At 17, Curtis "Kojo" Morrow enlisted in the United States Army and joined the 24th Infantry Regiment Combat Team, originally known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Seven months later he found himself fighting a bloody war in a place he had never heard of: Korea. During nine months of fierce combat, Morrow developed not only a soldier's mentality but a political consciousness as well. Hearing older men discussing racial discrimination in both civilian and military life, he began to question the role of his all-black unit in the Korean action. Supposedly they were protecting freedom, justice, and the American way of life, but what was that way of life for blacks in the United States? Where was the freedom? Why were the Buffalo Soldiers laying their lives on the line for a country in which African-American citizens were sometimes denied even the right to vote? Morrow's story of his service in the United States Army is a revealing portrait of life in the army's last all-black unit, a factual summary of that unit's actions in a bloody "police action", and a personal memoir of a boy becoming a man in a time of war.

This is the first comprehensive study in English of Soviet women who fought against the genocidal, misogynist, Nazi enemy on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Drawing on a vast array of original archival, memoir, and published sources, this book captures the everyday experiences of Soviet women fighting, living and dying on the front.

Despite the Second World War and the Holocaust, post-war Britain was not immune to fascism. By 1948, a large and confident fascist movement had been established, with a strong network of local organizers and public speakers, and an audience of thousands. However, within two years the fascists had collapsed under the pressure of a successful anti-fascist campaign. This book explains how it was that fascism could grow so fast, and how it then went into decline.

Casting new light on a controversial aspect of wartime British foreign policy, this book traces the process by which the British authorities came to offer their backing to Colonel Draza Mihailovic, leader of the non-Communist resistance movement which emerged after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. It also examines why British confidence in Mihailovic was subsequently eroded, to the point where serious consideration was given to transferring support to his avowed enemies, the Communist-led Partisans.

This is the first serious analysis of the combat capability of the British army in the Second World War. It sweeps away the myth that the army suffered from poor morale, and that it only won its battles through the use of 'brute force' and by reverting to the techniques of the First World War. Few soldiers were actively eager to close with the enemy, but the morale of the army never collapsed and its combat capability steadily improved from 1942 onwards.

This is the only book available that tells the full story of how the U.S. government, between 1942 and 1945, detained nearly half a million Nazi prisoners of war in 511 camps across the country. With a new introduction and illustrated with more than 70 rare photos, Krammer describes how, with no precedents upon which to form policy, America's handling of these foreign prisoners led to the hasty conversation of CCC camps, high school gyms, local fairgrounds, and race tracks to serve as holding areas. The Seattle Times calls Nazi Prisoners of War in America "the definitive history of one of the least known segments of America's involvement in World War II. Fascinating. A notable addition to the history of that war."

The Civil War and the World War II stand as the two great cataclysms of American history. They were our two costliest wars, with well over a million casualties suffered in each. And they were transforming moments in our history as well, times when the life of the nation and the great experiment in democracy--government of the people, by the people, for the people--seemed to hang in the balance. Now, in War Comes Again, eleven eminent historians--including three Pulitzer Prize winners, all veterans of the Second World War--offer an illuminating comparison of these two epic events in our national life.
The range of essays here is remarkable, the level of insight consistently high, and the quality of the writing is superb. For instance, Stephen Ambrose, the bestselling author of D-Day, June 6th, 1944, offers an intriguing comparison of the two great military leaders of each war--Grant and Eisenhower. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Robert V. Bruce takes a revealing look at the events that foreshadowed the two wars. Gerald Linderman, author of Embattled Courage, examines the two wars from the point of view of the combat soldier. And Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., describes how both Lincoln and FDR went around strict observance of the Constitution in order to preserve the Constitution. There is, in addition, a fascinating discussion of the crucial role played by spying during the two wars, by Peter Maslowski; a look at the diplomacy of Lincoln and Roosevelt, by Howard Jones; and essays on the impact of the wars on women and on African Americans, by D'Ann Campbell, Richard Jensen, and Ira Berlin. In perhaps the most gripping piece in the book, Michael C.C. Adams offers an unflinching look at war's destructiveness, as he argues that the evils we associate with "bad wars" (such as Vietnam) are equally true of "good wars." And finally, in perhaps the most provocative essay in the book, Russell Weigley, one of America's most eminent military historians, maps the evolution of American attitudes toward war to our present belief that the only acceptable war is one that is short, inexpensive, and certain of victory. Would any great commander, Weigley asks, would a Lee or a Grant or a Marshall, refuse to fight unless he knew he couldn't lose? "Is not a willingness to run risks for the sake of cherished values and interests close to the heart of what defines greatness in a human being or in a nation?"
Another Pulitzer winner and World War II veteran, Don E. Fehrenbacher, concludes War Comes Again with a very personal look at two common soldiers who have no monuments, who have not been mentioned in previous histories, but who point at the essence of these two wars and are "embedded in the very structure of the enduring nation and the world we live in."

This is the first detailed study of Britain's open source intelligence (OSINT) operations during the Second World War, showing how accurate and influential OSINT could be and ultimately how those who analysed this intelligence would shape British post-war policy towards the Soviet Union. Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the enemy and neutral press covering the German occupation of the Baltic states offered the British government a vital stream of OSINT covering the entire German East. OSINT was the only form of intelligence available to the British from the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union, due to the Foreign Office suspension of all covert intelligence gathering inside the Soviet Union. The risk of jeopardising the fragile Anglo-Soviet alliance was considered too great to continue covert intelligence operations. In this book, Wheatley primarily examines OSINT acquired by the Stockholm Press Reading Bureau (SPRB) in Sweden and analysed and despatched to the British government by the Foreign Research and Press Service (FRPS) Baltic States Section and its successor, the Foreign Office Research Department (FORD). Shedding light on a neglected area of Second World War intelligence and employing useful case studies of the FRPS/FORD Baltic States Section's Intelligence, British Intelligence and Hitler's Empire in the Soviet Union, 1941-1945 makes a new and important argument which will be of great value to students and scholars of British intelligence history and the Second World War.

The early twentieth-century advent of aerial bombing made successful evacuations essential to any war effort, but ordinary people resented them deeply. Based on extensive archival research in Germany and France, this is the first broad, comparative study of civilian evacuations in Germany and France during World War II. The evidence uncovered exposes the complexities of an assumed monolithic and all-powerful Nazi state by showing that citizens' objections to evacuations, which were rooted in family concerns, forced changes in policy. Drawing attention to the interaction between the Germans and French throughout World War II, this book shows how policies in each country were shaped by events in the other. A truly cross-national comparison in a field dominated by accounts of one country or the other, this book provides a unique historical context for addressing current concerns about the impact of air raids and military occupations on civilians.

Is there really such a thing as Jewish music? And how does it survive as a practice of worship and cultural expression even in the face of the many brutal aesthetic and political challenges of modernity? In Jewish Music and Modernity, Philip V. Bohlman imparts these questions with a new light that transforms the very historiography of Jewish culture in modernity.
Based on decades of fieldwork and archival study throughout the world, Bohlman intensively examines the many ways in which music has historically borne witness to the confrontation between modern Jews and the world around them. Weaving a historical narrative that spans from the end of the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, he moves through the vast confluence of musical styles and repertories. From the sacred and to the secular, from folk to popular music, and in the many languages in which it was written and performed, he accounts for areas of Jewish music that have rarely been considered before. Jewish music, argues Bohlman, both survived in isolation and transformed the nations in which it lived. When Jews and Jewish musicians entered modernity, authenticity became an ideal to be supplanted by the reality of complex traditions. Klezmer music emerged in rural communities cohabited by Jews and Roma; Jewish cabaret resulted from the collaborations of migrant Jews and non-Jews to the nineteenth-century metropoles of Berlin and Budapest, Prague and Vienna; cantors and composers experimented with new sounds. The modernist impulse from Felix Mendelssohn to Gustav Pick to Arnold Schoenberg and beyond became possible because of the ways music juxtaposed aesthetic and cultural differences.
Jewish Music and Modernity demonstrateshow borders between repertories are crossed and the sound of modernity is enriched by the movement of music and musicians from the peripheries to the center of modern culture. Bohlman ultimately challenges readers to experience the modern confrontation of self and other anew.

From one of the most prominent nationalist voices in late twentieth-century Europe comes this controversial volume on the persistence of violence from past eras into present-day. Franjo Tudjman was once the face of Croatian democracy and sovereignty-a position complicated by his roles as general, president, and historian, and his role in the Bosnian War. Here he examines the Yugoslav Communist creation of a Croatian "black legend" and assesses the nature and scope of the crimes committed by the Ustasha puppet government, particularly at the Jasenovac death camp. He chronicles the systematic use by the Yugoslav regime of Jasenovac and the Ustasha terror as a tool in its attempt to eliminate Croatian aspirations towards independence. Readers of this book will have a candid insight into the mind of a notable and notorious player in contemporary European history. With this book-at once a memoir, a political document, and a broad historic philosophical survey-Tudjman proposes a foundation upon which to build a new creative framework of peace-oriented relationships for the twenty-first century. Horrors of War provides an unparalleled view on the history of national violence from the perspective of a man who played a key role in both the Croatian War of Independence and the later Bosnian War; a sometimes hero, sometimes villain.

In this first interdisciplinary study of this contentious subject, leading experts in politics, history, and philosophy examine the complex aspects of the terror bombing of German cities during World War II. The contributors address the decision to embark on the bombing campaign, the moral issues raised by the bombing, and the main stages of the campaign and its effects on German civilians as well as on Germany's war effort. The book places the bombing campaign within the context of the history of air warfare, presenting the bombing as the first stage of the particular type of state terrorism that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and brought about the Cold War era "balance of terror." In doing so, it makes an important contribution to current debates about terrorism. It also analyzes the public debate in Germany about the historical, moral, and political significance of the deliberate killing of up to 600,000 German civilians by the British and American air forces. This pioneering collaboration provides a platform for a wide range of views-some of which are controversial-on a highly topical, painful, and morally challenging subject.

A remarkable and compelling story about a Jewish boys coming of age during World War II, his survival, and ultimately, the transformation of his life as an American. Joseph Garays life story is an object lesson about perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles -- from the loss of his entire family in the concentration camps, to his survival in the Jewish Underground in Bratislava and elsewhere; from his joining the partisan underground and his enlistment in the Czechoslovakian division of the Romanian Red Army to fight the Nazis, to his meeting and marrying his wife. It is also a lesson about the remarkable acts of a single individual, Joseph Paserin, who protected Garay during those tumultuous war years despite grave risk to his own and his familys safety. The actions of Paserin ultimately enabled Garay to start anew in New York City -- to build a new family and to enjoy the safety and security of American freedom.

During WWII the mission of the Navy was, first and foremost, 'holding the line' against the German surface fleet, preventing it from disrupting the vital transatlantic sea-lanes or escorting an invasion force to Britain. The importance of holding the line cannot be over-emphasised but it is often overlooked as there was no decisive battle on the seas surrounding Britain in WWII. This work is a strategic and operational history of the Home Fleet. It examines the role of the home fleet in allied strategy and how well the home fleet carried out the missions assigned to it within the framework of that strategy.

This collection of diaries gives readers a powerful, firsthand look at the effects of the Pacific War on eight ordinary Japanese. Immediate, vivid, and at times surprisingly frank, the diaries chronicle the last years of the war and its aftermath as experienced by a navy kamikaze pilot, an army straggler on Okinawa, an elderly Kyoto businessman, a Tokyo housewife, a young working woman in Tokyo, a teenage girl mobilized for war work, and two school-children evacuated to the countryside. Samuel Yamashita's introduction provides a helpful overview of the historiography on wartime Japan and offers valuable insights into the important, everyday issues that concerned Japanese during a different and disastrously difficult time.

Journalist Ken Anderson analyzes claims made by historian Trevor Ravenscroft and others that the Holy Lance, which is said to have pierced the side of Jesus Christ, took center stage in Hitler's life and was the focal point of Hitler's ambitions to conquer the world. In addition to pointing out the flaws in this theory, Anderson questions the veracity of the biblical story of the lance. Was there some meaning behind the flight of Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess to Britain, Hitler's supposed extrasensory perception, his choice of the swastika as the Nazi symbol, the "superman" who haunted the Fuhrer, the use of Nostradamus in propaganda, the way Americans were taken in by the astrological propaganda war, and strange similarities between Hitler and Charlie Chaplin? Anderson offers rational explanations for these alleged strange events and powers, demonstrating that they cannot be attributed to Hitler.

The incredible true story of a Japanese American captured by the enemy while working as a U.S. Army spy during World War II reveals unspeakable torture, narrow escape from death, and acquisition of valuable military information for MacArthur. IP.

Monday, June 5, had long been planned for launching D-day, the start of the campaign to liberate Nazi-held Western Europe. Yet the fine weather leading up to the greatest invasion the world would ever see was deteriorating rapidly. Would it hold long enough for the bombers, the massed armada, and the soldiers to secure beachheads in Normandy? That was the question, and it was up to Ike's chief meteorologist, James Martin Stagg, to give him the answer."" On the night of June 4, the weather hung on a knife's edge. The three weather bureaus advising Stagg--the US Army Air Force, the Royal Navy, and the British Met Office--each provided differing forecasts. Worse, leading meteorologists in the USAAF and Met Office argued stormily. Stagg had only one chance to get it right. Were he wrong, thousands of men would perish, secrecy about when and where the Allies would land would be lost, victory in Europe would be delayed for a year, and the Communists might well take control of the continent.

Drinking the Water While Thinking of Its Source: The Life of a Scholar