![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Military life & institutions > General
Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, "House to House" is far more than just another war story. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of characters, it develops the intensely close relationships that form between soldiers under fire. Their friendships, tested in brutal combat, would never be quite the same. What happened to them in their bloody embrace with America's most implacable enemy is a harrowing, unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, and the resiliency of the human spirit. "House to House" is a soldier's memoir that is destined to rank with the finest personal accounts of men at war. An instant classic in hardcover, this timeless story features a new afterword and a question and answer section with the author.
The explosive true story of a gun for hire. 'Hard eyes stare out of massive beards, their faces marked by the scars of battle. With these guys their webbing looks like it belongs to them, rather than it's been hung on a pair of reluctant shoulders. There's not a word been said to us, but the ante has clearly been upped. There's a dark and sinister feeling in the air. It doesn't take a genius to figure it's about to kick off.' Former SAS soldier Big Phil Campion tells it like is in this brutally honest account of his insanely dangerous life as a private military operator. From playing chicken with a suicide bomber in backstreet Kabul, to taking on pirates with his bare hands, this is true-life action-packed drama at its best.
Hobson's The Evolution of Modern Capitalism was first published in 1894, although this reissue is of the fourth edition, published in 1926. The work traces the developments in trade and industry which characterised the first decades of the twentieth century. In the first part, Hobson deals with the origins and structure of modern capitalism, including the development of the machine industry, the changing structure of trades and markets, and the effects of these on workers and consumers. The final supplementary chapter considers the impact of World War I on this changing economy, and the 'disturbance, recovery and readjustments' which the war necessitated. This is a classic work of importance to economic historians and those with a particular interest in the history of capitalism.
Contemporary historians have transformed our understanding of the German military in World War II, debunking the "clean Wehrmacht" myth that held most soldiers innocent of wartime atrocities. Considerably less attention has been paid to those soldiers at the end of hostilities. In Postwar Soldiers, Joerg Echternkamp analyzes three themes in the early history of West Germany: interpretations of the war during its conclusion and the occupation period; military veteran communities' self-perceptions; and the public rehabilitation of the image of the German soldier. As Echternkamp shows, public controversies around these topics helped to drive the social processes that legitimized the democratic postwar order.
Although the military has historically played a pivotal role in Latin American politics and society, until now little attention has been paid to the complex set of civilian-military relations in each country. This collection of essays, the product of a long-term research program organized by a group of prominent Latin American scholars, compares current linkages among the armed forces and local social and political structures and institutions. Within each nation studied, the contributing author found increasing military autonomy vis-a-vis the state. They show that this institutional autonomy has allowed the military to develop as independent political entities within the various countries, a process that seems to be common to all Latin American societies. Their research also demonstrates how the military diversifies itself when acquiring higher degrees of institutional autonomy. Collectively, the contributors contend that although civilian democratic forces will play a much larger role in political decisionmaking in this decade as compared to the last, it is evident that armed forces will retain a considerable share of political power. Regardless of the institutional arrangement, the military will continue to exercise significant veto power over civilian political forces. The independent military that has emerged is a new variable that must be taken into account in future analyses of Latin America's secular political crisis. By compiling the first complete analysis of Latin American military forces and their role in contemporary domestic politics, editor Augusto Varas has made a significant contribution to the study of Latin American politics. This first examination of the role of the armed forces during a period of relative political stability will be welcomed by historians and political scientists alike.
In American and NATO Veteran Reintegration, MaryCatherine McDonald and Gary Senecal examine mental health issues among former American service members. Data shows that American veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at significantly higher rates than veterans in other NATO ally countries involved in the war in Afghanistan. McDonald and Senecal argue that sociocultural factors, such as military training and civilian culture, have a dramatic impact on these rates.
"Veterans Journeys Home" is a vivid portrayal of military life and its aftermath for U.S. troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hearing the voices of those who have experienced combat and trauma, the reader journeys with women and men from basic training to active duty and return to civilian life. Highlighting the challenges our veterans face in today s complex and changing military culture, the book depicts the sometimes haunting and visceral memories of returning soldiers, reveals conversations with mental health providers, and offers an alternative approach to healing the emotional wounds of war. Sociologist and activist Holyfield lets the voices of combat tell the story of war. For any reader seeking a deeper understanding of the special human challenges of the recent wars, her book is valuable to veterans of all wars, their families, and mental health communities, policymakers, and any reader invested in seeing that our nation s veterans receive a true welcome home. "
"Veterans Journeys Home" is a vivid portrayal of military life and its aftermath for U.S. troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hearing the voices of those who have experienced combat and trauma, the reader journeys with women and men from basic training to active duty and return to civilian life. Highlighting the challenges our veterans face in today 's complex and changing military culture, the book depicts the sometimes haunting and visceral memories of returning soldiers, reveals conversations with mental health providers, and offers an alternative approach to healing the emotional wounds of war. Sociologist and activist Holyfield lets the voices of combat tell the story of war. For any reader seeking a deeper understanding of the special human challenges of the recent wars, her book is valuable to veterans of all wars, their families, and mental health communities, policymakers, and any reader invested in seeing that our nation 's veterans receive a true welcome home.
A TLS and a Prospect Book of the Year A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today. Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century the British Army fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed from assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews, this book is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress. This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.
Based on unprecedented access to the Ghanaian military barracks and inspired by the recent resurgence of coups in West Africa, Agyekum assesses why and how the Ghana Armed Forces were transformed from an organization that actively orchestrated coups into an institution that accepts the authority of the democratically elected civilian government. Focusing on the process of professionalization of the Ghanaian military, this ethnography based monograph examines both historical and contemporary themes, and assesses the shift in military personnel from 'Buga Buga' soldiers - uneducated, lower-class soldiers, human rights abusers - to a more 'modern' fighting force.
Once considered a bastion of learning, leadership, and disciplined lifestyle, todayas private military academies are often regarded as expensive holding facilities for unwanted, incorrigible boys who have nowhere else to go. Their depiction in popular media has reinforced the impression that they are boot camps disguised as educational institutions. The reality is far more complex and far more encouraging. Using a decade of participant observation research, including serving as an instructor at some of these schools, anthropologist William Trousdale explores the contemporary experience of military school life. From the admissions office to the daily life in barracks, classrooms, playing fields, and social events, he describes how these schools endeavor to realize their mission of creating educated, mature young men from largely at-risk youth and the challengesaboth met and unmetain doing so. This volume will be of interest to anyone interested in the fields of secondary and alternative education, at-risk youth, and the military and society.
This volume publishes records 66 diplomas or fragments which provide vital evidence for the Roman military and legal world. It is the third volume of a set of four created by Roxan.
In this astonishing new history of wartime Britain, historian Stephen Bourne unearths the fascinating stories of the gay men who served in the armed forces and at home, and brings to light the great unheralded contribution they made to the war effort. Fighting Proud weaves together the remarkable lives of these men, from RAF hero Ian Gleed - a Flying Ace twice honoured for bravery by King George VI - to the infantry officers serving in the trenches on the Western Front in WWI - many of whom led the charges into machine-gun fire only to find themselves court-martialled after the war for indecent behaviour. Behind the lines, Alan Turing's work on breaking the `enigma machine' and subsequent persecution contrasts with the many stories of love and courage in Blitzed-out London, with new wartime diaries and letters unearthed for the first time. Bourne tells the bitterly sad story of Ivor Novello, who wrote the WWI anthem `Keep the Home Fires Burning', and the crucial work of Noel Coward - who was hated by Hitler for his work entertaining the troops. Fighting Proud also includes a wealth of long-suppressed wartime photography subsequently ignored by mainstream historians. This book is a monument to the bravery, sacrifice and honour shown by a persecuted minority, who contributed during Britain's hour of need.
The extraordinary story of British junior officers in the First World War, who led their men out of the trenches and faced a life expectancy of six weeks. During the Great War, many boys went straight from the classroom to the most dangerous job in the world - that of junior officer on the Western Front. Although desperately aware of how many of their predecessors had fallen before them, nearly all stepped forward, unflinchingly, to do their duty. The average life expectancy of a subaltern in the trenches was a mere six weeks. In this remarkable book, John Lewis-Stempel focuses on the forgotten men who truly won Britain's victory in the First World War - the subalterns, lieutenants and captains of the Army, the leaders in the trenches, the first 'over the top', the last to retreat. Basing his narrative on a huge range of first-person accounts, including the poignant letters and diaries sent home or to their old schools, the author reveals what motivated these boy-men to act in such an extraordinary, heroic way. He describes their brief, brilliant lives in and out of the trenches, the tireless ways they cared for their men, and how they tried to behave with honour in a world where their values and codes were quite literally being shot to pieces.
WINNER: Independent Press Awards 2021 - Career Figuring out your next move after transitioning out of the military should start before your last day. Prepare yourself emotionally and professionally to put those hard-earned skills in context of the civilian world. The transition from military to civilian life is more than just a title change; it is a whole new life experience with the sense of excitement and possibility that accompany a transition. Whether you're preparing to retire or separate, Success After Service is written to help all veterans succeed in the civilian workplace. Success After Service provides the tools, resources and strategies to help you adapt to the civilian workplace and evaluate post-military career options. Whether you become an entrepreneur, move into the corporate world or pursue higher education, you will learn how to develop a portfolio of career assets, including your resume, elevator pitch, online profiles, interview acumen and professional network, empowering you to begin your new career with confidence and clarity. Success After Service is the perfect guide for transitioning military and veterans who seek a coherent set of strategies, resources and steps for building a meaningful, deliberate and rewarding post-military career.
An exhilarating and uplifting account of the lives of sixteen 'warriors' from the last three centuries, hand-picked for their bravery or extraordinary military experience by the eminent military historian, author and ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings. Over the course of forty years of writing about war, Max Hastings has grown fascinated by outstanding deeds of derring-do on the battlefield (land, sea or air) - and by their practitioners. He takes as his examples sixteen people from different nationalities in modern history - including Napoleon's 'blessed fool' Baron Marcellin de Marbot (the model for Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard); Sir Harry Smith, whose Spanish wife Juana became his military companion on many a campaign in the early 19th-century; Lieutenant John Chard, an unassuming engineer who became the hero of Rorke's Drift in the Zulu wars; and Squadron Leader Guy Gibson, the 'dam buster' whose heroism in the skies of World War II earned him the nation's admiration, but few friends. Every army, in order to prevail on the battlefield, needs a certain number of people capable of courage beyond the norm. In this book Max Hastings investigates what this norm might be - and how it has changed over the centuries. While celebrating feats of outstanding valour, he also throws a beady eye over the awarding of medals for gallantry - and why it is that so often the most successful warriors rarely make the grade as leaders of men.
In The Greatest Medal of Honor Stories Ever Told, editor Tom McCarthy has pulled together some of the finest writings about heroes awarded the highest military honor that capture readers imaginations. The one thing the heroes in this collection have in common-from the bloody battlefields of the Civil War through the lonely mountains of Afghanistan-is uncommon valor. Each of the men in these stories had the courage to calmly stare death in the face and move on-to do what they had to because that was their duty and the lives of others meant more to them than their own. Chosen from hundreds of accounts of singular devotion to duty, the stories in Medal of Honor stand out for their jaw-dropping tales of bravery. They are the best. No small feat.
From the stresses of repeated deployments to the difficulties of re-entry into civilian life, we are just beginning to understand how protracted conflicts, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, are affecting service members. Issues such as risky health behaviors and chemical dependence raise productivity concerns as they do with all organizations, but they also have a profound impact on the safety and readiness of troops--and by extension, the military as a whole--in life-or-death situations. Understanding Military Workforce Productivity cuts through the myths and misconceptions about the health and resilience of today's active-duty armed forces. This first-of-its-kind volume presents up-to-date findings across service branches in core health areas including illness and injury, alcohol and drug abuse, tobacco use, obesity, and mental health. The short- and long-term implications discussed relate to the quality of the lives of service members and their families, the quality and preparedness of the military as a workforce, and prevention and intervention efforts. The book: Presents data from ten large-scale health behavior surveys sponsored by the Department of Defense. Offers background context for understanding health and behavioral health and productivity among service members. Introduces a health and behavioral health model of productivity loss in the armed forces. Compares key indicators of substance abuse, health, and mental health in military and civilian populations. Reviews approaches for improving military productivity. Identifies areas for further study. Understanding Military Workforce Productivity offers a rare close-up of health issues in the services, making it an invaluable source of information for practitioners and researchers in mental health, substance abuse, health behaviors, and military behavioral health.
Why do authoritarian regimes survive? How do dictators fail? What role do political institutions play in these two processes? Many of the answers to these questions can be traced to the same source: the interaction between institutions and preferences. Using Egypt as a case study, Professor Mahmoud Hamad describes how the synergy between judges and generals created the environment for the present government and a delicate balance for its survival. The history of modern Egypt is one of the struggle between authoritarian governments, and forces that advocate for more democratic rights. While the military has provided dictatorial leaders, the judiciary provides judges who have the power to either support or stymie authoritarian power. Judges and Generals in the Making of Modern Egypt provides a historically grounded explanation for the rise and demise of authoritarianism, and is one of the first studies of Egypt's judicial institutions within a single analytical framework.
This is the first study of the military experience of some one to one-and-a-half million Jews who served in the Russian Army between 1827, the onset of personal conscription of Jews in Russia, and 1917, the demise of the tsarist regime. The conscription integrated Jews into the state, transforming the repressed Jewish victims of the draft into modern imperial Russian Jews. The book contextualizes the reasons underlying the decision to draft Jews, the communal responses to the draft, the missionary initiatives directed toward Jews in the army, alleged Jewish draft evasion and Jewish military performance, and the strategies Jews used to endure military service. It also explores the growing antisemitism of the upper echelons of the military toward the Jews on the eve of World War I and the rise of Russian-Jewish loyalty and patriotism.
First Published in 1996. From 1980 to 1990 nearly 17,000 service members were discharged from the military because of their homosexuality. This book places the debate of homosexual military service in its historical, theoretical, and political context. Timely and compelling, with all the court options in the highly published cases of Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, Gay Rights, Military Wrongs, reports on the state of prejudice and discrimination facing today's homosexual military personnel and their prospects for future equality.
Between 1939 and 1945, over two hundred German and forty-five Allied servicemen were interned in neutral Ireland. They presented a series of extremely complex issues for the de Valera government, which strove to balance Ireland's international relationships with its obligations as a neutral.
The first eight studies in this volume seek to address a series of questions concerning the emergence and the role of the military orders in the 12th and 13th centuries: the reasons for the appearance of the institution, the recruitment and instruction of novices, and, though the military orders were predominantly male organisations, the role of women within them. Dr Forey then turns to the orders' role in the Crusades, both against the infidel and in 'Holy Wars' against Christians, and their activities in ransoming captives. The last studies focus on the development of the Order of St John, and on two minor military orders; one of these, that on St Thomas of Acre, draws attention to the relations between England and the Holy Land, the subject also of the final paper, on the crusading plans of Henry III. |
You may like...
Geometric Complex Analysis - In Honor of…
Jisoo Byun, Hong Rae Cho, …
Hardcover
R4,061
Discovery Miles 40 610
From Fourier Analysis to Wavelets
Jonas Gomes, Luiz Velho
Hardcover
Condenser Capacities and Symmetrization…
Vladimir N. Dubinin
Hardcover
R3,462
Discovery Miles 34 620
Further Developments in Fractals and…
Julien Barral, Stephane Seuret
Hardcover
R3,406
Discovery Miles 34 060
Hardy Inequalities on Homogeneous Groups
Durvudkhan Suragan, Michael Ruzhansky
Hardcover
R1,841
Discovery Miles 18 410
Operator Semigroups Meet Complex…
Wolfgang Arendt, Ralph Chill, …
Hardcover
R4,916
Discovery Miles 49 160
Geometric and Harmonic Analysis on…
Ali Baklouti, Takaaki Nomura
Hardcover
R2,671
Discovery Miles 26 710
Analysis as a Life - Dedicated to…
Sergei Rogosin, Ahmet Okay Celebi
Hardcover
R3,146
Discovery Miles 31 460
|