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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
France's liberation was expected to trigger a decisive break both with the Vichy regime and with the pre-war Third Republic. What happened, over three crucial years (1944-47), was an untidy patchwork of unplanned continuities and false starts - along with fresh departures that defined France's future for the next half-century. Prepared by an international team of specialists, "The Uncertain Foundation" analyses a complex process of regime change, economic renewal, social transformation, and adjustment to a fast-evolving world.
The Bear Went Over the Mountain is a collection of vignettes
written by Soviet junior officers describing their experiences
fighting the Mujahideen guerrillas. The material was originally
collected and published by the Frunze Combined Arms Staff College
to serve as a text on combat against a guerrilla force in
mountain-desert terrain. It was originally intended for internal
use only and as such provides examples of both good and bad
military practice. The hard lessons learned are not specifically
'Russian' in nature and many of the same mistakes and successes
would apply equally to the American Army in Vietnam. Indeed, the
knowledge gained from these reports should also apply to future
conflicts involving civil war, guerrilla forces and rugged terrain.
In Killing Hope, William Blum, author of the bestselling Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, provides a devastating and comprehensive account of America's covert and overt military actions in the world, all the way from China in the 1940s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and - in this updated edition - beyond. Is the United States, as it likes to claim, a global force for democracy? Killing Hope shows the answer to this question to be a resounding 'no'.
Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Becker started covering Cambodia in 1973 for "The Washington Post," when the country was perceived as little more than a footnote to the Vietnam War. Then, with the rise of the Khmer Rouge in 1975 came the closing of the border and a systematic reorganization of Cambodian society. Everyone was sent from the towns and cities to the countryside, where they were forced to labor endlessly in the fields. The intelligentsia were brutally exterminated, and torture, terror, and death became routine. Ultimately, almost two million people--nearly a quarter of the population--were killed in what was one of this century's worst crimes against humanity."When the War Was Over" is Elizabeth Becker's masterful account of the Cambodian nightmare. Encompassing the era of French colonialism and the revival of Cambodian nationalism; 1950s Paris, where Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot received his political education; the killing fields of Cambodia; government chambers in Washington, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Hanoi, and Phnom Penh; and the death of Pol Pot in 1998; this is a book of epic vision and staggering power. Merging original historical research with the many voices of those who lived through the times and exclusive interviews with every Cambodian leader of the past quarter century, "When the War Was Over" illuminates the darkness of Cambodia with the intensity of a bolt of lightning.
In the decades following World War II, the science of decision-making moved from the periphery to the center of transatlantic thought. The Decisionist Imagination explores how "decisionism" emerged from its origins in prewar political theory to become an object of intense social scientific inquiry in the new intellectual and institutional landscapes of the postwar era. By bringing together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, this volume illuminates how theories of decision shaped numerous techno-scientific aspects of modern governance-helping to explain, in short, how we arrived at where we are today.
Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed
a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered
the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed
plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and
agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and
its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war
promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious
dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first
shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed
a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered
the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed
plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and
agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and
its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war
promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious
dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first
shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
At "zero dark thirty" on January 30, 1971, units of the U.S. Fifth Mechanized Division left their firebases along the DMZ heading west along Provincial Route 9. The mission, called Dewey Canyon II, was to reopen the road from Khe Sahn Air Base to the Laotian border, in support of a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos (doomed from the start) to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Alpha Company of U.S. 61st Infantry performed commendably in keeping Route 9 open, with just one casualty killed by friendly fire. They returned to Firebase Charlie-2 in April, exhausted but hopeful--the Fifth would be leaving Vietnam in July. They patrolled the "western hills" through May as rocket attacks fell each evening. On the 21st, a direct hit on a bunker killed 30 of the 63 men inside--18 were from Alpha Co. This is their story, as told to Specialist Lou Pepi by members of his unit.
The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.
The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.
Why did NATO expand its membership during the Cold War years, and what was its attraction to new members? This book locates the answers to these questions not solely in the Cold War, but in the historical problems of international order in Europe and the growing idea of the West. A wide range of sources is used, and the analysis looks at a process of neo-enlargement during NATO's inception as well as the formal accessions that followed.
This latest of many Grenadian-inspired books provides a useful supplement to the exclusively Grenadian-oriented volumes of recent years. Six of the articles represent conflicting interpretations of Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement and the US invasion of 1983. . . Formats and foci for the other Caribbean pieces vary, but they establish clearly that domestic, not external forces are what shape political development in the Caribbean, making arguments regarding Grenada's (or Cuba's) threat to the region less credible. . . . . The] editors put the events in Grenada in perspective, a task that has long been overdue. For all levels. "Choice" "The Caribbean After Grenada" examines the major political and economic developments in the Caribbean since the events of October 1983 in Grenada. The contributors represent a range of ideological viewpoints--from neo-Marxist to conservative--and thus offer an unusually balanced and informed discussion of the lessons of Grenada and the problems of revolution, conflict, and democracy faced by contemporary Caribbean societies. Coverage is extremely broad in scope and encompasses all geographic regions, from the islands furthest out in Atlantic to the Central American Republics, all major regime types, and all cultural/linguistic areas. An ideal supplemental text for courses on comparative politics, the Caribbean, and economic development, this volume brings a much needed historical perspective to the study of events since the Grenada crisis.
The gentrification of Brooklyn has been one of the most striking developments in recent urban history. Considered one of the city's most notorious industrial slums in the 1940s and 1950s, Brownstone Brooklyn by the 1980s had become a post-industrial landscape of hip bars, yoga studios, and beautifully renovated, wildly expensive townhouses. In The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn, Suleiman Osman offers a groundbreaking history of this unexpected transformation. Challenging the conventional wisdom that New York City's renaissance started in the 1990s, Osman locates the origins of gentrification in Brooklyn in the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. Gentrification began as a grassroots movement led by young and idealistic white college graduates searching for "authenticity" and life outside the burgeoning suburbs. Where postwar city leaders championed slum clearance and modern architecture, "brownstoners" (as they called themselves) fought for a new romantic urban ideal that celebrated historic buildings, industrial lofts and traditional ethnic neighborhoods as a refuge from an increasingly technocratic society. Osman examines the emergence of a "slow-growth" progressive coalition as brownstoners joined with poorer residents to battle city planners and local machine politicians. But as brownstoners migrated into poorer areas, race and class tensions emerged, and by the 1980s, as newspapers parodied yuppies and anti-gentrification activists marched through increasingly expensive neighborhoods, brownstoners debated whether their search for authenticity had been a success or failure. The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn deftly mixes architectural, cultural and political history in this eye-opening perspective on the post-industrial city.
The transition to sustainable development will test government and
democracy in a fundamentally radical way. There is probably no such
end state as truly sustainable development. So the pathways towards
it are endless. In any case, like a mirage, sustainable development
will metamorphose like a more distant goal as it is approached.
The transition to sustainable development will test government and
democracy in a fundamentally radical way. There is probably no such
end state as truly sustainable development. So the pathways towards
it are endless. In any case, like a mirage, sustainable development
will metamorphose like a more distant goal as it is approached.
GorbacheV's reforms in domestic and foreign policy were motivated by the overriding objective of making Soviet socialism a legitimate and viable alternative among the world community of nations. Drawing on recently opened archives, this study examines the radicalization of GorbacheV's reforms and the resistance to them from the conservatives in the party apparat and the military. Gorbachev sought to demilitarize the Soviet Union from the beginning but that process took on a more revolutionary hue as he came to understand how deeply embedded Stalinism was. He sought to continue where Lenin had left off, believing that Stalin had sidetracked and deformed Soviet socialism. Toward this end, Gorbachev redefined the image of the enemy by emphasizing common human values in international relations over class conflict, and altered the nature of the threat by stressing the primacy of economic over military competition. Gorbachev changed the terms of political discourse, and by changing the way in which the Soviet Union viewed the world, he sought to make improvements in relations with the West and to decrease the military burden of his overstretched country.
This book analyzes the ways in which US policy toward Iraq was dictated by America's broader Cold War strategy between 1958 and 1975. While most historians have focused on "hot" Cold War conflicts such as Cuba, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, few have recognized Iraq's significance as a Cold War battleground. This book argues that US decisions and actions were designed to deny the Soviet Union influence over Iraq and to create a strategic base in the oil-rich Gulf region. Using newly available primary sources and interviews, this book reveals new details on America's decision-making toward and actions against Iraq during the height of the Cold War and shows where Iraq fits into the broader historiography of the Cold War in the Middle East. Further, it raises important questions about widely held misconceptions of US-Iraqi relations, such as the CIA's alleged involvement in the 1963 Ba'thist coup and the theory that the US sold out the Kurds in 1975.
This book begins in 1820 with the Portuguese attempt to create a third, African, empire after the virtual loss of Asia and America. In the nineteenth century the most valuable resource extracted from Angola was agricultural labour, first as privately owned slaves and later as conscript workers. The colony was managed by a few marine officers, by several hundred white political convicts, and by a couple of thousand black Angolans who had adopted Portuguese language and culture. The hub was the harbour city of Luanda which grew in the twentieth century to be a dynamic metropolis of several million people. The export of labour was gradually replaced when an agrarian revolution enabled white Portuguese immigrants to drive black Angolan labourers to produce sugar-cane, cotton, maize and above all coffee. During the twentieth century this wealth was supplemented by Congo copper, by gem-quality diamonds, and by off-shore oil. Although much of the countryside retained its dollar-a-day peasant economy, new wealth generated conflict which pitted white against black, north against south, coast against highland, American allies against Russian allies.The generation of warfare finally ended in 2002 when national reconstruction could begin on Portuguese colonial foundations.
In 1989, the floodgates of revolution were opened in Eastern Europe. Communist governments toppled in all of the East European countries that were members of the Warsaw Pact. Glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, the prospect of increasing West European integration leading to the further marginization of Eastern Europe, and long-suppressed alienation of the public from the political leadership throughout Eastern Europe were amongst the immediate factors leading to the upheavals of 1989. In this research volume, Alpo Rusi, Director of Planning and Research in the Political Department of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, examines the history of the postwar east-west relationship in Europe, the underlying proceses of change and the implications of the present period of transition to a new European order.;In Dr Rusi's view the events of 1989 are but a harbinger of a new security order in Europe. The author analyses the rise of bipolarism, both during the conflict of the Cold War and during the growth of detente, and lays stress on the parallel process of an evolution towards multilateralism. Dr Rusi's view is that in exploring the prospects for Europe's future, analysts
This book offers a history of contemporary Italy from the collapse of Mussolini to the present, placing this major Euro-Mediterranean country in a wider geo-political perspective. It examines how Italian history and politics developed in relation to - and were shaped by - the international context, from the Cold War and NATO to the European integration process and the global challenges of 1989. Umberto Gentiloni Silveri highlights all major events, structural limits, contradictions and conflicts influencing Italian democracy and the political system until today. He explores the continuous tension between 'stabilization' and 'conflict', between the promise of an innovative and evolutionary representative democracy on the one hand and the constraints of a political system conditioned by structural limits and old contradictions on the other.
The police force in Japan has frequently been idealized by Western commentators, who trace its origin to the American Occupation of Japan (1945-52) "Police in Occupation Japan" challenges the assumptions that underlie these accounts, focusing on the problems that attended the reform of the Japanese police during the Occupation. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, Christopher Aldous explores the extent to which America failed in its goal of "democratizing" the Japanese police force, arguing that deeply-rooted tradition, the pivotal importance of the black market, and America's decision to opt for an indirect Occupation led to resistance to reform. His study concludes with a consideration of the postwar legacy of the Occupation's police reform, and explores a number of recent controversies.
The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the survivors of the Holocaust contended with life after the darkest night in Jewish history. They include the Earl Harrison mission and significant report, the effort to keep Europe's borders open to refugee infiltration, the murder of the first Jew in Germany after V-E Day and its aftermath, and the iconic sculptures of Nathan Rapoport and Poland's landscape of Holocaust memory up to the present day. Joining extensive archival research and a limpid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.
Controversy still surrounds the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in 1956 and the role of senior British politicians such as the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden. This volume traces the history of Anglo-Egyptian relations since the opening of the canal, and Britain's wider interests in the region. The crisis itself, from its development to the invasion and the aftermath, is fully explored. The wider implications of the episode, both for Britain and on a global scale, are considered in detail. A wide range of documentary evidence is carefully woven into textual analysis. Included are: key UK and US government sources; photographs, cartoons; diary entries; interviews, and extracts from newspapers. The significance of individual sources - and their usefulness for historians - is highlighted. |
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