from the British and French experiences in small wars. The Portuguese approach to the conflict was distinct in that it sought to combine the two-pronged national strategy of containing the cost of the war and of spreading the burden to the colonies with the solution on the battlefield. It describes how Portugal defined and analyzed its insurgency problem in light of the available knowledge on counterinsurgency, how it developed its military policies and doctrines in this context, and how it applied them in the African colonial environment. The uniqueness of its approach is highlighted through a thematic military analysis of the Portuguese effort and a comparison with the experiences of other governments fighting similar contemporaneous wars.

April 14, 1922 - November 25, 2007 Ellis, fondly known to many as Chief was proudly named after the man that taught him many of life's lessons. He was a true outdoors man; an avid Sailor sailing both in the Bay and out of the Golden Gate enjoying the freedom and skills it took to successfully handle a sailing vessel. When given a choice between the sea and the mountains it was the love of the back-country that came first. Beginning as a child, Ellis spent time hiking out of Kennedy Meadows in the Emigrant Wilderness of California. He continued this tradition through his life spending time each year in the back-country with friends, neighbors, children and later grandchildren sharing experiences, life-lessons and entrenching a lifelong love of the wilderness that have changed the lives of so many. To Chief, this was "God's Country." He spent his later years with his large family enjoying the stories of others and telling stories of his own. You could expect to find him in his yard from early in the morning after his large breakfast to the afternoon. The simple enjoyments in life were truly embraced by this amazing man.