Winner of 2018 National Jewish Book Award.

Rise and Kill First is the definitive book to read on Israel's military history.

From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, the instinct to take every measure to defend the Jewish people has been hardwired into Israel''s DNA. This is the riveting inside account of the targeted assassinations that have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes pre-emptively.

Rise and Kill First counts their successes, failures and the moral and political price exacted on those who carried out the missions which have shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East and the entire world.

The root question this book addresses is how the new Germany will use its re-found status as a great power. Does Germany - as in the past - aim to dominate Europe? Or has it renounced its imperial ambitions following the trauma of division during the Cold War? In seeking answers to these questions, Kristina Spohr Readman scrutinises the development of Germany's new Ostpolitik (eastern policy) in the period 1989-2000. Against the background of recent European history, she analyses the re-establishment of a special relationship between Bonn/Berlin and Moscow. In particular, she assesses the peculiar geopolitical situation of the Baltic states: caught between a turbulent Russia in the east and a unified Germany in the west. The Baltic case reveals the complexities of a post-Cold War European security architecture in the making.

This engaging new biography dispels many myths surrounding Nehru, and distinguishes between the icon he has become and the politician he actually was. Benjamin Zachariah places Nehru in the context of the issues of his time, including the central theme of nationalism, the impact of Cold War pressures on India and the transition from colonial control to a precarious independence. How did Jawaharlal Nehru come to lead the Indian nationalist movement, and how did he sustain his leadership as the first Prime Minister of independent India? Nehru's vision of India, its roots in Indian politics and society, as well as its viability have been central to historical and present-day views of India. Connecting the domestic and international aspects of his political life and ideology, this study provides a fascinating insight into Nehru, his times and his legacy.

This book examines how civil-military relations have been transformed in Russia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. It shows how these countries have worked to reform their obsolete armed forces, and bring them into line with the new economic and strategic realities of the post-Cold War world, with new bureaucratic structures in which civilians play the key policy-making roles, and with strengthened democratic political institutions which have the right to oversee the armed forces.

The first comprehensive and definitive history of Brazil's decision to give up the nuclear weapon option. Why do countries capable of "going nuclear" choose not to? Brazil, which gained notoriety for developing a nuclear program and then backtracking into adherence to the nonproliferation regime, offers a fascinating window into the complex politics surrounding nuclear energy and American interference. Since the beginning of the nuclear age, author Carlo Patti writes, Brazil has tried to cooperate with other countries in order to master nuclear fuel cycle technology, but international limitations have constrained the country's approach. Brazil had the start of a nuclear program in the 1950s, which led to the United States interfering in agreements between Brazil and other countries with advanced nuclear industries, such as France and West Germany. These international constraints, especially those imposed by the United States, partly explain the country's decision to create a secret nuclear program in 1978 and to cooperate with other countries outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] regime, such as Argentina and China. Yet, in 1998, Brazil chose to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it so actively opposed only three decades prior, although the country still critiques the unfair nature of the treaty. Patti draws on recent declassified primary sources collected during years of research in public and private archives in eight different countries, as well as interviews with former presidents, diplomats, and scientists, to show how US nonproliferation policies deeply affected Brazil's decisions. Assessing the domestic and international factors that informed the evolution of Brazil's nuclear diplomacy, Brazil in the Global Nuclear Order, 1945-2018 also discusses what it means with respect to Brazil's future political goals.

When Dwight Eisenhower ran for president he was so confident that he could organize the Executive Office more effectively than his predecessor that he made it an issue in the campaign of 1952. When he entered office he found that Congress had given him just two months to reorganize the Council of Economic Advisers or see it dissolved. The changes he made in the Council still form the basis of its organization. This book, based largely on original sources, attempts to analyze what Eisenhower did and did not do, and how well the mechanisms he installed worked.

This book asks the reader to reassess the Cold War not just as superpower conflict and high diplomacy, but as social and cultural history. It makes cross-cultural comparisons of the socio cultural aspects of the Cold War across the East/West block divide, dealing with issues including broadcasting, public opinion, and the production and consumption of popular culture.

An insight into the often-neglected regional dimension of the politics and economy of the Russian Federation.
This survey includes individual territory surveys, and provides geographical, historical, economic and directory data as well as some 100 current maps.
Part one supplies essential background to the Federation, including:
* An essay covering the region as a whole, which analyses the complex relationship between the territories and the Federation
* Statistics of major demographic and economic indicators
* Details of the Government of the Russian Federation.
Part two is comprised of the territorial surveys, which include:
* A map, plus geographical and demographic information
* Historical details, followed by a description of the current political situation
* An economic survey presenting the latest available statistics
* A directory of names and addresses of the leading political and administrative officials.
Parts three and four include:
* A select books bibliography
* Territories indexed alphabetically, and by both Federal District and Economic Area.

There are winners and losers in a capitalistic society, but capitalism does not choose who is a winner and who is a loser. The winners are those who have the right idea, sacrifice their time and money, take risks, work hard, and have a little luck and help along the way. The losers are those who rarely dream of the impossible, waste their time, spend their money foolishly, lack the courage to take risks, and fail to dedicate themselves to achieving the rewards of their efforts. Winners should receive the greatest returns for their investments and the greatest of rewards for their endeavors. While wealth may be distributed unequally, it results more from an unequal dedication to acquire this wealth. That is not only right, but it is fair.

At the heart of capitalism is choice, one of success or failure, saving or spending, and work or recreation. Capitalism is a system that allows a person to choose whether he or she wants to be a winner or a loser. Today, too many have chosen the latter and display the unbecoming traits of greed, jealously, and envy toward those who have chosen the former.

While insecurity and instability may pervade this country's economic, political and societal institutions, success can still be achieved by those who look forward rather than backward, who avoid the disadvantages of the past to take advantage of the future. In "The Choices and Consequences of Our Age," you'll learn that it's still possible to achieve success through hard work, sacrifice, and self-reliance.

In September 2009 Dmitrii Medvedev unveiled the term that was to become the defining objective of his presidency: 'modernization.' The contributors to this book, drawn from the leading scholars in Russian affairs, focus on the contested nature of the concept of modernization and the obstacles that arose in attempting to carry it out.

The Gulf War of 1991 heralded a new type of warfare - one dominated by speed and high technology, that yielded a remarkably low level of casualties among the Allied forces. Just under a million Allied troops were deployed to the Gulf region, where they faced not only the extreme heat, but also biological, chemical and suspected nuclear threats. This book assesses both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, examining each forces strategies, and the political and military figures who were involved on both sides. The operational side of Desert Shield is also detailed in full.

Historians often refer to the Korean War as the forgotten war, but Edwards argues that in many respects it is a conflict that has been deliberately ignored for the past fifty years. This broad look at the war examines how Americans have attempted to remember and commemorate the confrontation which played such a major role in America's Cold War experience. As a United Nations effort or Police Action, the hazy identification of the war has in part contributed to a lack of public understanding of what happened in Korea. This book considers the American response to the loss in Korea, and how this response played out as a failure to remember.

After discussing the phenomenon of historical absence, the essays turn to the still considerable disagreement about who started the war and why. They provide the latest information concerning the relationship between Chairman Mao, Premier Kim Il Sung, and Chairman Joseph Stalin at the outbreak of the conflict. Edwards identifies lesser known figures and comments on operations that are not generally known or discussed. He discusses the impact that revisionist historians have had on our views of the war and why it produced a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty. The study also places this still unresolved conflict in the context of multi-national forces and peacekeeping actions as we understand them today.

One of the most crucial issues to affect national policy in the state of Israel is that of relations between its Jewish and Arab citizens. The confrontation of October 2000 demonstrated the explosive potential of the unresolved dilemmas posed by these relations.
This edited collection offers the academic community and the general public a comprehensive analysis of the most significant factors to have contributed to current conditions. The writers are all leading experts in their respective fields, covering history, sociology and politics and offering a variety of viewpoints and methodologies. This should prove useful reading for all concerned with Israeli-Arab relations in the Jewish state for years to come.

Contesting France reveals the untold role of intelligence in shaping American perceptions of and policy towards France between 1944-1947, a critical period of the early Cold War when many feared that French Communists were poised to seize power. In doing so, it exposes the prevailing narrative of French unreliability, weakness, and communist intrigue apparent in diplomatic despatches and intelligence reports sent to the White House as both overblown and deeply contested. Likewise, it shows that local political factions, French intelligence and government officials, colonial officers, and various transnational actors in imperial outposts and in the metropole sought access to US intelligence officials in a deliberate effort to shape US policy for their own political post-war agendas. Based on extensive archival research in the US and France, Susan Perlman sheds new light on the nexus between intelligence and policymaking in the immediate post-war era.

Looking into Brazil's recent experience of democracy is an arduous undertaking, given the complexities of a country of continental size and great regional contrasts, where areas of prosperity and wealth mingle with underdevelopment and poverty. This book looks at some of the important issues involved in building up a democracy and keeping it working. How should we assess Brazil's experience of democracy? To what extent has the emergence of a democratic regime improved Brazilians' social, economic, and political life? Has democracy been consolidated to the point of making a political breakdown unthinkable or improbable? These are questions that any student of Brazil has to address. The answers to them, however, are far from simple. Contributors include Edmund Amann (School of Economic Studies, University of Manchester, UK), Maria Celi Scalon (Insituto Universitario de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Carlos Antonio Costa Ribeiro (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil), Mauricio Coutinho (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil), Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), James Dunkerley (Institute of Latin American Studies and Queen Mary, University of London, UK), Antonio Sergio A. Guimaraes (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Anthony Hall (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Fernando Limongi (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Fiona Macaulay (Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford and Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, UK), Celso Martone (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Leandro Piquet Carneiro (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Mauro Porto (Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil), and Brasilio Sallum Jr. (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil).

The first up-to-date study in English of the Saar dispute, an important stage in French-German postwar relations and thus significant for European integration. After 1945, France and West Germany were involved in a bitter dispute over the Saar, a small, coal-rich, culturally German territory bordering France's Lorraine region that France had occupied at war's end. French officials and the Saar's political elite attempted to wrest the territory from Germany and make it an independent nation oriented culturally towards France. Although France's occupation officially ended in 1947 with the ratification of a new constitution and elections, the new Saar state was not fully sovereign, as French control persisted until 1955. The Saar's status was an increasing concern for West Germany, partly due to its implications for the division of Germany.After lengthy negotiations, France and West Germany agreed to turn the Saar into a European territory and the seat of European institutions, much as today's Brussels. Saarlanders, however, saw this as a French ploy to maintain control, and in a heated 1955 referendum voted against it, leading to the territory's reunification with West Germany. This is the first study in English dealing with the German research of recent decades and citing original French and German sources. Bronson Long is Associate Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College.

Widespread media interest into the Chechen conflict reflects an ongoing concern about the evolution of federal Russia. Why did the Russian leadership initiate military action against Chechnya in December 1994 but against no other constituent part of the Federation? This study demonstrates that the Russian invasion represented the culmination of a crisis that was perceived to have become an increasing threat not only to the stability of the North Caucasus region, but also to the very foundations of Russian security. It looks closely at the Russian Federation in transition, following the collapse of the communist Soviet Union, and the implications of the 1991 Chechen Declaration of Independence in the context of Russia's democratisation project.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203417763

Leading authorities here analyze the historic special relationship between Britain and the United States since 1945. The opening chapters trace the development of the alliance and discuss the "special relationship within the special relationship" between Churchill and Roosevelt, Eden and Eisenhower, Macmillan and Kennedy, and Thatcher and Reagan. The contributors go beyond traditional rhetorical appeals to common language and heritage and consider the military, political, and economic links that bind the two countries.

The breakup of the USSR created a Central Asian security complex or sphere of influence consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, this security complex has tended to distance itself from a Russian-centered approach to foreign relations, has rejected involvement with a Turkey-oriented sphere of influence, and has shifted toward an Iran-oriented security complex. A major reason for these developments has been the activities of the three rival powers-Iran, Turkey, and Russia. As Peimani explains, these states have strong long-term interests in the region; earlier rivalries, which were dormant under Soviet rule, have reawakened since the breakup of the USSR. While Russia attempts to reincorporate Central Asia into its security complex, Iran and Turkey seek to include it in their spheres of influence. The rivalry among these states will largely determine the future development of the region and the individual states.

Donald Raleigh's Soviet Baby Boomers traces the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of Russia into a modern, highly literate, urban society through the fascinating life stories of the country's first post-World War II, Cold War generation.
For this book, Raleigh has interviewed sixty 1967 graduates of two "magnet" secondary schools that offered intensive instruction in English, one in Moscow and one in provincial Saratov. Part of the generation that began school the year the country launched Sputnik into space, they grew up during the Cold War, but in a Soviet Union increasingly distanced from the excesses of Stalinism. In this post-Stalin era, the Soviet leadership dismantled the Gulag, ruled without terror, promoted consumerism, and began to open itself to an outside world still fearful of Communism. Raleigh is one of the first scholars of post-1945 Soviet history to draw extensively on oral history, a particularly useful approach in studying a country where the boundaries between public and private life remained porous and the state sought to peer into every corner of people's lives. During and after the dissolution of the USSR, Russian citizens began openly talking about their past, trying to make sense of it, and Raleigh has made the most of this new forthrightness. He has created an extraordinarily rich composite narrative and embedded it in larger historical narratives of Cold War, de-Stalinization, "overtaking" America, opening up to the outside world, economic stagnation, dissent, emigration, the transition to a market economy, the transformation of class, ethnic, and gender relations, and globalization.
Including rare photographs of daily life in Cold War Russia, Soviet Baby Boomers offers an intimate portrait of a generation that has remained largely faceless until now.

This book examines the range and complexity of unionist political identities, ideas and beliefs in the non-English parts of the United Kingdom in the mid-twentieth century. It discusses the careers of eight politicians from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and uncovers the varieties of unionism that held the multi-national UK together. Challenging the idea that Britain was in the process of breaking up, it argues that the Union provided a focus for loyalty in the United Kingdom that contributed to the continuing formation of identities of Britishness.

Since Gorbachev took office in 1985, every aspect of the Soviet past has been under scrutiny. Tens of millions of Soviet citizens are eagerly absorbing and debating the vast outpouring of novels, books and articles, and films and TV programmes, about their past. Much new information has appeared, often sensational, about how the Stalin regime worked and what it meant for top politicians, generals, intellectuals and ordinary citizens. Stalinists, Russian nationalists, democratic socialists and others are locked in bitter debate. Was the victory of Stalinism inevitable? Was there an alternative road to socialism? Even Lenin and his policies are now questioned. The Politburo itself is deeply divided about how far the debate should go and what conclusions should be drawn from it. The reconsideration about the past is part of the discussion about the way forward for Soviet society: how big should be the role of the market? How much freedom and democracy?