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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945

The Persian Gulf Crisis - Power in the Post-Cold War World (Hardcover, New): Robert H Dorff, Robert Helms The Persian Gulf Crisis - Power in the Post-Cold War World (Hardcover, New)
Robert H Dorff, Robert Helms
R2,535 Discovery Miles 25 350 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book examines the implications of the Persian Gulf crisis in order to enhance our understanding of the post-Cold War international system. More than just another analysis of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent war, the book looks at the more general aspects of the use of force (political, economic, and military) evident in the Gulf crisis and what they can tell us about the emerging post-Cold War system. Contributors were selected on the basis of their ability to address specific questions and policy issues, and to cast their analyses at a broadly theoretical level.

Each chapter looks at a different aspect of conflict in the international system and how that relates to the Persian Gulf crisis. Several aspects of the crisis and the new international system are examined such as the role of the United Nations, the utility of economic sanctions, the historical origin of the crisis itself, the potential sources of conflict and responses to it, and the changing nature of the use of military force. To the extent that the lessons found contradict the common wisdoms that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the war, many of the chapters challenge the trend to find sweeping generalizations in the Gulf crisis that bear directly on international relations in the 1990s and beyond. Civilian and military policymakers, as well as students and teachers of international studies, will find this book of interest.

Bulgaria (Hardcover): R. J. Crampton Bulgaria (Hardcover)
R. J. Crampton
R3,008 Discovery Miles 30 080 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Tracing the evolution of the Bulgarian state and its people, from the beginning of the Bulgarian national revival in the middle of the nineteenth century to the entry of the country into the European Union, Richard Crampton examines key political, social, and economic developments, revealing the history of a country which evolved from a backward and troublesome Balkan state to become a modern European nation. The formation of the first modern Bulgarian state in 1878 played a major role in Bulgaria's evolution, determining its stance in the two World Wars. Seeing the collapse as well as the establishment and evolution of communist rule, Bulgaria survived an often painful journey from monolithic authoritarianism to representative democracy and the market system. This book follows this journey, and analyses the development of Bulgaria's political culture, examining the emergence of radical movements, both agrarian and socialist, as well as looking at the role of religion and the position of minorities. Crampton highlights the problems and dilemmas created by the country's position situated between east and west, problems which might not be entirely solved by the country's admission to the EU.

The United Nations and International Politics (Hardcover): Stephen Ryan The United Nations and International Politics (Hardcover)
Stephen Ryan
R4,627 Discovery Miles 46 270 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Taking an historical approach, the author explores both how the UN has affected world politics and how the international political system has formed and limited the work of the Organization. He looks at why the UN was created, how it was affected by the Cold War and how successive Secretaries General struggled to find a role for themselves. The book shows how negative and even hostile views of the UN were changed by the end of the Cold War and by the UN-sponsored action in the Gulf, why the UN overreached itself in Bosnia and Somalia and how it failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda. While the main focus of this book is the role of the UN in promoting international peace and security, it also examines the work of the UN in other areas, including human rights and environmental protection.

The German Wall - Fallout in Europe (Hardcover): Marc Silberman The German Wall - Fallout in Europe (Hardcover)
Marc Silberman
R1,411 Discovery Miles 14 110 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

"When the Berlin Wall opened unexpectedly on November 9, 1989, it marked a rupture of global significance. For Germany's national history the event has become, next to the defeat of 1945, the most significant date in collective memory. For Cold War Europe the Berlin Wall represented a symbol of border crisis and of difference and division. This interdisciplinary volume addresses multiple consequences of the fall of the Wall: looking back at the physical barrier, its demise, and how it has been mediated in film and television; detailing the processes of restoring and revitalizing the city and the country that had been torn asunder; recognizing the new challenges of integrating socially and politically old and new minorities; and identifying how a new European identity may emerge "after the Wall." The anthology is targeted at scholars and advanced students in history, German studies, sociology, art history, and related fields"--

The Longest Kill - The Story of Maverick 41, One of the World's Greatest Snipers (Paperback, Main Market Ed.): Craig... The Longest Kill - The Story of Maverick 41, One of the World's Greatest Snipers (Paperback, Main Market Ed.)
Craig Harrison 1
R323 Discovery Miles 3 230 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Through conflicts in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, this is the vivid memoir of British sniper Craig Harrison. It takes a tough mindset to be a successful sniper, to be able to dig in for days on your own as you wait for your target, to stay calm on a battlefield when you yourself have become the target the enemy most want to take out. Craig Harrison has what it takes and in November 2009 in Afghanistan, under intense pressure, he saved the lives of his comrades with the longest confirmed sniper kill - 2,475 metres, the length of twenty-five football pitches. In The Longest Kill, his unflinching autobiography, Craig catapults us into the heat of the action as he describes his active service in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, and gives heart-stopping accounts of his sniper ops as he fought for his life on the rooftops of Basra and the barren hills of Helmand province. Craig was blown up by an IED in Afghanistan and left battling severe PTSD. After his identity was revealed in the press he also had to cope with Al Qaeda threats against him and his family. For Craig, the price of heroism has been devastatingly high.

The Vietnam War (Hardcover): David L Anderson The Vietnam War (Hardcover)
David L Anderson
R3,651 Discovery Miles 36 510 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Vietnam War was a thirty-year conflict that actually included several wars, cost billions of dollars, resulted in thousands of Vietnamese, French, and American deaths, and reverberated throughout the international community. Now in this new concise overview David Anderson lays out the origins, course, and historical legacies of the war for students. The text discusses the French colonial war and the Vietnamese phase of the conflict to 1975, but the primary focus of the text is on the American war in Vietnam. The author examines military, political, diplomatic, social and economic issues, both in Vietnam and the United States. With its brevity, readability, and authoritative overview, this is an ideal text for beginning or advanced undergraduate students.

The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War in Kosovo (Hardcover, 2007 ed.): B. Bahador The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War in Kosovo (Hardcover, 2007 ed.)
B. Bahador
R1,409 Discovery Miles 14 090 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This project advances the existing theoretical work on the CNN effect, a claim that innovations in the speed and quality of technology create conditions in which the media acts as an independent factor with significant influence. It provides a novel interpretation of the factors that drove Western policy towards military intervention in this area.

Modernity Britain - 1957-1962 (Paperback): David Kynaston Modernity Britain - 1957-1962 (Paperback)
David Kynaston 1
R507 R466 Discovery Miles 4 660 Save R41 (8%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

This edition collects both volumes of Modernity Britain for the first time Following Austerity Britain and Family Britain, the third volume in David Kynaston's landmark social history of post-war Britain 'Triumphant ... A historian of peerless sensitivity and curiosity about the lives of individuals' Financial Times 'This superb history captures the birth pangs of modern Britain ... It is a part of Kynaston's huge achievement that such moments of insight and pleasure should accompany what has become a monumental history of our recent past' The Times ____________________ David Kynaston's history of post-war Britain has so far taken us from the radically reforming Labour governments of the late 1940s in Austerity Britain and through the growing prosperity of Family Britain's more placid 1950s. Now Modernity Britain 1957-62 sees the coming of a new Zeitgeist as Kynaston gets up close to a turbulent era in which the speed of social change accelerated. The late 1950s to early 1960s was an action-packed, often dramatic time in which the contours of modern Britain began to take shape. These were the 'never had it so good' years, when the Carry On film series got going, and films like Room at the Top and the first soaps like Coronation Street and Z Cars brought the working class to the centre of the national frame; when CND galvanised the progressive middle class; when 'youth' emerged as a cultural force; when the Notting Hill riots made race and immigration an inescapable reality; and when 'meritocracy' became the buzz word of the day. In this period, the traditional norms of morality were perceived as under serious threat (Lady Chatterley's Lover freely on sale after the famous case), and traditional working-class culture was changing (wakes weeks in decline, the end of the maximum wage for footballers). The greatest change, though, concerned urban redevelopment: city centres were being yanked into the age of the motor car, slum clearance was intensified, and the skyline became studded with brutalist high-rise blocks. Some of this transformation was necessary, but too much would destroy communities and leave a harsh, fateful legacy. This profoundly important story of the transformation of Britain as it arrived at the brink of a new world is brilliantly told through diaries, letters newspapers and a rich haul of other sources and published in one magnificent paperback volume for the first time.

The Vietnam Syndrome - Impact on US Foreign Policy (Hardcover): G. Simons The Vietnam Syndrome - Impact on US Foreign Policy (Hardcover)
G. Simons
R2,719 Discovery Miles 27 190 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

'This is a terrifying book that should be required reading for every student of twentieth-century history. It is written by an author burning with anger at what was done in Vietnam, but the evidence is so clear and the documentation so meticulously marshalled that it cannot be brushed aside as just another example of anti-American paranoia.' - Tony Benn, MP This book focuses on the 'Vietnam Syndrome' - the effects for the United States of the American defeat in the Vietnam War. It argues that a full understanding of the Syndrome requires a proper appreciation of key shaping elements in Vietnamese and American history. Attention is given to the racial genocide that attended the birth of the United States, to US imperialism and capitalism, and to the Cold War framework. The nature of America as a plutocracy is emphasised, followed by profiles of policy options and three specific issues: post-war Vietnam, El Salvador and Iraq.

Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race - The Truman Administration and the U.S. Arms Build-Up (Hardcover, New): Raymond Ojserkis Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race - The Truman Administration and the U.S. Arms Build-Up (Hardcover, New)
Raymond Ojserkis
R2,860 Discovery Miles 28 600 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Truman administration's decision to embark on an arms build-up in 1950 was a critical event. For the first time other than a World War, the United States became a global military presence. Unlike the World Wars, in this instance the deployment lasted decades, altering the nature of the Cold War and the United States' global role. Such a decision deserves a book dedicated to understanding the strategy and politics behind it. The Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race serves that purpose. The Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race reviews the state of American military affairs in the late 1940s and describes the role of atomic power in American strategy. It also outlines the factional fighting within the Truman administration over military spending and deployments and considers the Truman administration's perceptions of Soviet military power and intentions. The author presents a fascinating account of the strategy and politics behind the Truman administration's decision to engage in a massive arms build-up that initiated the Cold War arms race.

Britain's Withdrawal From East of Suez (Hardcover): J. Pickering Britain's Withdrawal From East of Suez (Hardcover)
J. Pickering
R2,654 Discovery Miles 26 540 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

After 1945, Britain maintained a great chain of overseas military outposts stretching from the Suez Canal to Singapore. Commonly termed the 'east of Suez' role, this chain had long been thought to be crucial for the country's security and its vitality. Nonetheless, British leaders eventually decided to abandon this network of bases. This study provides a comprehensive explanation of this pivotal decision, while also offering insight into the processes of foreign policy change and the decline of great powers.

In the Wake of War - The Reconstruction of German Cities After World War II (Hardcover): Jeffry M. Diefendorf In the Wake of War - The Reconstruction of German Cities After World War II (Hardcover)
Jeffry M. Diefendorf
R5,138 Discovery Miles 51 380 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In 1945, Germany's cities lay in ruins, destroyed by Allied bombers that left major architectural monuments badly damaged and much of the housing stock reduced to rubble. At the war's end, observers thought that it would take forty years to rebuild, but by the late 1950s West Germany's cities had risen anew. The housing crisis had been overcome and virtually all important monuments reconstructed, and the cities had reclaimed their characteristic identities. Everywhere there was a mixture of old and new: historic churches and town halls stood alongside new housing and department stores; ancient street layouts were crossed or circled by wide arteries; old city centers were balanced by garden suburbs laid out according to modern planning principles. In the Wake of War examines the questions raised by this remarkable feat of urban reconstruction. Jeffry M. Diefendorf explains who was primarily responsible for the reconstruction, what accounted for the speed of rebuilding, and how priorities were set and decisions acted upon. He argues that in such crucial areas as architectural style, urban planning, historic preservation, and housing policy, the Germans drew upon personnel, ideas, institutions, and practical experiences from the Nazi and pre-Nazi periods. Diefendorf shows how the rebuilding of West Germany's cities after 1945 can only be understood in terms of long-term continuities in urban development. The first comprehensive book in English on Germany's reconstruction, In the Wake of War examines postwar urban reconstruction from many perspectives, including architecture, historic restoration, housing, town planning and law, and it consistently interprets the features of Germanreconstruction within the context of continuous developments in these areas since the 1920s. This study will appeal to architects and urban planners as well as historians.

Voices from the Front - Turkish Soldiers on the War with the Kurdish Guerrillas (Hardcover, 2005 ed.): Cynthia Enloe Voices from the Front - Turkish Soldiers on the War with the Kurdish Guerrillas (Hardcover, 2005 ed.)
Cynthia Enloe; N. Mater
R1,227 R1,031 Discovery Miles 10 310 Save R196 (16%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

These riveting first-hand accounts of Turkish soldiers who have fought in the nasty internal war against the Kurds speak to universals: the shock of entering military life and the traumas of warfare; the changes in personality and relations with family and friends, the lingering emotional effects of violence, and the difficulties in returning to the 'real world', to borrow a phrase from Vietnam vets. Corruption, disillusionment and despair alternate with the small victories of humanity overcoming hellish conditions. Mater's reportage is in the best tradition of revealing the surreal, illuminating the universal truth of war's devastation. At a time when American troops are again caught in a vicious insurgency, the Kurdish issue has high visibility, and Turkey is a major actor in the Middle East, the experiences of these former soldiers resonate.

Cyber Warfare - A Documentary and Reference Guide (Hardcover): Paul J. Springer Cyber Warfare - A Documentary and Reference Guide (Hardcover)
Paul J. Springer
R3,183 Discovery Miles 31 830 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Providing an invaluable introductory resource for students studying cyber warfare, this book highlights the evolution of cyber conflict in modern times through dozens of key primary source documents related to its development and implementation. This meticulously curated primary source collection is designed to offer a broad examination of key documents related to cyber warfare, covering the subject from multiple perspectives. The earliest documents date from the late 20th century, when the concept and possibility of cyber attacks became a reality, while the most recent documents are from 2019. Each document is accompanied by an introduction and analysis written by an expert in the field that provides the necessary context for readers to learn about the complexities of cyber warfare. The title's nearly 100 documents are drawn primarily but not exclusively from government sources and allow readers to understand how policy, strategy, doctrine, and tactics of cyber warfare are created and devised, particularly in the United States. Although the U.S. is the global leader in cyber capabilities and is largely driving the determination of norms within the cyber domain, the title additionally contains a small number of international documents. This invaluable work will serve as an excellent starting point for anyone seeking to understand the nature and character of international cyber warfare. Covers in detail one of the defining forms of conflict of the 21st century-cyber warfare will significantly impact virtually every American citizen over the next two decades Provides more than 90 primary source documents and matching analysis, allowing readers to investigate the underpinnings of cyber warfare Enables readers to see the development of different concepts of cyber warfare through its chronological organization Reflects the deep knowledge of an editor who is a noted expert in cyber warfare and has taught for the United States Air Force for more than a decade

Institutions and Political Change in Russia (Hardcover): N. Robinson Institutions and Political Change in Russia (Hardcover)
N. Robinson
R1,410 Discovery Miles 14 100 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

During the 1990s, Russia has been building a new political order. This collection of essays offers a progress report on this effort, recording the projects for institutional reform, their successes and their many failures. Institutions covered include the presidency, the State Duma, regional government, the judiciary, the power ministries, the foreign policy and economic policy making establishments. Other chapters examine popular attitudes towards institutions and the crises of state society relations in Russia.

Dictionary of East European History Since 1945 (Hardcover, New): Joseph Held Dictionary of East European History Since 1945 (Hardcover, New)
Joseph Held
R2,086 Discovery Miles 20 860 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Eastern Europe has been in ongoing crisis since the breakup of the Soviet Union. This important book provides basic, up-to-date information on the events and background that have led up to the current crisis, and the volume includes helpful maps and photographs of key figures and scenes of everyday life. Librarians will value this reference tool as a reliable, informative source for students and others trying to understand today's conflicts. The volume covers all of the countries that formed the colonial empire of the Soviet Union--Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and former Yugoslavia.

In an introductory essay, Held begins with an overview of the region's general characteristics and history prior to 1945. The volume is then divided into separate sections on each country. Each section includes basic information about the country, a map, and a chronology followed by entries, arranged alphabetically, on people, places, political parties, and the events that have shaped the country's history since 1945. The book is the only comprehensive one-volume dictionary on East European personalities, politicians, and history since 1945.

Battlegroup! - The Lessons of the Unfought Battles of the Cold War (Paperback): Jim Storr Battlegroup! - The Lessons of the Unfought Battles of the Cold War (Paperback)
Jim Storr
R849 R721 Discovery Miles 7 210 Save R128 (15%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

What can we learn from the unfought battles of the Cold War? Could any supposed British superiority at the unit level, or superior American equipment and technology, have as much effect on a possible Warsaw Pact attack as the Bundeswehr's apparent mastery of formation tactics? The Cold War dominated the global events for over 40 years. Much of the world genuinely believed that a nuclear war might break out at any moment. Millions of men were involved. National budgets strained to equip and sustain them. Much of Europe had to endure conscription, tank convoys clogging up the roads, low-flying jet aircraft and large-scale mobilisation exercises. But what do we really know about the Cold War? More importantly, what can we learn from it? Battlegroup! investigates the unfought land battles of the Cold War on the Central Front. It focusses on the 1980s. It looks solely at high-intensity, conventional warfare; largely from NATO's perspective. It concentrates on the lower tactical levels: from company to brigade, or perhaps division. It considers the tactics, organisation and equipment and of the American, British, West German, French and Soviet armies. The book discusses what battles would have been fought; then how they would have been fought; and, lastly, what we can learn from that. The first section looks at the strategic and operational setting and the armies involved. The second section looks at the components of a land force; how those components were organized, and would fight; and assembles them into battlegroups, brigades and divisions. Battlegroup! then steps through the tactics of land warfare: delay, defence and withdrawal; advance, attack and counterattack; fighting in woods, built up areas and at night; and air support to land operations. The final section of the book illustrates some of the possible early engagements of any war on the Central Front. It then draws out the major observations and conclusions. Battlegroup! relies heavily on two previously untapped sources, virtually unknown to English-speaking audiences. They explain much of the Bundeswehr's highly individual approach to defeating a potential Warsaw Pact attack. This is not a counterfactual history. It does not attempt to say who would have won the Third World War. It explodes some myths. It will be uncomfortable reading for some, and contentious in places. 'Battlegroup!' will be essential reading for anyone interested in the warfare of the last decade of the Cold War: be it as a professional, an academic, or a wargamer.

China in International Society Since 1949 - Alienation and Beyond (Hardcover): Y. Zhang China in International Society Since 1949 - Alienation and Beyond (Hardcover)
Y. Zhang
R4,038 Discovery Miles 40 380 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

China's rise to power in the twentieth century has been accompanied by its strenuous efforts to enter the international society. This study reinterprets China's international relations in the second half of the century by looking at China's alienation from and integration into international society. It starts by refuting the conventional wisdom that China was in revolutionary isolation from 1949 to 1970. It contends that alienation, rather than isolation, best describes China's anomalous position in the international society in the period.;The study investigates the process in which a convergence of views has happened between China and other member states on key institutions such as war and peace and revolution and development in the international system. This convergence, it is argued, has in the last decade led to China's consent, sometimes reluctant and sometimes problematic, to common rules and institutions in conducting international relations. The incorporation of China into the existing global international society has found more eloquent expression in the unprecedented economic integration of China with the world economy in the last fifteen years. It argues, however, that C

The Long March - The Political Strategy of Sinn Fein, 1981-2007 (Hardcover): M. Frampton The Long March - The Political Strategy of Sinn Fein, 1981-2007 (Hardcover)
M. Frampton
R1,410 Discovery Miles 14 100 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Sinn Fein has undergone a startling transformation in the last two-and-a-half decades. Under the leadership of its two principal figures Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness the mainstream party of Irish republicanism has changed beyond almost all recognition. It has moved from the margins of political life, on both sides of the Irish border, to a position where it occupies the Deputy First Minister's chair in Northern Ireland and was viewed, until recently, as the coming force in southern Irish politics. In this book, the contours of Sinn Fein's recent evolution are considered, with particular emphasis on the various strategic objectives that the party has set itself. Sinn Fein's attitude to the Northern Irish peace process is considered at length here and the book challenges the 'conventional wisdom' that would juxtapose republican 'politics' and republican 'war' the notion being that, during the 1990s, republicans exchanged the latter for the former and were, therefore, 'tamed' into becoming a 'normal' political party. The central argument here is that such a view rests on a false dichotomy. It has been said that 'war is merely the continuation of politics'; with respect to Sinn Fein, it is argued, the inverse formulation needs also to be considered, with republican politics seen, by republicans themselves, as an extension of the war. In following through this line of argument, this book attempts to consider republicans on their own terms; to take their thoughts and words 'seriously' and to examine their recent history accordingly.

The Day the World Came to Town Updated Edition - 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (Paperback): Jim Defede The Day the World Came to Town Updated Edition - 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (Paperback)
Jim Defede
R313 R283 Discovery Miles 2 830 Save R30 (10%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

The True Story Behind the Events on 9/11 that Inspired Broadway's Smash Hit Musical Come from Away, Featuring All New Material from the Author When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Local bus drivers who had been on strike came off the picket lines to transport the passengers to the various shelters set up in local schools and churches. Linens and toiletries were bought and donated. A middle school provided showers, as well as access to computers, email, and televisions, allowing the passengers to stay in touch with family and follow the news. Over the course of those four days, many of the passengers developed friendships with Gander residents that they expect to last a lifetime. As a show of thanks, scholarship funds for the children of Gander have been formed and donations have been made to provide new computers for the schools. This book recounts the inspiring story of the residents of Gander, Canada, whose acts of kindness have touched the lives of thousands of people and been an example of humanity and goodwill.

The Writings: v. 2: January 1956-December 1957 (Hardcover, c1986-<1992): Laifong Leung, Zedong Mao, M.Y.M. Kau The Writings: v. 2: January 1956-December 1957 (Hardcover, c1986-<1992)
Laifong Leung, Zedong Mao, M.Y.M. Kau
R4,977 Discovery Miles 49 770 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This collection of the correspondence of Mao Zedong during the period 1956 to 1957 explores the question of legitimatizing the leadership of the CCP, the pace of the socialist transformation of China's economy, and the issue of the divergence of ideological opinion over the strategy of revolution.

From the Ashes - A Gripping Post World War Two Historical Novel (Paperback): Marion Kummerow From the Ashes - A Gripping Post World War Two Historical Novel (Paperback)
Marion Kummerow
R353 Discovery Miles 3 530 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Glen Cove (Hardcover): Joan Harrison Glen Cove (Hardcover)
Joan Harrison
R719 R638 Discovery Miles 6 380 Save R81 (11%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days
Bootstrapping - Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing (Hardcover, illustrated edition): Thierry... Bootstrapping - Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing (Hardcover, illustrated edition)
Thierry Bardini
R2,262 R1,867 Discovery Miles 18 670 Save R395 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

"Bootstrapping" analyzes the genesis of personal computing from both technological and social perspectives, through a close study of the pathbreaking work of one researcher, Douglas Engelbart. In his lab at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s, Engelbart, along with a small team of researchers, developed some of the cornerstones of personal computing as we know it, including the mouse, the windowed user interface, and hypertext. Today, all these technologies are well known, even taken for granted, but the assumptions and motivations behind their invention are not. "Bootstrapping" establishes Douglas Engelbart's contribution through a detailed history of both the material and the symbolic constitution of his system's human-computer interface in the context of the computer research community in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Engelbart felt that the complexity of many of the world's problems was becoming overwhelming, and the time for solving these problems was becoming shorter and shorter. What was needed, he determined, was a system that would augment human intelligence, co-transforming or co-evolving both humans and the machines they use. He sought a systematic way to think and organize this coevolution in an effort to discover a path on which a radical technological improvement could lead to a radical improvement in how to make people work effectively. What was involved in Engelbart's project was not just the invention of a computerized system that would enable humans, acting together, to manage complexity, but the invention of a new kind of human, "the user." What he ultimately envisioned was a "bootstrapping" process by which those who actually invented the hardware and software of this new system would simultaneously reinvent the human in a new form.
The book also offers a careful narrative of the collapse of Engelbart's laboratory at Stanford Research Institute, and the further translation of Engelbart's vision. It shows that Engelbart's ultimate goal of coevolution came to be translated in terms of technological progress and human adaptation to supposedly user-friendly technologies. At a time of the massive diffusion of the World Wide Web, "Bootstrapping" recalls the early experiments and original ideals that led to today's "information revolution."

More Instructions from the Centre - Top Secret Files on KGB Global Operations 1975-1985 (Hardcover): Christopher M. Andrew,... More Instructions from the Centre - Top Secret Files on KGB Global Operations 1975-1985 (Hardcover)
Christopher M. Andrew, Oleg Gordievsky
R4,910 Discovery Miles 49 100 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

During the decade that preceded Mikhail Gorbachev's era of glasnost and perestroika, the KGB headquarters in Moscow was putting out a constant stream of instructions to its Residencies abroad. These top secret documents were principally concerned with agent recruitment, infiltration of key foreign organizations, intelligence collection and interpretation, and influence operations, while endeavouring at all times to promote and protect the interests of the Soviet Union against countries seen as enemies.
Unknown to the KGB, many of these highly classified documents were being secretly copied by Oleg Gordievsky, at that time not only a high-ranking KGB officer based in London but also a long-serving undercover agent for the British.
The selected documents in this volume offer a revealing insight into the attitudes, prejudices and fears of the KGB during what were to prove its declining years.

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