The battle of Blood River, or Ncome, on 16 December 1838 has long been regarded as a critical moment in the history of South Africa. It is the culminating victory by the land-hungry Boers who had migrated out of the British-ruled Cape and invaded the Zulu kingdom in 1837.

Many Afrikaners long acclaimed their triumph as the God-given justification for their subsequent dominion over Africans. By contrast, Africans celebrate the war with pride for its significance in their valiant struggle against colonial aggression.

In this telling of the Boer invasion, John Laband deals even-handedly with the warring sides in the conflict, explaining both victory and defeat in the many battles that marked the war. Crucially, he takes the Zulu evidence into full account to present the less familiar Zulu perspective and to explain the decisions taken by the Zulu leaders, as they grappled with the existential threat of the Boer invasion.

The protagonists are placed in the context of a subcontinent experiencing a time of turmoil in the early nineteenth century. A time that saw the displacement of populations and migrations, the emergence of new, warlike African kingdoms such as that of the amaZulu, and the inexorable and violent advance of colonial settlement and rule.

A clear-eyed account of learning how to lead in a chaotic world, by General Jim Mattis—the former Secretary of Defense and one of the most formidable strategic thinkers of our time—and Bing West, a former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine.

Call Sign Chaos is the account of Jim Mattis’s storied career, from wide-ranging leadership roles in three wars to ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the Middle East. Along the way, Mattis recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, extracting the lessons he has learned about the nature of warfighting and peacemaking, the importance of allies, and the strategic dilemmas—and short-sighted thinking—now facing our nation. He makes it clear why America must return to a strategic footing so as not to continue winning battles but fighting inconclusive wars.

Mattis divides his book into three parts: Direct Leadership, Executive Leadership, and Strategic Leadership. In the first part, Mattis recalls his early experiences leading Marines into battle, when he knew his troops as well as his own brothers. In the second part, he explores what it means to command thousands of troops and how to adapt your leadership style to ensure your intent is understood by your most junior troops so that they can own their mission. In the third part, Mattis describes the challenges and techniques of leadership at the strategic level, where military leaders reconcile war’s grim realities with political leaders’ human aspirations, where complexity reigns and the consequences of imprudence are severe, even catastrophic.

Call Sign Chaos is a memoir of a life of warfighting and lifelong learning, following along as Mattis rises from Marine recruit to four-star general. It is a journey about learning to lead and a story about how he, through constant study and action, developed a unique leadership philosophy, one relevant to us all.

A prominent public intellectual tackles one of the most crucial political ideas of our moment.

Since Hamas’s attack on Israel last October 7, the term “settler colonialism” has become central to public debate in the United States. A concept new to most Americans, but already established and influential in academic circles, settler colonialism is shaping the way many people think about the history of the United States, Israel and Palestine, and a host of political issues.

This short book is the first to examine settler colonialism critically for a general readership. By critiquing the most important writers, texts, and ideas in the field, Adam Kirsch shows how the concept emerged in the context of North American and Australian history and how it is being applied to Israel. He examines the sources of its appeal, which, he argues, are spiritual as much as political; how it works to delegitimize nations; and why it has the potential to turn indignation at past injustices into a source of new injustices today.

A compact and accessible introduction, rich with historical detail, the book will speak to readers interested in the Middle East, American history, and today’s most urgent cultural-political debates.

Die boek gee 'n voelvlugoorsig van die vier Suid-Afrikaanse kolonies gedurende die Eduardiaanse tydperk van 1902–1910. Die tydperk word deur Karel Schoeman beskou as die “hoogtepunt van die hele Imperiale gedagte” wat uiteindelik met die uitbreek van die Eerste Wereldoorlog sou eindig. Die klem val egter nie op die politieke besluite en ontwikkelinge nie, maar op die persoonlikhede van leiers- en ander figure, die omstandighede in die vier kolonies met hulle stede en dorpe, belangrike sosiale gebeurtenisse, die aanloop tot unifikasie in 1910 en die uitwerking van die belangrike naturelle grond-wet van 1913 op die lewenswyse van swart mense direk na Uniewording. Kort maar insiggewende tiperings word gegee van persoonlikhede so uiteenlopend soos oudpresident Steyn, Lord Milner, die dramaturg Stephen Black, die bendeleier Robert Foster, die avontuurlustige Mrs Edith Maturin en die deelsaaier Kas Maine. Ruim aanhalings uit verskillende bronne verlewendig die bespreking van alledaagse omstandighede op verskillende plekke in wat later die Unie van Suid-Afrika sou wees, soos die sketse van Jacob Lub oor die lewenswyse in Johannesburg, die setlaar Leonard Flemming se boeke oor sy eensame bestaan op 'n afgelee Vrystaatse plaas, en die talle verwysings na riksjas in die reisbeskrywings van besoekers aan Durban. Besonder boeiend is ook die hoofstukke oor die rol van Joodse smouse en handelaars in onder andere die volstruisveerbedryf en die toestande in die inrigting vir melaatses op Robbeneiland. Talle anekdotes en klein kameebeskrywings maak van Imperiale somer 'n besonder interessante leeservaring. Die boek word toegelig met ruim fotoseksies wat 'n visuele beeld van die era gee.

Now a major motion picture directed by Clint Eastwood.

From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him "The Legend"; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan ("the devil") and placed a bounty on his head.

Kyle, who was tragically killed in 2013, writes honestly about the pain of war—including the deaths of two close SEAL teammates—and in moving first-person passages throughout, his wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family, as well as on Chris. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle's masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.

Includes new material by Taya Kyle about the making of the American Sniper film.

The final work from foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, picking up the story in the Middle East where his internationally bestselling The Great War of Civilisation left off, starting with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2005.

From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Israel’s conflicts with Palestine and Lebanon, Fisk condemns the West’s ongoing hypocrisy and interference while revealing the horrific truth of life on the ground. Unafraid to criticise authority and unpick complex truths, hecreates a compelling narrative of passionate and engaging journalism, historical analysis and eyewitness reporting.

Night of Power delivers an essential and prophetic account of the last twenty years, which exposes the inescapable consequences of colonial oppression and violence in the Middle East.

Historian Karen Horn painstakingly tracked down a number of former POWs in which their interviews reveal rich narratives of hardship, endurance, humour, longing and self-discovery. Instead of fighting, these men adapted to another war, one which was fought on the inside of many prison camps.

In their interviews, all the POWs expressed surprise at being asked to share their experiences of almost 70 years earlier.They returned home in 1945 to a country which soon afterwards tried its utmost to promote national amnesia with regard to the country’s participation in the war.

With great insight and empathy, Karen Horn shines a light on a neglected corner of South African history. Karen Horn is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University.

There are two major types of battlefield terrain in South Africa: first the open plains and savannah lands of the Highveld, a land where cavalry rules supreme. The second type is the thornbush of the Eastern Cape, a setting more suited to skirmishing rather than set-piece battles. Then, in KwaZulu-Natal, the two terrains merge to create the country s most dramatic battlefield landscape and one of the largest military graveyards in the world where the fates of colonies, republics and kingdoms were decided.For more than two centuries, from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, conflict, in one form or another, swept across this countryside; its combatants as diverse, hardy and tenacious as the land and its resources that almost always was at the root of hostilities.In this groundbreaking book, author and specialist battlefields guide, Nicki von der Heyde, presents over 70 battles and skirmishes covering five wars that shaped the course of South African history from the Frontier Wars that started in 1779 to the Second-Anglo Boer War of 1899 1902, a bitter and costly confrontation triggered by the discovery of the world s richest gold fields on the Witwatersrand.Detailed accounts of the engagements, based on extensive research, are provided, with special attention given to the terrain, key phases and outcomes, and the combatants involved. Battle timelines succinctly set out the passage of each campaign, while international timelines catalogue concurrent events around the world.More than 400 original documentary and contemporary photographs and over 60 short features have been assembled to provide a rich, enthralling and haunting account of these momentous events. Detailed historical maps that include annotations have been created for 16 high-profile engagements, while 10 regional maps indicate the locations of the battle sites. Arranged in regional order, with concise directions to each battle site and GPS coordinates for main locations, the "Field Guide to South Africa s Battlefields" is not only indispensable for professional and amateur military historians, but is of great interest to general readers, too if only as a reminder of the devastating human cost of war and the value of exploring the past to make sense of the present.It is beautifully illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs and detailed battle and regional maps."

Jan Smuts grabbed the opportunity to realise his ambition of a Greater South Africa when the First World War ushered in a final scramble for Africa. He set his sights firmly northward upon the German colonies of South West Africa and East Africa.

Smuts’s abilities as a general have been much denigrated by his contemporaries and later historians, but he was no armchair soldier. He first learned his soldier’s craft under General Koos de la Rey and General Louis Botha during the South African War (1899−1902). He emerged from that conflict immersed in Boer manoeuvre doctrine.

After forming the Union Defence Force in 1912, Smuts played an integral part in the German South West African campaign in 1915. Placed in command of the Allied forces in East Africa in 1916, he led a mixed bag of South Africans and imperial troops against the legendary Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his Schutztruppen. His penchant for manoeuvre warfare and mounted infantry freed most of the vast German territory from Lettow-Vorbeck’s grip.

General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa provides a long-overdue reassessment of Smuts’s generalship and his role in furthering the strategic aims of South Africa and the British Empire during this era.

This insightful portrait of Winston Churchill delves beyond well-known political moments, incorporating perspectives from various individuals who encountered him throughout his life.

From Bletchley Park codebreakers and Hollywood stars such as Charlie Chaplin, through writers as varied as H. G. Wells and P. G. Wodehouse, to the likes of Harold Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II, these lesser-known interactions reveal glimpses of the man behind the legend.

We meet Churchill the exuberant schoolboy thug with an early mania for bull-dogs, and Churchill the elder statesman shedding a tear in the House of Commons smoking room. Other incidents include a young journalist rudely dismissing a call from Churchill as a prank, and a visiting Dwight D. Eisenhower dreaming of being strangled, only to awake entangled in Churchill’s borrowed nightshirt.

The book showcases the profound transformations during Churchill’s lifetime, which ran from Benjamin Disraeli’s premiership to the release of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Route 66’, and the shift from steam to atomic power. Examining controversial aspects of his legacy, this multifaceted portrait challenges preconceived notions, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of Churchill.

What was it like to fly a MiG or Mirage in combat over Angola? Most books on the Angolan Bush War, especially those in English, present the South African perspective of events. Now a former MiG-23 Squadron Commander of the Cuban Air Force has collaborated with an ex-SAAF pilot to paint a remarkable new picture of the aerial conflict over Angola in the 1980s.

In The MiG Diaries the recollections of Lt-Col Eduardo González Sarría are blended by Lionel Reid with those of air combatants from the Angolan, Cuban and South African air forces. Many are being published for the first time.

Using their own aviation knowledge and experience of the conflict, Sarría and Reid combine the accounts of these diverse combatants – former comrades and foe – to provide original insights into, and a more holistic description of, what happened in the skies over Angola. The results, often quite different to what the opposing sides had believed, reveal a surprising, and more complete, picture of events.

The wonderful sketching pencil of Sean Thackwray, himself a former fighter pilot, helps to bring this unique story to life, along with select images, including many not seen in print in South Africa.

In War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, Alan Dershowitz—#1 New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—explains why the horrific attack of Oct 7 and Israel’s just response changes everything.

Inlcuding:

• It has changed the relationship between Israel and the United States, especially with regard to the possibility of direct American intervention.
• It has required Israel to consider its nuclear option as a last resort to assure its survival.
• It has revealed dangerous attitudes among America’s future leaders on today’s college campuses toward Israel’s possible destruction.
• It has exposed media biases that have been exacerbated with Israel’s vulnerabilities.
• It has united Israelis and Jews around the world as never before, despite the deep divisions among them politically, religiously, and ideologically. Nothing will ever be the same.
• It has clouded the future of peace between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors and has diminished the proposals for a peaceful resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
• It has made predictions about the future of the region nearly impossible, except that imposing instability is inevitable.

In this book, Dershowitz analyzes these transforming events and suggests how to move forward.

A startling, gripping portrait of what it was like to be alive in Britain during the blitz, and what it was like to be around Churchill.

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, the Nazis would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons and destroying two million homes.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson gives a new and brilliantly cinematic account of how Britain’s most iconic leader set about unifying the nation at its most vulnerable moment, and teaching ‘the art of being fearless.’

Drawing on once-secret intelligence reports and diaries, #1 bestselling author Larson takes readers from the shelled streets of London to Churchill’s own chambers, giving a vivid vision of true leadership, when – in the face of unrelenting horror – a leader of eloquence, strategic brilliance and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

Over the years, many have signed up for the South African Special Forces selection course but only a select few have ever passed. The gruelling course pushes recruits to their physical and mental limits. Those who make it through selection still have to complete a demanding year-long training cycle before they can join the ranks of this elite unit.

In A Breed Apart, former Special Forces operator Johan Raath offers a rare insider’s view on the training he and other young soldiers received in the mid-1980s. Drawing on the reminiscences of his fellow Recces, he describes the phases of selection and training, and offers valuable insights into what makes a successful operator.

The courses in the training cycle show the range and standard of Special Forces training, including weapons handling, bushcraft/survival, parachuting, demolitions and urban warfare, as well as seaborne and riverine operations. For Raath and his training cycle buddies, the cycle culminated in an operation in southern Angola where the young Recces saw action for the first time.

Much of what Raath underwent still forms part of present-day Special Forces training. Comprehensive and revealing, this book shows why these soldiers truly are a breed apart.

A deeply thought-provoking book full of wisdom, insight and common sense, by two of our foremost strategists.’ – James Holland, bestselling author of The War in the West
 
How have the character and technology of war changed in recent times?
Why does battlefield victory often fail to result in a sustainable peace?
What is the best way to prevent, fight and resolve future conflict?
 
The world is becoming a more dangerous place. Since the fall of Kabul and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US-led liberal international order is giving way to a more chaotic, contested and multipolar world system. Western credibility and deterrence are diminishing in the face of wars in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and rising populism and terrorism around the world. Can peace, mutual respect and democracy survive, or are we destined to a new permanent chaos in which authoritarians and populists thrive?
 
Based on their decades of experience as policy advisors in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia and across Africa, and on recent fieldwork in Israel, Ukraine, Ethiopia and Taiwan, the authors analyse the nature of modern war, considering both large-scale, high-intensity state-on-state conflicts as well as limited-objective, irregular, low-intensity conflicts that often include both inter- and intra-state dimensions.
 
The book investigates how technology can be a leveller for small powers against larger aggressors; how one can shape and sustain a viable narrative to ensure public and international support; the balance between self-reliance and alliance commitment; and the role of leadership, intelligence, diplomacy and economic assistance.
 
Weighing up past lessons, present observations and predictions about the future, The Art of War and Peace explores how wars can be won on the battlefield and how that success can be translated into a stable and enduring peace.

Tense Future falls into two parts. The first develops a critical account of total war discourse and addresses the resistant potential of acts, including acts of writing, before a future that looks barred or predetermined by war. Part two shifts the focus to long interwar narratives that pit both their scale and their formal turbulence against total war's portrait of the social totality, producing both ripostes and alternatives to that portrait in the practice of literary encyclopedism. The book's introduction grounds both parts in the claim that industrialized warfare, particularly the aerial bombing of cities, intensifies an under-examined form of collective traumatization: a pretraumatic syndrome in which the anticipation of future-conditional violence induces psychic wounds. Situating this claim in relation to other scholarship on "critical futurities," Saint-Amour discusses its ramifications for trauma studies, historical narratives generally, and the historiography of the interwar period in particular. The introduction ends with an account of the weak theory of modernism now structuring the field of modernist studies, and of weak theory's special suitability for opposing total war, that strongest of strong theories.

Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War.

Here is a brisk, accessible, and vivid introduction to arguably the most important event in the history of the United States--the American Revolution. Between 1760 and 1800, the American people cast off British rule to create a new nation and a radically new form of government based on the idea that people have the right to govern themselves. In this lively account, Robert Allison provides a cohesive synthesis of the military, diplomatic, political, social, and intellectual aspects of the Revolution, paying special attention to the Revolution's causes and consequences. The book recreates the tumultuous events of the 1760s and 1770s that led to revolution, such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, as well as the role the Sons of Liberty played in turning resistance into full-scale revolt. Allison explains how and why Americans changed their ideas of government and society so profoundly in these years and how the War for Independence was fought and won. He highlights the major battles and commanders on both sides--with a particular focus on George Washington and the extraordinary strategies he developed to defeat Britain's superior forces--as well as the impact of French military support on the American cause. In the final chapter, Allison explores the aftermath of the American Revolution: how the newly independent states created governments based on the principles for which they had fought, and how those principles challenged their own institutions, such as slavery, in the new republic. He considers as well the Revolution's legacy, the many ways its essential ideals influenced other struggles against oppressive power or colonial systems in France, Latin America, and Asia. Sharply written and highly readable, The American Revolution offers the perfect introduction to this seminal event in American history.

Dr Butler provides a new interpretation of the cristero war (1926-29) which divided Mexico's peasantry into rival camps loyal to the Catholic Church (cristero) or the Revolution (agrarista). This book puts religion at the heart of our understanding of the revolt by showing how peasant allegiances often resulted from genuinely popular cultural and religious antagonisms. It challenges the assumption that Mexican peasants in the 1920s shared religious outlooks and that their behaviour was mainly driven by political and material factors. Focusing on the state of Michoacan in western-central Mexico, the volume seeks to integrate both cultural and structural lines of inquiry. First charting the uneven character of Michoacan's historical formation in the late colonial period and the nineteenth century, Dr Butler shows how the emergence of distinct agrarian regimes and political cultures was later associated with varying popular responses to post-revolutionary state formation in the areas of educational and agrarian reform. At the same time, it is argued that these structural trends were accompanied by increasingly clear divergences in popular religious cultures, including lay attitudes to the clergy, patterns of religious devotion and deviancy, levels of sacramental participation, and commitment to militant 'social' Catholicism. As peasants in different communities developed distinct parish identities, so the institutional conflict between Church and state acquired diverse meanings and provoked violently contradictory popular responses. Thus the fires of revolt burned all the more fiercely because they inflamed a countryside which - then as now - was deeply divided in matters of faith as well as politics. Based on oral testimonies and careful searches of dozens of ecclesiastical and state archives, this study makes an important contribution to the religious history of the Mexican Revolution.

Early work in conflict resolution and peace research focused on why wars broke out, why they persisted, and why peace agreements failed to endure. Later research has focused on what actions and circumstances have actually averted destructive escalations, stopped the perpetuation of destructive conduct, produced a relatively good conflict transformation, or resulted in an enduring and relatively equitable relationship among former adversaries. This later research, which began in the 1950s, recognizes that conflict is inevitable and is often waged in the name of rectifying injustice. Additionally, it argues that damages can be minimized and gains maximized for various stakeholders in waging and settling conflicts. This theory, which is known as the constructive conflict approach, looks at how conflicts can be waged and resolved so they are broadly beneficial rather than mutually destructive. In this book, Louis Kriesberg, one of the major figures in the school of constructive conflict, looks at every major foreign conflict episode in which the United States has been involved since the onset of the Cold War to analyze when American involvement in foreign conflicts has been relatively effective and beneficial and when it has not. In doing so he analyzes whether the US took constructive approaches to conflict and whether the approach yielded better consequences than more traditional coercive approaches. Realizing Peace helps readers interested in engaging or learning about foreign policy to better understand what has happened in past American involvement in foreign conflicts, to think freshly about better alternatives, and to act in support of more constructive strategies in the future.

Eva Tichauer was born in Berlin at the end of the First World War into a socialist Jewish family. After a happy childhood in a well-off intellectual milieu, the destiny of her family was turned upside-down by the rise of Hitler in 1933. They emigrated to Paris in July of that year, and life started to become difficult. Eva was in her second year of medical studies in 1939 when war was declared, with fatal consequences for her and her family: they sere forced to the Spanish frontier, then returned to Paris to a flat which had been searched by the Gestapo. Eva was then compelled to break off her studies due to a quota system being imposed on Jewish students.