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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Military history
Die derde deel van die reeks Imperiale somer word aan Johannesburg in die onmiddellike nasleep van die Anglo-Boereoorlog gewy, waarby alle dele van die destydse gemeenskap aandag geniet, met inbegrip van die swart stadsinwoners en die ontwikkeling van ’n eie stadskultuur onder hulle en die mynwerkers.
Anekdotes en klein kameebeskrywings maak van Babilon ’n interessante leeservaring.
Accounts of brutality fill the history of warfare. The behavior of
any human being is, of course, a very complex phenomenon, whether
in war or in peace. Historians in large part have described in
detail the actions of military groups that have committed
brutalities, but have not dealt with the factors that contributed
to those actions. After examining the collective behavior of six
military groups, representing different combat actions in different
periods, some unexpected similarities became clear. While these
groups were in very different situations and operated during
different periods in history, there are similar factors that
allowed the members of these groups to kill men, women and children
in cold blood, and to commit acts of unspeakable brutality. After a
close analysis of these military groups, five principle factors
that had the greatest influence, either directly or indirectly, on
these soldiers have been identified. Together, the factors
supported each other and crystallized into a modus operandi that
resulted in atrocities and bestial acts on civilians. This is the
first book to identify the factors that lead to some of the most
horrific cruelty in history, and to predict the actions of future
groups given similar circumstances.
Originally published in 1940, Why England Slept was written by
then-Harvard student and future American president John F. Kennedy.
It was Kennedy's senior thesis that analyzed the tremendous
miscalculations of the British leaders in facing Germany on the
advent of World War II, and in doing so, also addressed the
challenges that democracies face when confronted directly with
fascist states. In Why England Slept, at the book's core, John F.
Kennedy asks: Why was England so poorly prepared for the war? He
provides a comprehensive analysis of the tremendous miscalculations
of the British leadership when it came to dealing with Germany and
leads readers into considering other questions: Was the poor state
of the British army the reason Chamberlain capitulated at Munich,
or were there other, less-obvious elements at work that allowed
this to happen? Kennedy also looks at similarities to America's
position of unpreparedness and makes astute observations about the
implications involved. This re-publication of the classic book
contains excerpts from the foreword to the 1940 original edition by
Henry R. Luce, an American magazine magnate during that era; the
foreword to the 1961 edition, also written by Luce; and a new
foreword by Stephen C. Schlesinger, written in 2015. Provides
fascinating insights into the young mind and worldview of
then-Harvard senior John F. Kennedy via his thesis, for which he'd
toured Europe, the Balkans, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia in
the late 1930s Presents both a pointed indictment of British policy
leading up to World War II as well as an examination of the
weaknesses, merits, and pitfalls for democratic governments based
on capitalist economies Features a new foreword written by Stephen
C. Schlesinger, senior fellow at the Century Foundation in New
York; author of Act of Creation: The Founding of The United
Nations, winner of the 2004 Harry S. Truman Book Award; former
director of the World Policy Institute at the New School
(1997-2006); and former publisher of the magazine The World Policy
Journal
Historiographically this book rests on the fact that European
transitions to modern economic growth were obstructed and promoted
by the Revolution in France and 15 years of geopolitical conflict
sustained by Napoleon in order to establish French Hegemony over
the states and economies of Britain, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and overseas commerce. The
chapters reveal that their authors concerns to analyse both the
nature and significance of connections between geopolitical and
economic forces lend coherence to a collaborative endeavour
utilising comparative methods to address a mega question. What
might be plausibly concluded about the economic costs and the
benefits of this protracted conjuncture of Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Warfare? Contributors are: Patrick Karl O'Brien, Loic
Charles, Guillaume Daudin, Silvia Marzagalli, Marjolein 't Hart,
Johan Joor, Mark Dincecco, Giovanni Federico, Leandro Prados de la
Escosura, Carlos Santiago-Caballero, Cristina Moreira, Jaime Reis,
Rita Martins de Sousa, and Peter M.Solar.
Cambridge is one of the most famous universities in the world and
its library is one of only five copyright libraries in the UK. At
the start of the twentieth century it was a privileged life for
some, but many in Cambridge knew that war was becoming truly
inevitable. What the proverbial 'gown' feared communicated itself
to the surrounding 'town'. Terrible rumours were rife, that the
Germans would burn the university library and raise King's College
chapel to the ground, before firing shells along the tranquil
'Backs' of the River Cam until the weeping willows were just
blackened stumps. Frightened but determined, age-old 'town and
gown' rivalries were put aside as the city united against the
common enemy. This book tells Cambridge's fascinating story in the
grim years of the Great War. Thousands of university students,
graduates and lecturers alike enlisted, along with the patriotic
townsfolk. The First Eastern General Military Hospital was
subsequently established in Trinity College and treated more than
80,000 casualties from the Western Front.Though the university had
been the longtime hub of life and employment in the town, many
people suffered great losses and were parted from loved ones,
decimating traditional breadwinners and livelihoods, from the
rationing of food, drink and fuel, to hundreds of restrictions
imposed by DORA. As a result, feelings ran high and eventually led
to riots beneath the raiding zeppelins and ever-present threat of
death. The poet, Rupert Brooke, a graduate of King's College, died
on his way to the Dardanelles in 1915, but his most famous poem The
Soldier became a preemptive memorial and the epitaph of millions.
If I should die Think only this of me That there's some corner of a
foreign field That is forever England.
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