With his third book, To the North Anna River, Gordon Rhea resumes his spectacular narrative of the initial campaign between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in the spring of 1864. May 13 to 25, a phase oddly ignored by historians, was critical in the clash between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. During those thirteen days -- an interlude bracketed by horrific battles that riveted the public's attention -- a game of guile and endurance between Grant and Lee escalated to a suspenseful draw on Virginia's North Anna River. Rhea skillfully sets the stage at dawn May 13 and from there lends every imaginable perspective -- from mental interiors to sweeping panoramas to scholarly retrospection -- on the ensuing hours.

From the bloodstained fields of the Mule Shoe to the North Anna River, with Meadow Bridge, Myers Hill, Harris Farm, Jericho Mills, Ox Ford, and Doswell Farm in between, grueling night marches, desperate attacks, and thundering cavalry charges became the norm for both Grant's and Lee's men. But the real story of May 13-25 lay in the two general's efforts to outfox each other, and Rhea charts their every step and misstep. Realizing that his bludgeoning tactics at the Bloody Angle were ineffective, Grant resorted to a fast-paced assault on Lee's vulnerable points. Lee, outnumbered two to one, abandoned the offensive and concentrated on anticipating Grant's maneuvers and shifting quickly enough to repel them. It was an amazingly equal match of wits that produced a gripping, high-stakes bout of warfare -- a test, ultimately, of improvisation for Lee and of perseverance for Grant.

From unprecedented research into more than 550 published and unpublishedsources, Rhea produces an exciting new take on this overlooked passage in the Civil War. He discovers a surprising similarity in military temperament between Lee and Grant, whom historians traditionally contrast. He also presents the first detailed recounting of Philip Sheridan's dramatic battle to save his cavalry corps in front of Richmond; the story of the novice New York and New England heavy artillerists drawn down from Washington; the specifics of Grant's forlorn attack of May 18 at Spotsylvania Court House; and the full picture of Lee's ingenious inverted V formation on the North Anna. The most accurate, not to mention enthralling, account to date of this next phase in Lee and Grant's opening match, To the North Anna River is a worthy sequel to Rhea's earlier acclaimed works.

The second volume in Gordon C. Rhea's peerless five-book series on the Civil War's 1864 Overland Campaign abounds with Rhea's signature detail, innovative analysis, and riveting prose. Here Rhea examines the maneuvers and battles from May 7, 1864, when Grant left the Wilderness, through May 12, when his attempt to break Lee's line by frontal assault reached a chilling climax at what is now called the Bloody Angle. Drawing exhaustively upon previously untapped materials, Rhea challenges conventional wisdom about this violent clash of titans to construct the ultimate account of Grant and Lee at Spotsylvania.

In summer 2006 Helmand Province erupted into violence as NATO forces struggled to crush Taliban strongholds. For six weeks the Royal Irish Regiment and the Paras defended Sangin in the face of ever-mounting attacks. At this point young officer Patrick Bury was learning the trade of the infantry in the Brecon Beacons. Paddy had always wanted to be a soldier - a desire fraught with the contradictions of a complex history overridden by a 'warrior calling'. When he arrived in Afghanistan with 1stRoyal Irish, he was surrounded by men oozing bloody combat experience. This was not Sandhurst. It was extreme violence and killing. Hades Four One was his callsign and the infantry mantra rang in his ears: 'To close and kill the enemy, in all weather conditions, in all terrain, by day or night.' For six months Paddy and his company dealt with 110 IEDs, of which 60 exploded on them, killing his comrades in the most vicious of ways and fuelling a sense of ever-growing dissatisfaction in the young captain. This powerful and thoughful first-hand account about the 'eternal truths of military life' places the reader in Paddy's boots, sharing every thought, ache, smell and taste of life on the frontline in Afghanistan. He describes modern warfare in a way that creates an understanding of the myriad complexities soldiers are faced with, the conditions in which they operate and the moral and emotional challenges they endure.

For the Romans, Britannia lay beyond the comfortable confines of the Mediterranean world around which classical civilisation had flourished. Britannia was felt to be at the outermost edge of the world itself, lending the island an air of dangerous mystique. To the soldiers crossing the Oceanus Britannicus in the late summer of AD 43, the prospect of invading an island believed to be on its periphery must have meant a mixture of panic and promise. These men were part of a formidable army of four veteran legions (II Augusta, VIIII Hispana, XIIII Gemina, XX Valeria), which had been assembled under the overall command of Aulus Plautius Silvanus. Under him were, significantly, first-rate legionary commanders, including the future emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus. With the auxiliary units, the total invasion force probably mounted to around 40,000 men, but having assembled at Gessoriacum (Boulogne) they refused to embark. Eventually, the mutinous atmosphere was dispelled, and the invasion fleet sailed in three contingents. So, ninety-seven years after Caius Iulius Caesar, the Roman army landed in south-eastern Britannia. After a brisk summer campaign, a province was established behind a frontier zone running from what is now Lyme Bay on the Dorset coast to the Humber estuary. Though the territory overrun during the first campaign season was undoubtedly small, it laid the foundations for the Roman conquest which would soon begin to sweep across Britannia. In this highly illustrated and detailed title, Nic Fields tells the full story of the invasion which established the Romans in Britain, explaining how and why the initial Claudian invasion succeeded and what this meant for the future of Britain.

Very Special Agent Fifi was described as 'one of the most expert liars in the world'. Employed by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Churchill's wartime spook organisation, her job was to entrap trainee agents and test their mettle in the field. Kept secret for seventy-five years, her existence long treated as a myth, Fifi's files were declassified in 2014 and her identity revealed. She was Marie Chilver, a half-Latvian, half-British escapee from occupied Europe. Marie's extraordinary story reveals the inner workings of Britain's secret services and the lengths the SOE would go to in equipping their agents for their highly dangerous espionage work in Nazi-dominated Europe.

From 1932 to 1945, in a headlong quest to develop germ warfare capability for the military of Imperial Japan, hundreds of Japanese doctors, nurses and research scientists willingly participated in what was referred to at the time as 'the secret of secrets' - horrifying experiments conducted on live human beings, in this case innocent Chinese men, women, and children. This was the work of an elite group known as Unit 731, led by Japan's answer to Joseph Mengele, Dr Shiro Ishii.

Under their initiative, thousands of individuals were held captive and infected with virulent strains of anthrax, plague, cholera, and other epidemic and viral diseases. Soon entire Chinese villages were being hit with biological bombs. Even American POWs were targeted. All told, more than 250,000 people were infected, and the vast majority died. Yet, after the war, US occupation forces under General Douglas MacArthur struck a deal with these doctors that shielded them from accountability.

Provocative, alarming and utterly compelling, "A Plague Upon Humanity" draws on important original research to expose one of the most shameful chapters in human history.

For decades it has been assumed that the Allied bombing of Dresden -- a cultured city famous for its china, chocolate, and fine watches -- was militarily unjustifiable, an act of retribution for Germany's ceaseless bombing of London and other parts of England.

Now, Frederick Taylor's groundbreaking research offers a completely new examination of the facts and reveals that Dresden was a highly militarized city actively involved in the production of military armaments and communications. Incorporating first-hand accounts, contemporaneous press material and memoirs, and never-before-seen government records, Taylor proves unequivocally the very real military threat Dresden posed -- and how a legacy of propaganda shrouded the truth for sixty years.

"They flirted with men, and with death." In The Women Who Lived for Danger, acclaimed historian Marcus Binney recounts the story of ten remarkable women -- some famous, some virtually unknown -- recruited to work behind enemy lines as secret agents during WWII. Part of Winston Churchill's Special Operations Executive, formed in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze," the women of the SOE were trained to handle guns and explosives, work undercover, endure interrogation by the Gestapo, and use complex codes. Once in enemy territory, theirs was the most dangerous war of all, leading an apparently normal civilian life but in constant danger of arrest and execution. Passing themselves off as country wenches by afternoon and chic Parisiennes by night, these women put service to Britain and the Allied forces above all concerns for personal safety -- they organized dropping grounds for arms and explosives destined for the Resistance, helped operate escape lines for airmen who had been shot down over Europe, and provided Allied Command with vital intelligence.

The exploits of those chronicled in The Women Who Lived for Danger form a new chapter of heroism in the history of warfare matched only by their legacy of daring, determination, resourcefulness, and ability to stay cool in the face of extreme danger.

An important story of one man's life, lived with courage and principle.

During the decades of Bourbon ascendancy after 1874, Alabama institutions like those in other southern states were dominated by whites. Former slave and sharecropper Jack Turner refused to accept a society so structured. Highly intelligent, physically imposing, and an orator of persuasive talents, Turner was fearless before whites and emerged as a leader of his race. He helped to forge a political alliance between blacks and whites that defeated and humiliated the Bourbons in Choctaw County, the heart of the Black Belt, in the election of 1882. That summer, after a series of bogus charges and arrests, Turner was accused of planning to lead his private army of blacks in a general slaughter of the county whites. Justice was forgotten in the resultant fear and hysteria.

How did German intelligence agents in the First World War use dead fish to pass on vital information to their operatives? What did an advertisement for a dog in The Times have to do with the movement of British troops into Egypt? And why did British personnel become suspicious about the trousers hanging on a Belgian woman's washing line? During the First World War, spymasters and their networks of secret agents developed many ingenious - and occasionally hilarious - methods of communication. Puffs of smoke from a chimney, stacks of bread in a bakery window, even knitted woollen jumpers were all used to convey secret messages decipherable only by well-trained eyes. Melanie King retells the astonishing story of these and many other tricks of the espionage trade, now long forgotten, through the memoirs of eight spies. Among them are British intelligence officers working undercover in France and Germany, including a former officer from the Metropolitan Police who once hunted Jack the Ripper. There is also the German Secret Service officer, codenamed Agricola, who spied on the Eastern Front, an American newspaperman and an Austrian agent who disguised himself as everything from a Jewish pedlar to a Russian officer. Drawing on the words of many of the spies themselves, Secrets in a Dead Fish is a fascinating compendium of clever and original ruses that casts new light into the murky world of espionage during the First World War.

W. Heath Robinson is best known for his hilarious drawings of zany contraptions, though his work ranged across a wide variety of topics covering many aspects of British life in the decades following the First World War. Starting out as a watercolour artist, he quickly turned to the more lucrative field of book illustration and developed his forte in satirical drawings and cartoons. He was regularly commissioned by the editors of Tatler and The Sketch and in great demand from advertising companies. Collections of his drawings were subsequently published in many different editions and became so successful as to transform Heath Robinson into a household name, celebrated for his eccentric brand of British humour. Heath Robinson drew many cartoons lampooning the excesses of the First World War and poking fun at the German army, bringing welcome comic relief to British soldiers and civilians. This book presents his complete First World War satire, from ridiculous weapons such as 'Button Magnets' to aeronautical antics and a demonstration of how to have a 'Quiet Cup of Tea at the Front.'

A previously unpublished wartime memoir from the acclaimed author of Birdy and A Midnight Clear. One of the most acclaimed American writers of his generation, and author of classic novels such as Birdy, A Midnight Clear and Dad, William Wharton was a very private man. Writing under a pseudonym, he rarely gave interviews, so fans and critics could only guess how much of his work was autobiographical and how much was fiction. Now, for the first time, we are able to read the author's own account of his experiences during the Second World War, events that went on to influence some of his greatest novels. These are the tales that Wharton never wanted to tell his children. It is an unforgettable true story from one of America's greatest writers.

The dreadful global conflagration known as the Second World War was more than the clashing of great armies on bloody battlefields. A different kind of war was being waged in the secret laboratories on both sides of the conflict -- a war that would alter the course and determine the outcome of the bitter hostilities, forever changing our world and our future.

While it is a widely accepted fact that America's development and employment of the atomic bomb ended the Pacific struggle -- and that the failure of Hitler's scientists to develop their own A-bomb helped to doom Germany -- little has been made of the other remarkable scientific accomplishments of this dark and terrible epoch. Edifying, enthralling, startling, and sobering, Laboratory Warriors is a masterful work that sheds light on the technological achievements that swung the pendulum of victory in the Allies' direction.

Part cookbook, part culinary history, part family history, this volume offers an intimate glimpse into life in the household of a mid-19th-century Virginia family, that of the author's great-grandparents, Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee. The collection of recipes, photographs, shopping lists and other domestic jottings act as a window on an earlier way of life. Filled with family stories and photographs, it features 70 recipes for breads, cakes, puddings, sweets, soups, main dishes, vegetables, drinks, and home remedies. Each historic recipes is accompanied by notes on ingredients and techinques and by tips for adapting the recipe in the modern kitchen.

Mary Kaldor's New and Old Wars has fundamentally changed the way both scholars and policy-makers understand contemporary war and conflict. In the context of globalization, this path-breaking book has shown that what we think of as war - that is to say, war between states in which the aim is to inflict maximum violence - is becoming an anachronism. In its place is a new type of organized violence or 'new wars', which could be described as a mixture of war, organized crime and massive violations of human rights. The actors are both global and local, public and private. The wars are fought for particularistic political goals using tactics of terror and destabilization that are theoretically outlawed by the rules of modern warfare. Kaldor's analysis offers a basis for a cosmopolitan political response to these wars, in which the monopoly of legitimate organized violence is reconstructed on a transnational basis and international peacekeeping is reconceptualized as cosmopolitan law enforcement. This approach also has implications for the reconstruction of civil society, political institutions, and economic and social relations. This third edition has been fully revised and updated. Kaldor has added an afterword answering the critics of the New Wars argument and, in a new chapter, Kaldor shows how old war thinking in Afghanistan and Iraq greatly exacerbated what turned out to be, in many ways, archetypal new wars - characterised by identity politics, a criminalised war economy and civilians as the main victims. Like its predecessors, the third edition of New and Old Wars will be essential reading for students of international relations, politics and conflict studies as well as to all those interested in the changing nature and prospect of warfare.

The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice is an original contribution to the general theory of strategy. While heavily indebted to Carl von Clausewitz, Sun-tzu, and the very few other classic authors, this book presents the theory, rather than merely comments on the theory as developed by others. The author explains that the purpose of strategy is to connect purposefully politics and policy with the instruments they must use. The primary focus of attention is on military strategy, but this focus is well nested in discussion of grand strategy, for which military strategy is only one strand. The book presents the general theory of strategy comprehensively and explains the utility of this general theory for the particular strategies that strategists need to develop in order to meet their historically unique challenges. The book argues that strategy's general theory provides essential education for practicing strategists at all times and in all circumstances. As general theory, The Strategy Bridge is as relevant to understanding strategic behaviour in the Peloponnesian War as it is for the conflicts of the twenty-first century. The book proceeds from exposition of general strategic theory, to address three basic issue areas that are not at all well explained, let alone understood with a view to advancing better practice, in the extant literature. Specifically, the book tackles the problems that harass and imperil strategic performance; it probes deeply into the hugely underexamined subject of just what it is that the strategist produces-strategic effect; and it 'joins up the dots' from theory through practice to consequences by means of a close examination of command performance. The author takes a holistic view of strategy, and it is rigorously attentive to the significance of the contexts within which and for which strategies are developed and applied. The book regards the strategist as a hero, charged with the feasible, but awesomely difficult, task of converting the threat and use of force (for military strategy) into desired political consequences. He seeks some control over the rival or enemy via strategic effect, the instrumental produce of his instrumental labours. In order to maximise his prospects for success, the practicing strategist requires all the educational assistance that strategic theory can provide.

From best-selling author of `A Brilliant Little Operation', winner of the British Army Military History prize and the Royal marines History prize for 2013, comes the long neglected D-Day story of the Resistance uprising and subsequent massacre on the Vercors massif - the largest action by the French Resistance during the Second World War. In 1941 factions of the French Resistance began to plot against their German occupiers. Aided by Allied arms and secret agents, they would seize the mountainous Vercors plateau in south-eastern France in a D-Day uprising intended to divert the Nazis from the Normandy beaches. But when muddled Allied strategy in London and Algiers left them abandoned, the 4,500 young fighters were left to face the might of the German Army alone. `The Cruel Victory' gives voice to the young fighters who fought the largest Resistance battle of the war. It is a story of how early idealism can turn to despair, and of the cost to those on the front line of battle when those at the top know too little about the harsh realities of war. It is a human story of heroic proportion.

When a Civil War substitute broker told business associates that "Men is cheep here to Day," he exposed an unsettling contradiction at the heart of the Union's war effort. Despite Northerners' devotion to the principles of free labor, the war produced rampant speculation and coercive labor arrangements that many Americans labeled fraudulent. Debates about this contradiction focused on employment agencies called "intelligence offices," institutions of dubious character that nevertheless served the military and domestic necessities of the Union army and Northern households. Northerners condemned labor agents for pocketing fees above and beyond contracts for wages between employers and employees. Yet the transactions these middlemen brokered with vulnerable Irish immigrants, Union soldiers and veterans, former slaves, and Confederate deserters defined the limits of independence in the wage labor economy and clarified who could prosper in it. Men Is Cheap shows that in the process of winning the war, Northerners were forced to grapple with the frauds of free labor. Labor brokers, by helping to staff the Union military and Yankee households, did indispensable work that helped the Northern state and Northern employers emerge victorious. They also gave rise to an economic and political system that enriched the managerial class at the expense of laborers--a reality that resonates to this day.

A brilliantly written memoir by a Venezuelan-born British journalist that skilfully uncovers the secrets of her father’s past: the annihilation of his family in the Holocaust, his courageous choice to build his life anew and his extraordinary commitment to hiding the truth from his own family.

There is a Czech saying – The darkest shadow is beneath the candle.

As a little girl growing up in a flourishing 1970s Venezuela, Ariana wanted to peer into the shadows and be a detective. With no real mysteries to solve, her childish curiosity led her to focus on the enigma of her own father, a brilliant industrialist who appeared to be the epitome of success and strength but who would wake in the night screaming in a language that she didn’t recognize.

Then, one day, she found an old identity document bearing his picture but someone else’s name.

Her father never spoke about the past. This was the first of many clues that she was to uncover in the years to come. They led her to a box of papers that he had left for her when he died in 2001. The box contained wartime documents that opened the door to her father’s past and finally gave her the permission he had long withheld to step through it.

Ariana meticulously uncovers the astonishing truth of her father’s extraordinary escape from Nazi-occupied Prague and inevitable deportation to the camps. Her painstaking investigation leads her across Europe and reveals his unlikely and inspiring choice to assume a fake identity and live out the war undercover, spying for the allies in Berlin—deep in the ‘darkest shadow’.

In producing a powerful piece of literary detective work and an important story of survival against the odds, she comes to know the family that had been lost and, ultimately, her own beloved father.

"This terrifying, remarkable work examines the attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of U.S. fighting men in the Pacific theater during World War II. Imaginatively drawing on letters, diaries, memoirs, military reports, and contemporary psychological assessments, Schrijvers reveals the social, historical, and emotional roots of the peculiarly frenzied and merciless war...this temperate study of murderous fury is among the most unsettling books I've read in years."
--"The Atlantic Monthly"

"One of the most remarkable books I have ever come across. A significant and fascinating contribution to the field. The Crash of Ruin should appeal to a large audience of readers interested in World War II history."
"--Edward M. Coffman, Author of The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I"

"The Crash of Ruin offers the reader both intellectual and emotional rewards. . . . Its narrative power makes it a wonderful read."
"--Susan M. Hartmann, The Ohio State University"

"A brilliant contribution to intercultural studies. It imaginatively combines the anew' military history with an older American Studies research and writing technique. Not only will the book attract a wide range of readers, it should also stimulate scholars to adopt this approach to many other topics in cultural studies."

"--William R. Childs, Author of Trucking and the Public Interest"

In the ruined Europe of World War II, American soldiers on the front lines had no eye for breathtaking vistas or romantic settings. The brutality of battle profoundly darkened their perceptions of the Old World. As the only means of international travel for the masses, the military exposedmillions of Americans to a Europe in swift, catastrophic decline.

Drawing on soldiers' diaries, letters, poems, and songs, Peter Schrijvers offers a compelling account of the experiences of U.S. combat ground forces: their struggles with the European terrain and seasons, their confrontations with soldiers, and their often startling encounters with civilians. Schrijvers relays how the GIs became so desensitized and dehumanized that the sight of dead animals often evoked more compassion than the sight of enemy dead.

The Crash of Ruin concludes with a dramatic and moving account of the final Allied offensive into German-held territory and the soldiers' bearing witness to the ultimate symbol of Europe's descent into ruin--the death camps of the Holocaust.

The harrowing experiences of the GIs convinced them that Europe's collapse was not only the result of the war, but also the Old World's deep-seated political cynicism, economic stagnation, and cultural decadence. The soldiers came to believe that the plague of war formed an inseparable part of the Old World's decline and fall.

Kortverhale oor die Bosoorlog in Suidwes-Afrika en Angola. 'Die gety is net reg vir boeke oor die Bosoorlog in Suidwes Afrika en Angola. En die beste is gewoonlik daardie wat geskryf is deur mense wat daar was – soos Cobus Bothma. Hy skryf soos 'n mens mens. Sy vertellings raak ligte sentimentele note en swaar snare.' So skryf Genl. Jannie Geldenhuys van Cobus Bothma se kortverhale oor die 'army' dae.

"Operation Vengeance is colorful, intimate, eye-popping history, delivered at a breakneck pace. I loved it." -Lynn Vincent The New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot delivers an electrifying narrative account of the top-secret U.S. mission to kill Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese commander who masterminded Pearl Harbor. In 1943, the United States military began to plan one of the most dramatic secret missions of World War II. Its code name was Operation Vengeance. Naval Intelligence had intercepted the itinerary of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, whose stealth attack on Pearl Harbor precipitated America's entry into the war. Harvard-educated, Yamamoto was a close confidant of Emperor Hirohito and a brilliant tactician who epitomized Japanese military might. On April 18th, the U.S. discovered, he would travel to Rabaul in the South Pacific to visit Japanese troops, then fly to the Japanese airfield at Balalale, 400 miles to the southeast. Set into motion, the Americans' plan was one of the most tactically difficult operations of the war. To avoid detection, U.S. pilots had to embark on a circuitous, 1,000-mile odyssey that would test not only their skills but the physical integrity of their planes. The timing was also crucial: the slightest miscalculation, even by a few minutes-or a delay on the famously punctual Yamamoto's end-meant the entire plan would collapse, endangering American lives. But if these remarkable pilots succeeded, they could help turn the tide of the war-and greatly boost Allied morale. Informed by deep archival research and his experience as a decorated combat pilot, Operation Vengeance focuses on the mission's pilots and recreates the moment-by-moment drama they experienced in the air. Hampton recreates this epic event in thrilling detail, and provides groundbreaking evidence about what really happened that day. Operation Vengeance includes 30 black-and-white images.

Phyllis Ursula James. Nora O'Mara. Raisin Na Mheara. Like her name, the life of Rosaleen James changed many times as she followed a convoluted path from abandoned child, to foster daughter of an aristocratic British family, to traitor during World War II, to her emergence as a full Irish woman afterward. In Masquerade, authors Mark M. Hull and Vera Moynes tell James's story as it unfolds against the backdrop of the most important events of the twentieth century. James's life - both real and imagined - makes for an incredible but true story. By altering her identity to suit the situation, James manipulated almost everyone she encountered: the German intelligence service, the Nazi propaganda broadcasting service, British intelligence, and various Irish cultural groups. She was in a liaison with Irish writer Francis Stuart and, with him, provided a voice for Nazi radio programs aimed at neutral Ireland, served as the pseudo-Irish expert for German espionage missions, and participated in the failed, almost comical effort to recruit Irish prisoners of war to join the Nazis against Great Britain - quite a series of performances, considering her only contact with Ireland had been a weeklong visit in 1937. Immediately after the war, James was wanted by British intelligence as a ""renegade"" (traitor), but her case was quickly squelched by the British government. Drawing on an assumed wartime persona, she became fluent in Irish Gaelic and organized a number of conferences for which she won grants from the Irish government. James garnered wider attention in 1992 with her autobiography, published in Gaelic, in which she claimed that the Holocaust was a myth - a belief she maintained until her death in 2013. In documenting James's life of deception, Hull and Moynes masterfully analyze how an intellectually gifted child turned traitor to her country and convincingly rebranded herself as an Irish patriot and intellectual, while denying historical reality. The story of Rosaleen James reminds us that reality may be much less - or more - than what meets the eye and ear.