The Contra War and the Iran-Contra affair that shook the Reagan presidency were center stage on the U.S. political scene for nearly a decade. According to most observers, the main Contra army, or the Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN), was a mercenary force hired by the CIA to oppose the Sandinista socialist revolution.

The Real Contra War demonstrates that in reality the vast majority of the FDN's combatants were peasants who had the full support of a mass popular movement consisting of the tough, independent inhabitants of Nicaragua's central highlands. The movement was merely the most recent instance of this peasantry's one-thousand-year history of resistance to those they saw as would-be conquerors.

The real Contra War struck root in 1979, even before the Sandinistas took power and, during the next two years, grew swiftly as a reaction both to revolutionary expropriations of small farms and to the physical abuse of all who resisted. Only in 1982 did an offer of American arms persuade these highlanders to forge an alliance with former Guardia anti-Sandinista exiles--those the outside world called Contras.

Relying on original documents, interviews with veterans, and other primary sources, Brown contradicts conventional wisdom about the Contras, debunking most of what has been written about the movement's leaders, origins, aims, and foreign support.

This book brings into focus the legal status of armed forced on foreign territory within, inter alia, the context of multi-national exercises and a variety of so-called crisis management operations. When it comes to criminal offences committed by military personnel while abroad it is important to know whether such offences fall under the criminal jurisdiction of the Sending State or that of the Host State. The book analyses this question from two different perspectives, namely traditional public international law and military operational law. Taking his readership through two hundred years of international practice the author arrives at the current practice of laying down the status of forces deployed abroad in so-called Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs). Having looked at SOFAs from the two different law perspectives the author proposes the development of a "Status of Forces Compendium" to serve as a kind of guideline for future SOFAs. The author's intention in proposing this idea is to instigate further discussion on the subject in public international law and criminal law circles and among armed forces' legal advisors. Joop Voetelink is an Associate Professor of Military Law at the Netherlands Defence Academy.

It is often said that war is 5% horror and 95% boredom. In this sense, military boredom is historically enduring as well as personally enduring for the soldiers who have to endure it. This book contributes to a deeper understanding - historically, empirically and theoretically - of the complex phenomenon of boredom in a military context.

A blow-by-blow eye-witness account of the British Pacific Fleet's participation in the invasion of Okinawa and the attacks on the Japanese homeland.

In late 2005, the total casualties in Afghanistan were just barely over one hundred; meanwhile, the news agencies were publicizing, each day, the thousands of American soldiers who were dying in Iraq. There was rarely any mention at all of the conflict going on in Afghanistan. Little did Daniel Flores know that one year later he would be witness to the Taliban resurgence and lose some of his friends in the war. He was locked in a battle for his life against a determined enemy, in one of the most notorious and highly contested valleys in the Hindu Kush, in his Apache gunship-without bullets. "South of Heaven" is the searing memoir of Flores's year-long tour of duty in Afghanistan. One of his missions was featured in a segment on the Military Channel's "My War Diary" program. The segment was based on the rescue of an American Convoy in the Tagab Valley in Afghanistan. The video and audio footage of the actual battle that he shot with his own equipment was used in the production. The final week of his rotation in-country was a true test of his faith and his daughter's faith that he would return home unharmed.

On August 6, 1945, when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Furuta family was living one mile away from the hypocenter. Five year old Kikuko, her mother, Masako, and her two brothers barely escaped with their lives. However, their soldier father was not so fortunate. Masako never talked about her family's experiences on that day and the grim days following the bombing. Then one day, Masako started to talk about what happened breaking a silence of nearly fifty years. Written by Kikuko (Furuta) Otake, now a retired assistant professor of Japanese in the United States, Masako's story is a collection of prose-poetry, based on the true story of her family's tragedy. It is written with an "Objectivist" lineation similar in its understated power to Charles Reznikoff's Testimony. Kikuko Otake's Masako's Story is a powerful addition to the literature of the Atomic Bomb, and yet more evidence that we should all work together to stop the Nuclear madness.

This unique volume examines in detail two recent periods in military manpower history that have had a profound and lasting effect on military recruitment and selection policy. Project 100,000 and the ASVAB Misnorming brought hundreds of thousands of low-aptitude men into the military. While military officials recall these times with anything but affection, some social activists praise these periods as exemplary military social welfare ventures that could be resurrected today.

Janice Laurence and Peter Ramsberger examine the history behind Project 100,000 and the ASVAB Misnorming as well as their outcomes--both for the military and for the men brought into the service. The data do not support the claim that a tour of duty will ultimately lead to civilian success for the low-aptitude veterans. While some have fond feelings for the military and may have profited from the experience, many were found to be less well off economically and socially than their nonveteran counterparts.

This selected bibliography on modern European fortifications, from 1850 to 1950, provides a selection of the most important books and articles written on this topic. The work covers regions and countries and includes many sources on such popular topics such as the Maginot Line along with lesser known fortifications such as the Salpa Line and the Swiss National Redoubt. References for the fortifications that appear cover everything from the Iberian Peninsula to the Soviet Union and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean countries.

This work includes not only American and English, but also non-English publications. This source features books and articles done in the nineteenth and twentieth century ending in December 2000. Each contributor is a member of SITE O, an international fortifications research group. In addition to helpful annotations, each chapter includes summaries on the fortifications. Also features a multi-lingual glossary and reference maps.

The English/British have always been known as the sailor race with hearts of oak: the Royal Navy as the Senior Service and First Line of Defense. It facilitated the motto: The sun never set on the British Empire. The Royal Navy has exerted a powerful influence on Great Britain, its Empire, Europe, and, ultimately, the world. This superior annotated bibliography supplies entries that explore the influence of the English/British Navy through its history. This survey will provide a major reference guide for students and scholars at all levels. It incorporates evaluative, qualitative, and critical analysis processes, the essence of historical scholarship. Each one of the 4,124 annotated entries is evaluated, assessed, analyzed, integrated, and incorporated into the historiographical scholarship.

"The Soldier's Tale" (sub-titled "Being the Life and Times of Harry Lindauer, Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired) recounts the life of an extraordinary individual, from his birth in a small German village in 1918, through his immigration to the United States, and entry into the U.S. Army in 1941. Most of the story centers on Harry Lindauer's anecdotes and adventures during World War II. The present volume concludes with his discharge from active military service in December 1945 (and will be followed by another volume covering the years 1946 until his death in 2006). What makes "The Soldier's Tale" so unique and so vitally important as a first-hand account of the various aspects of Harry's life is his own sense of perspective and ability to project a situation so vividly. Through Harry's own narrative (as augmented by David, his son and the present author), we learn about details of Jewish life in small German towns during the first third of the Twentieth Century; the impact of the Nazi takeover of Germany; what it meant for a young German Jew to emigrate to America; and the day-to-day life of an American solider, first as he battles fatigue, cold, and boredom in a Canadian outpost and then, later, his exploits as a prisoner-of-war interrogator in Germany in 1945. Harry kept such detailed notes of his military intelligence activities in 1945 that the present volume has extensive appendices with the verbatim transcript of more than 70 intelligence reports which he filed or to which he contributed. The reader can learn first-hand about the taking of the Remagen Bridge, German technological developments in jet plane manufacture, V1 and V2 rocket construction, and experiments in television. These reports culminate with the first interview of the German officer who led the anti-Nazi revolt of Munich, Germany in late April 1945, Captain Rupprecht Gerngross. So here is "The Soldier's Tale," a fascinating adjunct to the study of Twentieth Century history, as recounted one one of history's many, many participants.

Samuel A. Burney, born in April 1840, was the son of Thomas Jefferson Burney and Julia Shields Burney. He graduated from Mercer University (then at Penfield, Georgia) in 1860. He joined the Panola Guards, an infantry component of Thomas R. R. Cobb's Georgia Legion, in July 1861. For the next four years he served in the Army of Northern Virginia both in Virginia and in Tennessee. Burney was wounded at Chancellorsville in May 1863, and as a result of his wound he was placed in disability in March 1864 and served the remainder of the war on commissary duty in southwest Georgia. After the war, Burney returned to Mercer's school of theology, was ordained into the Baptist ministry, and served as pastor of several churches in Morgan County. He was pastor of the Madison Baptist Church until shortly before his death in 1896. These letters of a college graduate written to his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Shepherd Burney are lyrical and beautifully written. Burney describes battles, camp life, theology, and the day-to-day dreariness of life in the army. This is an astounding collection of letters for anyone interested in the Civil War, or the South.

Transformed over 15 years from the shy girl next-door in Neighbours to the sensuous Princess of Pop, Kylie Minogue has grown up in public, rarely shrinking from expressing candid opinions about her life and career. Here, in her own words, are Kylies thoughts on herself, her sexuality, her music, her men, being a gay icon and everything else.

285 military "leadership situations" and the actions leaders have taken--and some real surprises Emphasis on practical applications of leadership, coupled with real-life vignettes add the real spark to the leadership lessons learned and relearned by each generation of America's warriors Applicable to business, corporate, and organizational leadership

Leadership, especially military leadership, has many purposes--to build effective organizations, to complete dangerous tasks successfully, and to mold teams that operate like winning athletic teams. Author John Chapman is a superb observer and chronicler of leadership events over many years and now shares his observations and the lessons learned about this essential military art.

This important reference tool surveys the multifaceted field of peace activism from 1800 to 1980. The dictionary defines the parameters of peace advocacy, surveys the different approaches taken in antiwar efforts, and provides information on many individuals who have either contributed to organized peace efforts or who have questioned war and organized violence. More than 250 authors from 15 nations have written 750 biographical entries about public advocates of peace; antiwar activists; leaders in organizations devoted to world peace; those who have worked to prevent armed conflicts; and writers, artists, and many others who have played major roles in the cause of peace. Although many of the subjects come from the United States and Europe, important subjects from Canada, Latin America, Africa, East Asia, and South Asia are also represented. Besides providing basic biographical information, each entry concentrates on the subject's work, ideas, and activity as a peace leader and also contains a short bibliography of works about the subject, works by the subject, and manuscript materials if available. Carefully indexed and cross-referenced, the volume contains an introductory overview of nineteenth- and twentieth-century peace efforts, gives a selective chronology of peace movements, and provides an appendix listing the peace leaders by country. No other volume provides such a comprehensive survey of peace leaders throughout the world as this one. The Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable research and reference tool for scholars and students of international relations, international law, and political philosophy.

Ali provides an analysis of the recent conflict between Iraq and Kuwait, the historical roots underlying that conflict, and the ramifications of the crisis for Iraq, Kuwait, other nations of the Middle East, as well as the United Nations and international community--all from the perspective of an Iraqi citizen now living in the United States. Additionally, the study analyzes the place of the United States and the former Soviet Union in the conflict. The author's unique view adds insight into the crisis and represents an important contribution. This work will be of interest to political scientists, Middle East specialists, and students of current events.

This edited volume illuminates the role of women in violence to demonstrate that gender is a key component of discourse on conflict and peace. Through an examination of theory and practice of women's participation in violent conflicts, the book makes the argument that both conflict and post-conflict situations are gender insensitive.