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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
In 1950 the British government accorded diplomatic recognition to the newly founded People's Republic of China. But it took 22 years for Britain to establish full diplomatic relations with China. How far was Britain's China policy a failure until 1972? This book argues that Britain and China were involved in the 'everyday Cold War', or a continuous process of contestation and cooperation that allowed them to 'normalize' their confrontation in the absence of full diplomatic relations. From Vietnam and Taiwan to the mainland and Hong Kong, China's 'everyday Cold War' against Britain was marked by diplomatic ritual, propaganda rhetoric and symbolic gestures. Rather than pursuing a failed policy of 'appeasement', British decision-makers and diplomats regarded engagement or negotiation with China as the best way of fighting the 'everyday Cold War'. Based on extensive British and Chinese archival sources, this book examines not only the high politics of Anglo-Chinese relations, but also how the British diplomats experienced the Cold War at the local level.
1968 for me was not simply the year I found myself away from home for the first time. It was not just the year I donned the uniform of a soldier and took up arms against communist aggression, traveling to the jungles of Southeast Asia to do my patriotic duty. To characterize that year merely as my coming of age fails to recognize the significance of the year itself. Few intervals of similar duration in the history of our nation have been as important as those twelve months. Perhaps only 1776 surpasses 1968 in its impact on who and what we as a nation will become thereafter. The eras of the Civil War and the two World Wars, although of equal or greater significance unfolded over longer spans of time, each more gradually evolving the beliefs and practices of American citizens. 1968 seems to have struck with impatient tenacity, delivering to the United States of America a wake up call from our cultural complacency and the natural acceptance of our assumed righteousness. 1968 began the polarization of America. Neutrality of belief or philosophy was no longer to be valued or even tolerated. The lines were being drawn; lines between left and right; between the old and the new, between generations and perhaps even between clarity and confusion. What we were as a people, who we were and what we stood for was cast in 1968 under the unflattering spotlight of war and internal conflict as a reaction to that war. College students, the children of World War II veterans, raised their voices in opposition to the edicts of the American Government. Extremists took matters into their own hands and murdered Martin Luther King Junior and Robert Kennedy. American soldiers committed atrocities at My Lai thatshocked a citizenry unable to accept this dissonant view of Americans in uniform and our military and governmental leaders threw up their hands behind closed doors, coming to the same conclusion; we can't win this war. On the home front popular music transitioned away from the malt-shop themes of the fifties and early sixties and became a vehicle for conveying political messages, for drawing young people away from the dreamy and into the heuristic. Being twenty-one in America in 1968 was different than being twenty-one in America in 1967 or any time before. American soldiers in Vietnam in 1968 were caught in a vortex of three worlds; the remembered world they left back home, the real world of violent struggles within the jungles, villages and rice paddies of South Vietnam and the rapidly transitioning world of the United States of America, nine-thousand miles away. This is the story of one twenty-one year old American caught in that vortex.
This title is intended for undergraduates studying the history of the British Isles in the 20th century. It should also be suitable as background reading for general readers and students of 20th-century philosophy, politics, and literature. It includes separate chapters covering the developments in Ireland and Britain's relations with the wider world and sets events in the British Isles within the wider context of the Cold War, assessing its impact both internationally and domestically. It goes on to discuss the growing impact of Europe on all aspects of life in the British Isles.
Beyond the Arab Cold War brings the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68, to the forefront of modern Middle East History. During the 1960s, in the wake of a coup against Imam Muhammad al-Badr and the formation of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), Yemen was transformed into an arena of global conflict. Believing al-Badr to be dead, Egypt, the Soviet Union, and most countries recognized the YAR. But when al-Badr unexpectedly turned up alive, Saudi Arabia and Britain offered support to the deposed Imam, drawing Yemen into an internationally-sponsored civil war. Throughout six years of major conflict, Yemen sat at the crossroads of regional and international conflict as dozens of countries, international organizations, and individuals intervened in the local South Arabian civil war. Yemen was a showcase for a new era of UN and Red Cross peacekeeping, clandestine activity, Egyptian counterinsurgency, and one of the first largescale uses of poison gas since WWI. Events in Yemen were not dominated by a single power, nor were they sole products of US-Soviet or Saudi-Egyptian Arab Cold War rivalry. Britain, Canada, Israel, the UN, the US, and the USSR joined Egypt and Saudi Arabia in assuming varying roles in fighting, mediating, and supplying the belligerent forces. Despite Cold War tensions, Americans and Soviets appeared on the same side of the Yemeni conflict and acted mutually to confine Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the borders of South Arabia. The end of the Yemen Civil War marked the end of both Nasser's Arab Nationalist colonial expansion and the British Empire in the Middle East, two of the most dominant regional forces. This internationalized conflict was a pivotal event in Middle East history, overseeing the formation of a modern Yemeni state, the fall of Egyptian and British regional influence, another Arab-Israeli war, Saudi dominance of the Arabian Peninsula, and shifting power alliances in the Middle East that continue to lie at the core of modern-day conflicts in South Arabia.
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force," was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. In June of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed. However, the publications of the report that resulted from these leaks were incomplete and suffered from many quality issues. On the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, has released the complete report. The 48 boxes in this series contain a complete copy of the 7,000 page report along with numerous copies of different volumes of the report, all declassified. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time. What is unique about this, compared to other versions, is that: * The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases * The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969 * All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition. This facsimiile edition includes: * Part VI. C. 1. Settlement of the Conflict. Histories of Contacts. 1965-1966 * Part VI. C. 2. Settlement of the Conflict. Histories of Contacts. Polish Track * Part VI. C. 3. Settlement of the Conflict. Histories of Contacts. Moscow-London Track * Part VI. C. 4. Settlement of the Conflict. Histories of Contacts. 1967-1968
Emily B. Baran offers a gripping history of how a small, American-based religious community, the Jehovah's Witnesses, found its way into the Soviet Union after World War II, survived decades of brutal persecution, and emerged as one of the region's fastest growing religions after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. In telling the story of this often misunderstood faith, Baran explores the shifting boundaries of religious dissent, non-conformity, and human rights in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses are a fascinating case study of dissent beyond urban, intellectual nonconformists. Witnesses, who were generally rural, poorly educated, and utterly marginalized from society, resisted state pressure to conform. They instead constructed alternative communities based on adherence to religious principles established by the Witnesses' international center in Brooklyn, New York. The Soviet state considered Witnesses to be the most reactionary of all underground religious movements, and used extraordinary measures to try to eliminate this threat. Yet Witnesses survived, while the Soviet system did not. After 1991, they faced continuing challenges to their right to practice their faith in post-Soviet states, as these states struggled to reconcile the proper limits on freedom of conscience with European norms and domestic concerns. Dissent on the Margins provides a new and important perspective on one of America's most understudied religious movements.
One of the most significant areas of activity in the George Bush administration was foreign affairs. Drawing together participants as well as foreign policy scholars and journalists, Hofstra Universtiy organized the 1997 Conference on the Presidency of George Bush. This volume covers the key foreign affairs activities of the administration. The essays examine major areas of the Bush foreign policy record. Included are papers on international trade, the Middle East, Latin America, Somalia, Bosnia, arms control, and U.S. base closing. Scholars, students, and other researchers involved with the policies of the Bush administration will find this a useful resource.
With the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, a retired attorney and patriot began writing a collection of essays commenting on the problems he sees around him. Lee S. Dimin, who served in the Army Air Force during World War II, shares how the growing power of corporations and governmental corruption is hurting American citizens. In this collection ofessays, he examines issues such as ways to bridge differences between Democrats and Republicans; Islam's continuing quest to dominate the world; the intentions of the nation's Founding Fathers in writing the Constitution, and how their idealsare being violated; the increasing deficit and its implications on every single citizen; the ways in which mounting divisions between the rich and poor are hurting the country. The challenges that face the United States continue to grow in number, but they are not insurmountable.In "Corporatocracy," you'll learn equipyourself with the knowledge that will help you take the country back.
This is the story of the most powerful NATO Supreme Commander of the Cold War, General Lauris Norstad was both a 'nuclear' general and an 'international' general. His primary goal was to keep the Alliance together as he accommodated British and French nuclear ambitions while forestalling the same in the West Germans. He also was at the centre of the political/military manoeuvrings over Berlin and the Soviet attempt to blackmail the West into recognizing East Germany, all of which culminated in the building of the infamous 'Wall'.
How can an environment be created in Cuba in which safety is not sacrificed for more open markets and politics? This book examines present security conditions in Cuba and forecasts the effects that economic and social liberalization could have on levels of criminality. For decades, Cuban citizens have enjoyed relatively good security, as a consequence of surveillance and tight political control by an authoritarian state. However, economic liberalization necessitated by the loss of Soviet support has resulted in illicit activities and increased criminality including drugs, contraband and human trafficking. Today, relatively good security and a stable political system coexist with widespread illegality. But as restrictions are eased, the average citizen is becoming less secure. Cuba's privileged geographical location, combined with economic scarcity, the remnants of the communist system and the local criminal organizations it created, also makes it vulnerable to more dangerous foreign criminal groups. Based on both quantitative and qualitative data including in-depth interviews with experts on Cuba and democratization and observational research in Cuba itself, the book seeks to identify the risks associated with liberalization and to explore workable solutions. More broadly, it aims to shed light on how the negative consequences of social and economic liberalization can be minimized for the average citizen during periods of political transition from authoritarian systems. How can an environment be created in which safety is not sacrificed for more open markets and politics?
Much of the world reaped a peace dividend with the end of the Cold War, yet Asia has seen little reduction in tensions and military spending. Three Cold War era conflicts-those dividing China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and India and Pakistan-remain unresolved. Other regional powers, as well as the United States, continue to be concerned about these volatile disputes. North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile development, China's opposition to Taiwan's pursuit of independence, and Pakistan's longstanding dispute with India have all received increasing media attention. This is the first volume using a common approach to examine post-Cold War changes in these three volatile dyads. The book's case studies detail the evolution of each country's security policy and its shifting mix of alliances. The authors analyze U.S. interests and discuss how U.S. intervention affects strategic calculations of the conflicted states. This mechanism allows gives the readers a truer understanding of the conflicts and how they interact within the Asian security system in general. Each of the dominant theoretical frameworks of international relations-neo-realism, neo-liberalism, and constructivism-offer crucial insights into this complicated situation.
Soviet authorities in 1987-1991 tried to encourage the union republics to use their diplomatic apparatuses, created by Stalin in 1944, to solicit foreign economic trade and aid. In many cases, union republics were able to draw upon diplomatic precedents established during the early Soviet period, or when they were independent states in the period 1918-1921. The many international contacts and ties the former union republics had established abroad helped them to promptly gain diplomatic recognition and establish diplomatic relations with many foreign states, mitigating to some degree the shock to the world order caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union.
At the end of World War II, over 20,000 French people accused of
collaboration with Germany endured a particularly humiliating act
of revenge: their heads were shaved in public. Nearly all those
punished were women. This episode in French history continues to
provoke shame and unease and as a result has never been the subject
of a thorough examination.
In Post-war Japan as a Sea Power, Alessio Patalano incorporates new, exclusive source material to develop an innovative approach to the study of post-war Japan as a military power. This archival-based history of Asia's most advanced navy, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF), looks beyond the traditional perspective of viewing the modern Japanese military in light of the country's alliance with the US. The book places the institution in a historical context, analysing its imperial legacy and the role of Japan's shattering defeat in WWII in the post-war emergence of Japan as East Asia's 'sea power'.
The study of Prime Ministers and the reform of British central government in any era is fascinating. The interaction between the temporary, often inexperienced but largely elected ministers and the experienced but theoretically subservient senior civil servants provides enormous interest. This book concentrates on the years of Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson, Alec Douglas Home and Edward Heath--years when the battle between Civil Service and Government was most intense. What makes this book more compelling is that many of the key players, including Richard Crossman, Barbara Castle and Tony Benn, wrote their own published accounts. Eighteen months after he came to power, Harold Wilson commissioned the Fulton Committee to look at the recruitment, training and management of civil servants. The Fulton report emerged in 1968 and became legendary for its difficult gestation and for the mini civil war, which developed within Whitehall over its implementation. This is but one episode in the history of British Prime Ministers' attempts to reform the Civil Service. The Fulton report remains a landmark in the administrative history of Britain.
Traces the dynamics of state-building in Juba, Southern Sudan 2005-2011, revealing how underlying ties of ethnicity and land dominated the actions of the various parties in post-conflict reconstruction and how these may continue to influence power and resource-sharing in the newly independent state of South Sudan. Naseem Badiey examines the local dynamics of the emerging capital city of Juba, Southern Sudan, during the historically pivotal transition period following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Focusing on the intersections of land tenure reform and urban development, she challenges the dominant paradigm of 'post-conflict reconstruction' and re-conceptualizes state-building as a social process underpinned by negotiation. Badiey explores local resistance to reconstruction programmes, debates over the interpretation of peace settlements, and competing claims to land and resources not as problems to be solved through interventions but as negotiations of authority which are fundamental to shaping the character of the 'state'. While donors and aid agency officials anticipated clashes between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) following the CPA, they did not foresee internal divisions that impeded reconstruction in Southern Sudan, raising serious questions about the viability of an independent state. In Juba local elites interpreted the CPA in line with their economic and political interests, using claims to land, authority and political power to challenge the SPLM's agenda for urban reconstruction. In revealing how local actors strategically interpreted the framework of land rights in Southern Sudan, the book offers a basis for understanding the challenges that confront the nascent South Sudan's state-builders and their international partners in the future. NASEEM BADIEY is Assistant Professor of International Development andHumanitarian Action at California State University Monterey Bay.
This volume serves as an invaluable study guide covering all of the key political, social, and cultural concepts of the turbulent 1960s. The 1960s were a polarizing decade, beginning brightly and with hope but ending in disappointment and disarray. By the end, traditional values had been subverted, political institutions had been overturned, and marginalized groups had battled their own government to win equal rights and freedoms. The clear-cut foreign policies of the postwar era brought mixed results, and the world's mightiest nation became mired in a war it could not win. This overview of the 1960s covers all of the key political, social, and cultural concepts of the decade through topical and biographical entries, primary documents, a sample document-based essay question and top tips, and period-specific learning objectives. The book contains an Introduction that presents the historical themes of the period. Alphabetical encyclopedic entries relating to the period specific themes comprise the core reference material in the book. The book also contains a range of primary documents with their own introductions and a sample document-based essay question. Other features include a list of "Top Tips," a thematically tagged chronology, and a list of specific learning objectives readers can use to gauge their working knowledge and understanding of the period. Provides for ease of reference through rigorous thematic tagging of encyclopedic entries, period chronology, and primary documents Helps readers to study a key period of American history Features additional elements such as a sample document-based essay question and tips for answering document-based essay questions
Since the regime of Slobodan Milosevic was spectacularly overthrown on October 5, 2000, little has been written about subsequent political developments in Serbia. The perception of Milosevic as a criminal leader who plunged the former Yugoslavia into bloodshed and used violence to achieve his aims is not widely disputed among Western observers. However, to what extent is this view of Milosevic shared by people in Serbia? Here Janine Clark offers insights into and an understanding of this troubled country. She argues that many Serbs do not regard Milosevic as a criminal leader but rather as a "bad" leader whose greatest crimes were against his own people. This has important implications for how Serbia deals with its past and for reconciliation and peace-building in the former Yugoslavia.
An examination of the life of General Manton S. Eddy, this study details his experiences in World War II as leader of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division through North Africa, Sicily and France, and subsequently, as commander of XII Corps, into the heart of Germany. While much has been written about the top military leaders of this era, there is little information about corps commanders whose missions were limited to doing battle and whose organizations were tailored exclusively for this task. Eddy's career provides a model for the Army's most ambitious officers, particularly those who, like Eddy, faced the challenge without family connections or the traditional West Point education. He devoted his life to the U.S. Army, enhancing his innate talents through the incorporation of a daily program of self-education. Eddy had an excellent grasp of the basic principles of military tactics and strategy. He attained this art through home study and assiduous application at the Army's professional education institutions, in particular at the Command and General Staff College, where he served as an instructor for four years. He focused on people, quickly learning and applying basic skills to draw out their best efforts. He came to know what to expect from them in the chaos and under the pressure of combat. This facilitated his development of strong, mission-oriented subordinates. His personal goal was always to maximize all available power at the correct point for crushing his nation's enemies, and to this end, he was extraordinarily successful.
Instead of backing away from the fight, the North Vietnamese mortar, recoilless rifle, heavy machine gun, sapper and regular infantry attacks increased. The last offensive around Ripcord was starting to look like the last stand. Unwilling to keep American soldiers at high risk at this stage of the war; Ripcord was evacuated on 23 July. The battle went unnoticed for 30 years until Keith Nolan's book, "RIPCORD," was published. As powerful and gripping as was the story of great leadership and courageous fighting by our soldiers, the magnitude of the enemy force still remained unknown. The author, the 3rd Brigade commander during the siege and evacuation, made trips to Vietnam in 2001 and 2004 and interviewed the 324B Division Commander whose first-ever division sole mission, was to destroy Firebase Ripcord. The full story is now told.
An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War. Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas. No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record. |
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