In February 2003, Patrick Cockburn secretly crossed the Tigris river from Syria into Iraq just before the US/British invasion, and has covered the war ever since. In The Occupation, he provides a vivid and disturbing picture of a country in turmoil, and the dangers and privations endured by its people. The Occupation explores the mosaic of communities in Iraq, the US and Britain's failure to understand the country they were invading and how this led to fatal mistakes. Cockburn, who has been visiting Iraq since 1978, describes the disintegration of the country under the occupation. Travelling throughout Iraq, from the Kurdish north, to Baghdad, Falluja and Basra, he records the response of the country's population - Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd - to the invasion, the growth of the resistance and its transformation into a full-scale uprising. He explains why deepening religious and ethnic divisions drove the country towards civil war. Above all, Cockburn traces how the occupation's failure led to the collapse of the country, and the high price paid by Iraqis. He charts the impact of savage sectarian killings, rampant corruption and economic chaos on everyday life: from the near destruction of Baghdad's al-Mutanabi book market to the failure to supply electricity, water and, ironically, fuel to Iraq's population. The Occupation is a compelling portrait of a ravaged country, and the appalling consequences of imperial arrogance.

In the vast body of material dealing with Custer's ""last stand,"" the journal kept by young Lieutenant James H. Bradley of the Seventh Infantry is at once graphic, incisive, and of first-rate historical importance. It is also little known.It records in detail the major incidents of the march of the Montana Column, under command of Colonel John Gibbon, to participate in the Sioux campaign of 1876. Beginning on March 17, when five companies of the regiment left Fort Shaw, it traces the progress of the column and ends abruptly with the entry for June 26, when Gibbon's command camped on the site of present Crow Agency, Montana, amid abundant indications that Custer's Seventh Cavalry had met with disaster. A letter written by Bradley describing the finding of the bodies on the Custer battlefield on the Little Big Horn is appended to provide a fitting conclusion. Bradley's journal, however, is much more than an account of a military command moving through unsettled country against a primitive foe. The Lieutenant was a gifted writer with definite scientific and historical interests, a man of infinite curiosity, who not only recorded the daily progress but also added ""historical notices of the country traversed."" His description of the grief of the Crow scouts on hearing the first news of the disaster of the Little Big Horn is a classic in the literature of the American West. A rare treat for all readers interested in the Indian wars, the journal was first published in a limited edition in 1896.

Edmund Candler was the correspondent of the correspondent of the Daily Mail who accompanied the British expeditionary forces that in 1903. He provides an eyewitness account of Great Britain's first and last military incursion in to the forbidden land on the roof of the world .The British expedition to Tibet in 1903 and 1904, led by Sir Frances seeking to prevent the Russian Empire from interfering in Tibetan affairs and thus gaining a foothold in one of the buffer states surrounding British India.

'Breathtakingly, brutally and hilariously honest. This is the finest book about youth and war I've ever read.' -Clinton McKinzie, bestselling author of Crossing the Line 'The sergeant major, right after he told us at Fleibel's funeral that nobody owed us anything and took back the medals he had given us, he told us, all of us, that it's our duty to tell our Army story. That there was a lot of negative publicity out there circulating about the Army and that each one of us has an Army story within them, and it was our responsibility to have it be told. I'm not sure that this is the story the sergeant major had in mind, but he didn't specify, he just told us to tell our story.' When the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place, Johnny Rico was well into his twenties, with a masters degree and a dead-end job. Inspired by this terrible event, Rico decided to join the Army, not so much out of patriotism as a desire to find purpose in his life. Far from being a star soldier, the author found himself assigned to the worst unit in the army. Rico joined the hunt for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Unconvinced by what he saw around him, yet fully aware that a dangerous enemy was never far away, the author became increasingly cynical about the US Army's role in Afghanistan. The Story I Was Ordered to Write is a compelling tale, written with great honesty and humour. About the Author Johnny Rico graduated from the University of Colorado in 2001. A month after September 11, 2001, he joined the Army under the delayed entry program. He was sent to Afghanistan with C. Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry, of the 25th Infantry (Light) Division in Hawaii, where he served as an infantryman in three different areas of operation. He was released from active duty in September 2005.

In a compelling story of the installation and operation of U.S. bases in the Caribbean colony of Trinidad during World War II, Harvey Neptune examines how the people of this British island contended with the colossal force of American empire-building at a critical time in the island's history. The U.S. military occupation between 1941 and 1947 came at the same time that Trinidadian nationalist politics sought to project an image of a distinct, independent, and particularly un-British cultural landscape. The American intervention, Neptune shows, contributed to a tempestuous scene as Trinidadians deliberately engaged Yankee personnel, paychecks, and practices flooding the island. He explores the military-based economy, relationships between U.S. servicemen and Trinidadian women, and the influence of American culture on local music (especially calypso), fashion, labor practices, and everyday racial politics. Tracing the debates about change among ordinary and privileged Trinidadians, he argues that it was the poor, the women, and the youth who found the most utility in and moved most avidly to make something new out of the American presence. Neptune also places this history of Trinidad's modern times into a wider Caribbean and Latin American perspective, highlighting how Caribbean peoples sometimes wield ""America"" and ""American ways"" as part of their localized struggles.

Some will be shocked to find out that the United States and Ho Chi Minh, our nemesis for much of the Vietnam War, were once allies. Indeed, during the last year of World War II, American spies in Indochina found themselves working closely with Ho Chi Minh and other anti-colonial factions - compelled by circumstances to fight together against the Japanese. Dixee Bartholomew-Feis reveals how this relationship emerged and operated and how it impacted Vietnam's struggle for independence. The men of General William Donovan's newly-formed Office of Strategic Services closely collaborated with communist groups in both Europe and Asia against the Axis enemies. In Vietnam, this meant that OSS officers worked with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, whose ultimate aim was to rid the region of all imperialist powers, not just the Japanese. Ho, for his part, did whatever he could to encourage the OSS's negative view of the French, who were desperate to regain their colony. Revealing details not previously known about their covert operations, Bartholomew-Feis chronicles the exploits of these allies as they developed their network of informants, sabotaged the Japanese occupation's infrastructure, conducted guerrilla operations, and searched for downed American fliers and Allied POWs. Although the OSS did not bring Ho Chi Minh to power, Bartholomew-Feis shows that its apparent support for the Viet Minh played a significant symbolic role in helping them fill the power vacuum left in the wake of Japan's surrender. Her study also hints that, had America continued to champion the anti-colonials and their quest for independence, rather than caving in to the French, we might have been spared our long and very lethal war in Vietnam. Based partly on interviews with surviving OSS agents who served in Vietnam, Bartholomew-Feis's engaging narrative and compelling insights speak to the yearnings of an oppressed people - and remind us that history does indeed make strange bedfellows.|Some will be shocked to find out that the United States and Ho Chi Minh, our nemesis for much of the Vietnam War, were once allies. This book reveals how this relationship emerged and operated and how it impacted Vietnam's struggle for independence.

John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition. Two weeks a year, a free education. But in 2002, one term shy of graduation and on his honeymoon, Crawford was shipped off to the front lines in Iraq. Once there he was determined to get it all down, to chronicle the daily life of a soldier.

Black Africans made up more than half of the British army that invaded Zululand in January of 1879 and went on to fight the storied battles of Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift, and Ulundi. The British force totaled some 16,800 men, at least 9,000 of whom were Africans. Of these a few, perhaps as many as 1,000, were dissident Zulus...The bulk of the large African component, however, was comprised of the Natal Native Contingent (NNC), men recruited from Africans resident in Natal. This is the force whose story Thompson told in a 1997 edition [and he] has produced a revised and expanded version that is sure to remain the definitive account of Britain's black allies in the Anglo-Zulu War. ""The literature on the Anglo-Zulu War contains very little about the NNC, for reasons that are partly political, partly cultural. During the imperial era, Europeans were not interested in diminishing their own exploits by extolling those of their native [allies]. And in the wake of empire, the African had no desire to glorify them. To many in the current generation, the NNC [were] egregiously incorrect politically and best forgotten [but] this would scant the part played in the Anglo-Zulu War by the province of Natal. In 1879, Africans made up the vast majority of the population of that province, many of whom were peoples who had been driven from Zululand as a result of Zulu expansion and therefore bitterly anti-Zulu.

THE WASHING OF THE SPEARS is the definitive account of a tragic and awe-inspiring story;the rise of the Zulu nation in southern Africa and its fall under Cetshwayo in the Zulu war of 1879. For more than a century after the European landing at Capetown in the C17th, the Boers had advanced unopposed into the vast interior of Africa. It was not until 1824 that Europeans came face to face with another expanding and imperial power, the Zulus - the most formidable nation in black Africa. That confrontation eventually culminated in a bitter war between the Zulu warriors and Victoria's British Army. It was the last despairing effort of africans to stem the tide of white civilisation. The result was a dramatic, legendary, and bloody defeat at Isandhlwana for the British;the aftermath was the defeat and fall of the remarkable Zulu nation.

By the time of the Civil War, the railroads had advanced to allow the movement of large numbers of troops even though railways had not yet matured into a truly integrated transportation system. Gaps between lines, incompatible track gauges, and other vexing impediments remained in both the North and South. As John E. Clark Jr. explains in this keen study, the skill with which Union and Confederate war leaders met those problems and utilized the rail system to its fullest potential was an essential ingredient for ultimate victory. Clark focuses on two case studies of troop movement: Longstreet's transfer of thirteen thousand men from the Army of Northern Virginia to the Army of Tennessee in the fall of 1863, and the Union's corresponding shift of the Army of Potomac's Eleventh and Twelfth Corps to the Army of the Cumberland to save Chattanooga.

On June 8, 1967, at the height of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israeli air and naval forces attacked the USS LIBERTY, an intelligence-collection ship in the service of Israel's closest ally, while that vessel steamed in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula. The Israelis killed 34 Americans, wounded 171, and nearly sank the ship. Dozens of theories exist about what happened that day. Official inquiries conducted in both the United States and Israel attributed the event to faulty communications and tragic error, but survivors remain outspoken and not alone in their belief that the Israelis acted deliberately. Federal judge and former naval aviator A. Jay Cristol places the incident in its proper context. The Israeli strike, he argues, can only be understood in light of the Cold War, the outbreak of war in the Middle East, interservice rivalry within the Israeli Defense Forces, and the chaos of an operational environment. That both the United States and Israel kept much of the data concerning the incident classified for more than ten years served only to fuel the fires of intrigue and charges of conspiracy to cover up the truth, but since the incident significant portions of most of the official inquiries have now been declassified. Cristol draws on these, on documents recently obtained by him through the Freedom of Information Act, and on extensive oral history interviews to deliver the most comprehensive treatment of the episode that threatened to ruin Israel's relations with the United States and has served as a nagging source of suspicion for so many years.

This engrossing anthology gathers together a remarkable collection of writings on the use of strategy in war. Gerard Chaliand has ranged over the whole of human history in assembling this collection--the result is an integration of the annals of military thought that provides a learned framework for understanding global political history.
Included are writings from ancient and modern Europe, China, Byzantium, the Arab world, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire. Alongside well-known militarists such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Walter Raleigh, Rommel, and many others are "irregulars" such as Cortes, Lawrence of Arabia, and even Gandhi. Contrary to standard interpretations stressing competition between land and sea powers, or among rival Christian societies, Chaliand shows the great importance of the struggles between nomadic and sedentary peoples, and of the conflicts between Christianity and Islam. With the invention of firepower, a relatively recent occurrence in the history of warfare, modes of organization and strategic concepts--elements reflecting the nature of a society--have been key to how war is waged.
Unparalleled in its breadth, this anthology will become the standard work for understanding a fundamental part of human history--the conduct of war.
"This anthology is not only an unparalleled corpus of information and an aid to failing memory; it is also and above all a reliable and liberating guide for research. . . . Ranging "from the origins to the nuclear age," it compels us to widen our narrow perspectives on conflicts and strategic action and open ourselves up to the universal."--from the Foreword

* Powerful, passionate and highly topical critique of humanitarian intervention* International political theorist with eight top-selling books"Whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat."In this first time translation in English, Danilo Zolo considers Carl Schmitt's maxim in the context of the "humanitarian war" waged against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the Spring of 1999 by 19 NATO countries. This erudite and disturbing book is a political, legal and philosophical reflection on an extraordinary display of Western Power and its present and future impact on the global system of international relations.Zolo's account of the war is located within the context of the irresistible drive of globalization which he argues brings economic, financial and military, ecological and ethnic-religious turbulence in its wake. Not only the future of the Balkan region, he suggests, is at stake here, but the fate of international law, the future role of the United Nations and the political destiny of Europe.

"Outstanding....Hibbert has an eye for character and a gift for bringing to life the impact of small-minded incompetents on the wide sweep of history."— Associated Press

The story of this war has usually been told in terms of a conflict between blundering British generals and their rigidly disciplined red-coated troops on the one side and heroic American patriots in their homespun shirts and coonskin caps on the other. In this fresh, compelling narrative, Christopher Hibbert portrays the realities of a war that raged the length of an entire continent—a war that thousands of George Washington's fellow countrymen condemned and that he came close to losing.

Based on a wide variety of sources and alive with astute character sketches and eyewitness accounts, Redcoats and Rebels presents a vivid and convincing picture of the "cruel, accursed" war that changed the world forever. 16 pages of illustrations. "Hibbert combines impeccable scholarship with a liveliness of style that lures the reader from page to page."—Sunday Telegraph

The Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal was the most bitterly fought contest of nineteenth-century Europe. From 1808 to 1814, Spanish regulars and guerrillas, along with British forces led by Sir John Moore and the duke of Wellington, battled Napoleon's troops across the length and breadth of the Iberian Peninsula. Napoleon considered the war so insignificant that he rarely bothered to bring to it his military genius, relying instead on his marshals and simultaneously launching his disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. Yet the Peninsular War was to end with total defeat for the French, and in 1813 Wellington's army crossed the Pyrenees into mainland France. What Napoleon had called "the Spanish ulcer" ultimately helped bring down the French empire. Michael Howard of Oxford University hailed this book as "a major achievement...the first brief and balanced account of the war to have appeared within our generation." Illustrated with over a hundred maps and fifty contemporary drawings and paintings, this is a richly detailed history of a crucial period in history that resonates powerfully to this day--and figures prominently in Bernard Cornwell's internationally acclaimed novels of the Napoleonic era.

"Firefight at Yechon" is the harrowing story of Charles M. Bussey, a former Tuskegee airman and one of the first American combatants in the Korean War. He led the Seventy-seventh Engineer Combat Company for 205 days filled with almost continual fighting, during which he and his fellow American soldiers served with distinction. They also felt the effects of racism in the U.S. Army and wartime media, which singled out African American units for blame in the early days of the war.

"Firefight at Yechon" sets the record straight about the contribution of African Americans in the Korean War. It also paints an unforgettably realistic portrait of the terrifying first days of fighting in 1950, when American soldiers, both black and white, were reeling under the assault of the North Korean People's Army. The Seventy-seventh Engineer Combat Company played an instrumental role in the retaking of Yechon on 20 July, the first major victory for the U.S. Army. The carnage of that fight and the shining courage of his fellow soldiers would never be forgotten by Bussey.

John Hersey was a correspondent for Time and Life magazines when in 1942 he was sent to cover Guadalcanal, the largest of the Solomon Islands in the Western Pacific. While there, Hersey observed a small battle upon which Into the Valley is based. While the battle itself was not of great significance, Hersey gives insightful details concerning the jungle environment, recounts conversations among the men before, during, and after battle, and describes how the wounded were evacuated as well as other works of daily heroism. John Hersey wrote several non-fiction books and numerous novels, including A Bell for Adano, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

The Russian writer Isaac Babel (1894-1940) is widely acknowledged to be one of the great masters of twentieth-century literature, hailed as a genius by such critics as Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe. The work for which he is best known is a cycle of stories called Red Cavalry, which depicts the exploits of the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920 and is based on Babel's experiences as he rode with the Cossacks during the campaign. Throughout this period Babel kept a diary, in which he recorded the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in Ukraine and eastern Poland, and his own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew. The 1920 Diary, a vital source for Red Cavalry as well as a compelling narrative, is now published in English for the first time. The 1920 Diary is the most significant contemporary account of the tragedy of Eastern European Jewry during this period. The Diary also yields important insights into Babel's personal evolution, showing his youthful curiosity and his anguish as, frequently concealing his own Jewish identity, he mingled with the victimized Jews of the region's shtetls and with his Cossack comrades. Finally, the Diary sheds light on Babel's artistic development, revealing the path from observations recorded in excitement and despair to the painstakingly crafted narratives of the Red Cavalry cycle.

Like the widely praised original, this new edition is compact, clearly written, and accessible to the nonspecialist. First, the book chronicles and analyzes the twenty-year struggle to maintain South Vietnamese independence. Joes tells the story with a sympathetic focus on South Viet Nam and is highly critical of U.S. military strategy and tactics in fighting this war. He claims that the fall of South Viet Nam was not inevitable, that an abrupt and public termination of U.S. aid provoked a crisis of confidence inside South Viet Nam that led to the debacle. Students and scholars of military studies, South East Asia, U.S. foreign policy, or the general reader interested in this fascinating period in 20th century history, will find this new edition to be invaluable reading.

After discussing the principal American mistakes in the conflict, Joes outlines a workable alternative strategy that would have saved South Viet Nam while minimizing U.S. involvement and casualties. He documents the enormous sacrifices made by the South Vietnamese allies, who in proportion to population suffered forty times the casualties the Americans did. He concludes by linking the final conquest of South Viet Nam to an increased level of Soviet adventurism which resulted in the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. military build-up under Presidents Carter and Reagan, and the eventual collapse of the USSR. The complicated factors involved in the war are here offered in a consolidated, objective form, enabling the reader to consider the implications of U.S. experiences in South Viet Nam for future policy in other world areas.

A Marine squadron commander prepares his men for combat and on the second day of the Gulf War, is shot down by a Surface to Air Missile and captured by the Iraqis. As a pilot, senior Marine and squadron Commanding Officer, Acree is a goldmine of the tactical information that the iraqis so desperately needed. Though he is brutally beaten and tortured during his 48 days of captivity, Colonel Acree refuses to comply with Iraqi demands.Woven with the account is the story of his new wife, finally married to her high school sweetheart and, as the wife of a commanding officer, finds herself responsible for supporting hundreds of Marine family members as her husband prepares his men for war. When her husband is captured, she finds herself in the eye of an international media storm and experiences her own form of captivity. She launches a massive letter writing campaign to pressure the Iraqi government and founds an international organization for Gulf War POWs and MIAs.Finally, after seven months apart, husband and wife are reunited and attempt the difficult road back to normal life.

Containing the histories (from 1945 to the present) of the nuclear strategies of NATO, Britain and France, and of the defence preferences of the FRG (West Germany) this book shows how strategies were functions of a perceived Soviet threat and an American "nuclear guarantee". There were three options for West Europeans: a compromise with differing American needs in NATO, pursued by Britain and the FRG; national nuclear forces, developed by Britain and France; and projects for an independent European nuclear force.