Scholars, survivors, and other interested parties have offered, over the years, their own interpretations of the meaning of the Holocaust and the lessons we can learn from it. However, the quest to find a rational explanation for this seemingly irrational course of events has led to both controversy and continued efforts at assigning meaning to this most horrible of events. Examining oral histories provided by survivors, written accounts and explanations, scholarly analysis, and commonly held assumptions, Bolkosky challenges the usual collection of platitudes about the lessons or the meanings we can derive from the Holocaust. Indeed, he argues against the kind of reductionism that such a quest for meaning has led to, and he analyzes the nature of the perpetrators in order to support his position on the inconclusivity of the study of the Holocaust.

Dealing with the perpetrators of the Holocaust as manifestations of twentieth century civilized trends foreseen by the likes of Kafka, Ortega y Gassett, Arthur Koestler and Max Weber, Bolkosky suggests a new nature of evil and criminality along the lines developed by Hannah Arendt, Raul Hilberg, and Richard Rosenstein. Woven into the fabric of the text are insights from literary and historical writers, sociologists, and philosophers. This interdisciplinary attempt to shed new light on efforts to determine the meanings and lessons of the Holocaust provides readers with a challenging approach to considering the oral histories of survivors and the popular and professional assumptions surrounding this devastating moment in history.

Stephen Bungay' s magisterial history is acclaimed as the account of the Battle of Britain. Unrivalled for its synthesis of all previous historical accounts, for the quality of its strategic analysis and its truly compulsive narrative, this is a book ultimately distinguished by its conclusions - that it was the British in the Battle who displayed all the virtues of efficiency, organisation and even ruthlessness we habitually attribute to the Germans, and they who fell short in their amateurism, ill-preparedness, poor engineering and even in their old-fashioned notions of gallantry. An engrossing read for the military scholar and the general reader alike, this is a classic of military history that looks beyond the mythology, to explore all the tragedy and comedy; the brutality and compassion of war.

A few months after the end of World War I, Wolfgang Mueller was born in Germany to two Jewish, college-educated parents. As he grew up in a happy, erudite environment, Mueller could never have known that the celebration of his Bar-Mizwa in 1932, coinciding with the rise the Nazis, would mark a very important turning point in his life.

As Adolf Hitler assumed the role of chancellor, Mueller was filled with fear and foreboding, as were his parents--feelings that instigated a subsequent decision to send Mueller to boarding school in England. After being recruited to work at an American company while still in school, Mueller details how he embarked on a journey in 1936 that carried him through life-changing experiences as an American soldier during World War II to a return to civilian life, during which he eventually married, started a family, and realized professional success.

Wolf shares the inspirational story of one man's remarkable lifelong experiences as he escaped from Nazi terror to build a life in America and learned to appreciate his good fortune.

An inside look at the massive efforts needed to keep the Navy's PT Boats in fighting trim. From the stories of Repair Training Units, Bases, FEMU barges, and tenders, the reader will get a real understanding of the men who made up these specialized units. Almost two hundred rarely seen photographs selected by Frank J. Andruss Sr, curator of the acclaimed Mosquito Fleet Exhibit. Photographs and ship histories of every PT tender that operated in World War II. Numerous photographs of forward bases in the Solomons, New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, the Mediterranean, and England. Detailed accounts of personnel, facilities, and curriculum at the Repair Training Units. An indispensable and unique source for anyone interested in the history of U.S. patrol torpedo boats in World War II.

The Massacre of Nanking took place in 1937, during the War of the Japanese Invasion of China. 75 years after the event, we are finally able to analyze and study what happened in Nanking on three levels: as an historical event, as a legal case, and as an object in the Chinese people's collective consciousness.

On the evening of March 31, 1945, hours before the invasion of Okinawa, Max Stripe, Billy Thornhill, and five other crewmen manned the forward twin 40 mm mount of LST 791. Riley was stationed up in the Conn, tracking enemy planes from bogey reports that came in over the radio. An increase in air attacks could be expected at sunset and dawn because-for a brief time-aircraft could see the ships clearly, but it was difficult for the ships to see the planes. Suddenly, a group of transports astern of the 791 came under attack-tracers could be seen across the expanse of water and air. The job of the LST crew was to deliver the troops, tanks, and supplies to hostile beaches and, if necessary, defend those assets with their lives. All were ordinary men; they knew they had a job to do, and they did it. Succeeding so that they could return home to their families was their goal. In "Pacific LST 791, " Stephen C. Stripe, author and son of LST crewman Max Stripe, brings us the incredible true story of the vital actions of LST 791 and her crew in the Pacific Theater of WWII. Our admiration and thanks belong to this hardworking, gallant breed, for their heroic courage and sacrifice brought us hope, victory, and ultimately peace.

More than fifty years after the Holocaust, European and other countries are confronting newly-emerging memories and guilt-filled ghosts from the past. The campaign for the restitution of Jewish property stolen during the Holocaust touched a raw nerve within European society and, together with the end of the Cold War and generational change, created a need to re-evaluate conventional historical truths. A group of experts joined together to review in this book how the issue was dealt with in different countries and how national myths must be re-examined.

"Intelligently addresses several of the most important unresolved issues and controversies about altruism."
--"The Journal of Politics"

All but buried for most of the twentieth century, the concept of altruism has re-emerged in this last quarter as a focus of intense scholarly inquiry and general public interest. In the wake of increased consciousness of the human potential for destructiveness, both scholars and the general public are seeking interventions which will not only inhibit the process, but may in fact chart a new creative path toward a global community. Largely initiated by a group of pioneering social psychologists, early questions on altruism centered on its motivation and development primarily in the context of contrived laboratory experiments. Although publications on the topic have been considerable over the last several years, and now represent the work of representatives from many disciplines of inquiry, this volume is distinguished from others in several ways.

"Embracing the Other" emerged primarily as a response to recent research on an extraordinary manifestation of real-life altruism, namely to recent studies of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during World War II. It is the work of a multi-disciplinary and international group of scholars, including philosophers, social psychologists, historians, sociologists, and educators, challenging several prevailing conceptual definitions and motivational sources of altruism. The book combines both new empirical and historical research as well as theoretical and philosophical approaches and includes a lengthy section addressing the practical implications of current thinking on altruism for society at large. The resultis a multi-textured work, addressing critical issues in varied disciplines, while centered on shared themes.

This book offers a new perspective on the British experience of the Second World War in Europe, one in which foreignness and foreign languages are central to the dynamics of war-making. It offers a series of snapshots of the role which foreign languages played in Britain's war - in intelligence gathering (both signals and human intelligence), in psychological warfare, in preparations for liberating and occupying the continent, in denazification, in providing relief for refugees and displaced persons, and in postwar relationships with the USSR. By mapping the linguistic landscape of Britain's war in Europe, key aspects of international communication - translation, language performance, authenticity, language policies - are seen to be vital to military preparations and operations.

This memoir gives a harrowing account of the author's experiences during WW II incarcerated in four Japanese concentration camps in Indonesia (formerly called the Dutch East Indies).

This work relates the policy of appeasement to the personal beliefs and decisions of those responsible for foreign policy. Using Robert Hadow, First Secretary in the Foreign Office, as an example of an appeaser, this approach aims to demonstrate how intelligent and capable men in Britain fell victim to a policy which, to many still, in retrospect, appears blind and irrational. An examination of Hadow's fear of war, his reaction to communism, his sympathy for the German minority in Czechoslovakia, and his actions inside and outside the Foreign Office in pursuit of appeasement is made in this book through detailed research of Hadow's public and private papers. By following the course of Hadow's career and the working of his mind in the 1930s, this study explains the thinking behind a policy associated with Britain on the eve of World War II.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, began a war that lasted nearly four years and created by far the bloodiest theater in World War II. In the conventional narrative of this war, Hitler was defeated by Stalin because, like Napoleon, he underestimated the size and resources of his enemy. In fact, says historian John Mosier, Hitler came very close to winning and lost only because of the intervention of the western Allies. Stalin's great triumph was not winning the war, but establishing the prevailing interpretation of the war. The Great Patriotic War, as it is known in Russia, would eventually prove fatal, setting in motion events that would culminate in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"
Deathride "argues that the Soviet losses in World War II were unsustainable and would eventually have led to defeat. The Soviet Union had only twice the population of Germany at the time, but it was suffering a casualty rate more than two and a half times the German rate. Because Stalin had a notorious habit of imprisoning or killing anyone who brought him bad news (and often their families as well), Soviet battlefield reports were fantasies, and the battle plans Soviet generals developed seldom responded to actual circumstances. In this respect the Soviets waged war as they did everything else: through propaganda rather than actual achievement. What saved Stalin was the Allied decision to open the Mediterranean theater. Once the Allies threatened Italy, Hitler was forced to withdraw his best troops from the eastern front and redeploy them. In addition, the Allies provided heavy vehicles that the Soviets desperately needed and were unable to manufacture themselves. It was not the resources of the Soviet Union that defeated Hitler but the resources of the West.
In this provocative revisionist analysis of the war between Hitler and Stalin, Mosier provides a dramatic, vigorous narrative of events as he shows how most previous histories accepted Stalin's lies and distortions to produce a false sense of Soviet triumph. "Deathride "is the real story of the Eastern Front, fresh and different from what we thought we knew.

The importance of the Italian front in the First World War is often overlooked. Nor is it realised that British troops fought in Italy. The Forgotten Front demonstrates Italy's vital contribution to the Allied effort, including Lloyd George's plan to secure overall victory by an offensive on this front. Although his grand scheme was frustrated, British troops were committed to the theatre and played a real part in holding the Italian line and in the final victory of 1918. George H. Cassar, in an account that is original, scholarly and readable, covers both the strategic considerations and the actual fighting.
Faced by stalemate on the Western Front, Lloyd George argued strongly in 1917 for a joint Allied campaign in Italy to defeat Austria-Hungary. Knocking Germany's principal ally out of the war would lead in turn to the collapse of Germany itself. While his plan had real attractions, it also begged many questions. These allowed Haig and Robertson to join the French high command to thwarting it. The disastrous Italian defeat at Caporetto in October 1917 led, however, to the deployment of a British corps in Italy under Sir Herbert Plumer, which bolstered the Italians at a critical juncture. Subsequently led by the Earl of Cavan, British troops fought gallantly at the battle of Asiago in February to March 1918 and contributed significantly to the final defeat of Austria-Hungary at Vittorio Veneto in October.

This set of previously out-of-print books collects together a host of valuable research spanning the breadth of topics around the Second World War. Areas covered include the air war, land battles, generalship, dictatorship and appeasement, the use of atomic weapons, propaganda, conscription and conscientious objection, civilian evacuation, refugees, resistance under occupation, and much more besides.