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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations > General
James Controvich's magisterial updated Bibliography is the first truly comprehensive listing of all Army unit histories that will not be superseded for years to come. Collectors, genealogists, librarians, museum curators, and amateur and professional military historians have all come to rely on Controvich to provide the necessary starting place for their research.
In 1900, China chose to take on imperialism by fighting a war with the world on the parched north China plain. This multidisciplinary volume explores the causes behind what is now known as the Boxer War, examining its particular cruelties and its impact on China, foreign imperialism in China, and on the foreign imagination. This war introduced the world to the "Boxers," the seemingly fanatical, violent xenophobes who, believing themselves invulnerable to foreign bullets, died in their thousands in front of foreign guns. But 1900 also saw the imperialism of the 1890s checked and the Qing rulers of China move to embark on a series of shattering reforms. The Boxers have often been represented as a force from China's past, resisting an enforced modernity. Here, expert contributors argue that this rebellion was instead a wholly modern resistance to globalizing power, representing new trends in modern China and in international relations. The allied invasion of north China in late summer 1900 was the first multinational intervention in the name of "civilization," with the issues and attendant problems that have become all too familiar in the early twenty-first century. Indeed, understanding the Boxer rising and the Boxer war remains a pressing contemporary issue. This volume will appeal to readers interested in modern Chinese, East Asian, and European history as well as the history of imperialism, colonialism, warfare, missionary work, and Christianity. Contributions by: C. A. Bayly, Lewis Bernstein, Robert Bickers, Paul A. Cohen, Henrietta Harrison, James L. Hevia, Ben Middleton, T. G. Otte, Roger R. Thompson, R. G. Tiedemann, and Anand A. Yang.
‘. . . it is nine months this evening since I last saw the light in my own house, when I had to tear myself away from all that is dear to me. And today is also my little son’s birthday. Oh, how I long for home.’ So wrote Michael Muller in 1901 as he gazed at the lights of Cape Town from a ship bound for Bermuda, after months of internment in a British POW camp in Simon’s Town. The camps were full, so Boer prisoners were being sent to other parts of the empire. Michael’s brothers, Chris and Pieter, were exiled to Ceylon, while Lool was held in the Green Point camp in Cape Town. Remarkably, three of the brothers kept diaries – the only known instance of this happening in the Boer War. They recorded their intimate thoughts and turbulent emotions, and the diaries gave them agency. The scrawled notes of Chris on the evening after the legendary Magersfontein battle, the rain-dashed pages written by Lool in Colesberg, and the angry words penned by Michael about his treatment at Surrender Hill, have the urgency of men determined to go on record. When Beverley Roos-Muller first began to explore writing about the Boer experience of the war, she read the tiny war diary of Michael, grandfather of her husband, Ampie Muller. It led her to the discovery of the other diaries and many more documents. She also records the brothers’ difficult return home and examines the consequences for South Africa of the bitterness this strife invoked. This is a beautifully told account of the fellowship of four brothers in war, their capture and their eventual recovery.
How were the Crusades made possible? There have been studies of ancient, medieval and early modern warfare, as well as work on the finances and planning of Crusades, but this volume is the first specifically to address the logistics of Crusading. Building on previous work, it brings together experts from the fields of medieval Western, Byzantine and Middle Eastern studies to examine how the marches and voyages were actually made. Questions of manpower, types and means of transportation by land and sea, supplies, financial resources, roads and natural land routes, sea lanes and natural sailing routes - all these topics and more are covered here. Of particular importance is the attention given to the horses and other animals on which transport of supplies and the movement of armies depended.
This groundbreaking investigation uncovers serious mismatches between David Galula's counterinsurgency practice in Algeria and his counterinsurgency theory-the foundation of current U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the centrality of David Galula's theory to U.S. Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is striking that there has been no independent evaluation of Galula's recollection of his COIN operations in Algeria. Galula in Algeria: Counterinsurgency Practice versus Theory delivers just such an analysis, exploring the colonial French counter-insurrectionary theoretical milieu of which Galula's COIN theory was a part, the influence of Galula's theory on U.S. COIN doctrine, and the current views of Galula's theory in France and other NATO countries. French defense researcher Gregor Mathias compares each of the eight steps of Galula's theory set out in Counterinsurgency Warfare against his practice of them as described in his writings and now, for the first time, against the SAS archives and those of Galula's infantry company and battalion. The study shows that Galula systematically inflated his operational successes to match his theoretical scheme and that he left problems unresolved, causing his work to unravel quickly after he left his command. Mathias concludes that, however heuristically fruitful Galula's theory might prove for U.S. COIN doctrine, it must be interpreted and implemented under the caveat that it was not successfully field-tested by its author. . Maps A glossary A bibliography
This volume, originally published in 1990 and now with an updated Preface, gives an account of the Allies' last concerted attempt to destroy Russia's nascent Bolshevik regime. At the start, it looked like a threat that should be taken seriously, as the Reds' enemies both native and foreign combined with trained mercenaries under the leadership of a Tsarist admiral. But it finished with a firing squad on the ice, and a grisly end for the ill-fated Admiral Kolchak. With him died the last hope for the old order in Russia, and the future of the new Soviet state was secure. The skill of the author's narrative lies in his mastery both of the detail and of the wider implications of these epic events.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin improvised a system of "asymmetric federalism" to help maintain its successor state, the Russian Federation. However, when sparks of independence flared up in Chechnya, Yeltsin and, later, Vladimir Putin chose military action to deal with a "brushfire" that they feared would spread to other regions and eventually destroy the federation. Matthew Evangelista examines the causes of the Chechen Wars of 1994 and 1999 and challenges Moscow's claims that the Russian Federation was too fragile to withstand the potential loss of one rebellious republic. He suggests that the danger for Russia lies less in a Soviet-style disintegration than in a misguided attempt at authoritarian recentralization, something that would jeopardize Russia's fledgling democratic institutions. He also contends that well-documented acts of terrorism by some Chechen fighters should not serve as an excuse for Russia to commit war crimes and atrocities. Evangelista urges emerging democracies like Russia to deal with violent internal conflict and terrorism without undermining the fundamental rights and freedoms of their citizens. He recommends that the United States and other democracies be more attentive to Moscow's violations of human rights and, in their own struggle against terrorism, provide a kind of role model.
A definitive global survey of the interaction of ethnicity, nationalism and politics, this handbook blends rigorous theoretically grounded analysis with empirically rich illustrations to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the contemporary debates on one of the most pervasive international security challenges today. Fully updated for the second edition, the book includes a new section which offers detailed analyses of contemporary cases of conflict such as in Ukraine, Kosovo, the African Great Lakes region and in the Kurdish areas across the Middle East, thus providing accessible examples that bridge the gap between theory and practice. The contributors offer a 360-degree perspective on ethnic conflict: from the theoretical foundations of nationalism and ethnicity to the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict, and to the various strategies adopted in response to it. Without privileging any specific explanation of why ethnic conflict happens at a particular place and time or why attempts at preventing or settling it might fail or succeed, The Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict enables readers to gain a better insight into such defining moments in post-Cold War international history as the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and their respective consequences, the genocide in Rwanda, and the relative success of conflict settlement efforts in Northern Ireland. By contributing to understanding the varied and multiple causes of ethnic conflicts and to learning from the successes and failures of their prevention and settlement, the Handbook makes a powerful case that ethnic conflicts are neither unavoidable nor unresolvable, but rather that they require careful analysis and thoughtful and measured responses.
The new millennium has brought with it an ever-expanding range of
threats to global security: from cyber attacks to blue-water piracy
to provocative missile tests. Now, more than ever then, national
security and prosperity depend on the safekeeping of a global
system of mutually supporting networks of commerce, communication,
and governance. The global commons--outer space, international
waters, international airspace, and cyberspace--are assets outside
of national jurisdiction that serve as essential conduits for these
networks, facilitating the free flow of trade, finance,
information, people, and technology. These commons also comprise
much of the international security environment, enabling the
physical and virtual movement and operations of allied forces.
Securing freedom of use of the global commons is therefore
fundamental to safeguarding the global system.
Over the last decade (and indeed ever since the Cold War), the rise
of insurgents and non-state actors in war, and their readiness to
use terror and other irregular methods of fighting, have led
commentators to speak of 'new wars'. They have assumed that the
'old wars' were waged solely between states, and were accordingly
fought between comparable and 'symmetrical' armed forces. Much of
this commentary has lacked context or sophistication. It has been
bounded by norms and theories more than the messiness of reality.
Fed by the impact of the 9/11 attacks, it has privileged some wars
and certain trends over others. Most obviously it has been
historically unaware. But it has also failed to consider many of
the other dimensions which help us to define what war is--legal,
ethical, religious, and social.
Ray Hill was a cook and machine gunner who survived the sinking of a PT boat by a kamikaze attack. German forces in the middle of the Siegfried defensive line captured Robert Corbin, a forward officer, after he was shot. Arthur Ensley, a strafer bomber, flew into the Brenner Pass and entered combat territory. His plane caught fire, his pilot was shot and killed, and he had to bail out. Don Barrett, a Marine, stormed Cape Gloucester, the largest beachhead ever taken by a single division. Editor and fellow World War II veteran Robert G. Thobaben gathered those reports and others from men who were young soldiers in World War II. This book presents thirty oral histories, 14 from the Pacific Theater and 16 from the European. In addition to describing their individual experiences, these Marine, Army, Navy and Air Force privates, officers, cooks, sergeants, and engineers also discuss such questions as why men fight, how soldiers cope with battle, why it is important to record the stories of World War II veterans, and what they think about the ethics of war.
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Of crucial strategic importance to both the British and the Continental Army, Staten Island was, for a good part of the American Revolution, a bastion of Loyalist support. With its military and political significance, Staten Island provides rich terrain for Phillip Papas's illuminating case study of the local dimensions of the Revolutionary War. Papas traces Staten Island's political sympathies not to strong ties with Britain, but instead to local conditions that favored the status quo instead of revolutionary change. With a thriving agricultural economy, stable political structure, and strong allegiance to the Anglican Church, on the eve of war it was in Staten Island's self-interest to throw its support behind the British, in order to maintain its favorable economic, social, and political climate. Over the course of the conflict, continual occupation and attack by invading armies deeply eroded Staten Island's natural and other resources, and these pressures, combined with general war weariness, created fissures among the residents of "that ever loyal island," with Loyalist neighbors fighting against Patriot neighbors in a civil war. Papas's thoughtful study reminds us that the Revolution was both a civil war and a war for independence--a duality that is best viewed from a local perspective.
Calls to Arms: Presidential Speeches, Messages, and Declarations of War is a collection of presidential messages and speeches that called America to war from John Adams and the Quasi-War with France to George W. Bush and the fight against international terrorism in Afghanistan. The documents included here demonstrate the growth of presidential power and show how Congress responded to each call to arms. The selections also reflect the adherence to constitutional requirements and in the case of undeclared war messages, the evolution of "extra-constitutional" behavior. In addition, the book provides a sample of the popular responses to calls to arms throughout history and provides a handy reference for studying some of the most memorable presidential speeches. A fascinating collection of some of the most important speeches in our country's history, Calls to Arms will appeal to all those interested in American, diplomatic, and military history.
Covering all Pacific islands involved in World War II military operations, this book is a detailed, single source of information on virtually every geo-military aspect of the Pacific Theater. Arranged regionally and, to the extent possible, chronologically according to when islands entered the war, entries provide complete background information. Along with island names, nicknames, Allied code names, location, and wartime time zones, the entries include such topics as the island's physical characteristics, weather, health hazards, historical background, native population, natural resources, and military value. Japanese and Allied strategies and operations, military problems caused by terrain, military installations, Japanese units and key commanders, Allied units and key commanders, and brief battle descriptions are also covered along with the island's postwar status. A valuable resource for researchers, historians, military history enthusiasts, and war gamers, the book provides complete background information on the geo-military aspects of the Pacific Ocean region, its islands, and the roles they played in the war. 108 maps provide specific information. Until now, geo-military information could only be found by searching four to ten publications on each island.
Fifty years after the Korean conflict, what is a forgotten war for some Americans is an aching memory for China. With over a million casualties out of the three million soldiers sent into battle, that war looms as large for the People's Republic of China (PRC)-barely a year old when North Korea invaded the South-as World War II does for most other countries. It was the first international war fought by the Chinese Communist regime to halt counterrevolution; it was also a war that the Chinese fully expected to win, by virtue of not only superiority of numbers but also their soldiers' superior "political quality." This book presents a mosaic of memoirs by key Chinese military commanders from that war, drawing not only on their personal papers but also on still-classified archives and on Chinese-language sources unavailable in English. It offers an uncensored, behind-the-scenes story of the Communist campaign, from the decision to intervene through the truce negotiations, that discloses new information on such facets of the war as strategy and tactics, use of propaganda, and mobilization of the Chinese population. It also reveals the generals' concerns about the possible use of nuclear force and the alleged use of biological and chemical weapons by the United States. The book contains a wealth of new materials on the Chinese intervention, including combat operations, logistics, political control, field command, and communications. Among those whose recollections are recorded, then-acting Chief of Staff Nie Rongzhen reveals how party leadership decided on intervention, Commander in Chief Peng Dehuai provides personal accounts of major battles and communications with Mao, and General Yang Dezhi shares secrets of Chinese military strategy and tactics, discussing how the army orchestrated each battle to contend with the better equipped UN forces. The volume also features an updated short history of the PRC's conduct of the war based on Chinese sources, plus rare photos from Chinese archives that put readers behind the lines from the Chinese side. "Mao's Generals Remember Korea" demonstrates that the PRC continues to draw military, diplomatic, and strategic lessons from the war it fought fifty years ago with the world's most powerful military force. It offers valuable insight into the Chinese way of war and the military mind of Mao that will be a rich resource for Asian and military scholars.
This book questions the universal belief that England's 1840-42 war
with China was an "Opium War." What really worried London was
"insults to the crown," the claim of a dilapidated and corrupt
China to be superior to everyone, threats to British men and women
and seizure of British property, plus the wish to expand and free
trade everywhere. It was only much later that general Chinese
resentment and Evangelical opinion at home - and in America -
persuaded everyone that Britain had indeed been wicked and fought
for opium.
The critics of Charles George Gordon accused him of vacillation and of instability of character. His supporters refused to admit that he was inconstant; they took the position that it was the Gladstone Cabinet which manifested a spirit of indecision that was fraught with terrible consequences. General Gordon was a prolific letter-writer, and he also kept a journal. Many official notes and dispatches deal with his final mission to Khartoum. This book, first published in 1933, attempts to get at the truth of Gordon's character and his time in the Sudan through these letters, this journal, these notes and despatches.
Like most foreign troops stationed in China, the United States Marines' mission was to protect the American embassy and American consulates, missionaries, tourists, and other citizens in China. During the half century covered by this book, the Marines saw China as it would never again be. The Opium Wars and Boxer Rebellion gave the Europeans a certain standing, with prerogatives and privileges that were looked upon by everyone, even the Chinese, as a natural order of existence. The author discusses early military operations in north China, the early legation guards, the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, and the Marine legation guard in Peking also in 1900. It also discusses Seymour's relief column, Waller's column, the capture of the Walled City of Tien-Tsin, the siege of the legations at Peking, the relief of Peking, and the Marines' return to Peking.
The reality of the Arab-Israeli balance now consists of two subordinate balances: Israel versus Syria and Israel versus the Palestinians. The book analyzes these two balances in detail and their impact on defense planning in each country and on the overall strategic risk to the region as a whole. It covers military developments in each of six states--Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine--and provides an analytical view with charts and tables of how the changing natures of the military and political threats faced by each is impacting its military force readiness and development. The book has the most comprehensive data on past, current, and future military force structure currently available, drawn from the widest range of sources. Responding to the most recent of events in the region, this book is the first to deal with the effects on the Arab-Israeli military balance of the strategic uncertainty created by the Iraqi insurgency and the Iranian nuclear program. It also studies how the Gaza pullout, the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, the changing political landscape in Israel, and the threat of nuclear proliferation are having impacts on the Egyptian-Israeli and Jordanian-Israeli peace accords and the prospects for a settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis. The roles of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are analyzed in light of the changing political landscape in both Israel and Palestine. Given the role of Syria in the Palestinian-Israeli affairs, the book also explores the ways that internal instability in Lebanon could escalate into a regional conflict.
More than 700 striking photographs and a detailed text about Zippo cigarette lighters, their history and current values, as well as the Viet Nam War comprise this important new book. It provides not only photographs of authentic and counterfeit Zippos and the factory's own art work, but also a concise outline of the War, lists of U.S. and Vietnamese ship and boat names that did duty in Viet Nam, definitions of naval abbreviations, South Vietnamese waterways and geographic names, Allied in-country units, and a comprehensive dictionary translating important Vietnamese military terms so that old Zippo lighters can be interpreted today. Singularly, this book holds tremendous appeal to an extremely broad audience. Lighter collectors will see a wide variety of rare and common Zippos. Photographers and artists interested in the Viet Nam War and its images will see powerful action photos. Viet Nam War and general military collectors and historians will find factual information organized in a quickly accessible form. Political historians and Sixties and Seventies collectors will find ideas and objects to delight their interests. All will want this unique and striking book for their libraries.
An insightful and valuable resource on the major conflicts between American Indian tribes and Euro-American settlers from the arrival of Columbus to the Battle of Wounded Knee. Historians, writers, and students will welcome this extensively illustrated and well-organized volume. An important historical resource, Encyclopedia of American Indian Wars covers the major clashes between American Indian tribes and Euro-American settlers from the arrival of Columbus to the Battle of Wounded Knee, centered mainly within the geographical area that now comprises the contiguous United States. It provides essential information on major battles and military campaigns, treaties, significant sites, American Indian tribes, and notable military and political leaders, both Indian and white, presented in a handy, encyclopedic style.
This important study seeks to address the issues of state building and regime security as key variables affecting and determining a foreign policy-making process during a crisis and confrontation. Mohamedou proceeds from the notion that decision makers' dispositions matter their worldview, ideology, beliefs, and axioms play a role in state building as well as the historical operational environment (societal, regional, and international). The case this study is concerned with is the Second Gulf War, initiated on August 2, 1990, with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and which came to an end on February 28, 1991, after a military confrontation between Iraq and an international coalition of twenty-eight countries led by the United States of America.
"Encyclopedia of International Peacekeeping Operations" analyzes the broad national, regional, cultural, and international contexts of peacekeeping. Special focus is placed on such contemporary issues as human rights, peacebuilding from below, conflict resolution theory, civilian peacekeeping, gender considerations, and women in peacekeeping. The coverage is enhanced by a chronology, charts, maps, a list of acronyms, an annotated bibliography, and references to key websites.
This work examines the evolution of the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF's) logistic and administrative infrastructure in France and its impact on operations. In so doing, it challenges the popular notion of British generals as bungling incompetents by analyzing an all too often ignored, but crucial, facet of military campaigns. While the BEF may be found wanting in some areas, administration was not one of them. The British generals proved themselves to be thoroughly modern professional officers in the manner in which they solved the ongoing crises that attended the explosive growth of the BEF and its artillery-intensive style of warfare. This study reinvigorates the debate about World War I by examining the understudied field of logistics. |
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