The Munich crisis of 1938, in which Great Britain and France decided to appease Hitler's demands to annex the Sudentenland, has provoked a vast amount of historical writing. But historians have had, until now, only a vague understanding of the roles played by the Soviet Union and by Czechoslovakia, the country whose very existence was at the center of the crisis.
In Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler, Igor Lukes explores this turbulent and tragic era from the new perspective of the Prague government itself. At the center of this study is Edvard Benes, a Czechoslovak foreign policy strategist and a major player in the political machinations of the era. The work analyzes the Prague Government's attempts to secure the existence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia in the treacherous space between the millstones of the East and West. It studies Benes's relationship with Joseph Stalin, outlines the role assigned to Czechoslovak communists by the VIIth Congress of the Communist International in 1935, and dissects Prague's secret negotiations with Berlin and Benes's role in the famous Tukhachevsky affair. Using secret archives in both Prague and Russia, this work is an accurate and original rendition of the events that sparked the Second World War.

Now in paperback, revised and updated, the stirring and authoritative account of one of World War II's most highly decorated submarines "Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em "is the first book to recount the tragic and mysterious loss of the World War II submarine USS Gudgeon. In April 1944, the highly decorated submarine USS Gudgeon slipped beneath the waves in one of the most treacherous patrol areas in the most dangerous military service during World War II. Neither the Gudgeon nor the crew was ever seen again.
Author Mike Ostlund's "Uncle Bill," the operator of a farm implements business, was aboard that ship as a lieutenant junior grade. Through extensive research of patrol reports in U.S. and Japanese naval archives, interviews with veterans who had served aboard the Gudgeon before its final patrol, and the personal effects of the lost men's relatives, Ostlund has assembled the most accurate account yet of this remarkably successful submarine's exploits, of the men aboard from steward to captain, and of what we now know about her demise. "Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em" details the memories and life lessons of the young men who went to sea aboard Gudgeon before its last patrol knowing hardly anything, and came home having seen too much.

Edward Ellsberg's The Far Shore describes in detail the massive preparations for D-Day, the launch of the greatest armada in history, focusing on Hitler's Atlantic Wall defenses along the Normandy beaches and the ingenious creation of the Mulberry artificial floating harbor which would prove vital in securing an Allied beach-head in France.

Christoph Laucht offers the first investigation into the roles played by two German-born emigre atomic scientists, Klaus Fuchs and Rudolf Peierls, in the development of British nuclear culture, especially the practice of nuclear science and the political implications of the atomic scientists' work, from the start of the Second World War until 1959.

Poised on the verge of World War II, America in 1939 was a land of contrasts. The nation was finally pulling out of the Great Depression, but war-clouds gathered on the horizon. Scientific developments offered promising new advances, yet they would soon become the tools of war. This study offers a detailed look at life in this watershed year to determine how Americans understood the conditions of their day and how they turned to escapism when their burdens became too heavy. From the royal visit to the World's Fairs, most Americans looked ahead to a brighter future. Professional athletics, Hollywood films, and the Big Bands were a welcome diversion to hard times and troubling events abroad in Europe and Asia. This account highlights the most important political, economic, and social concerns of 1939. The first part, Documenting America, focuses on the major social and economic concerns of the American people in 1939. Chapter one examines religion, race, and crime, while chapters two and three consider economic difficulties and proposed solutions. Part Two, Some Golden Ages, includes chapters on the Studio era in Hollywood, Big Bands and Broadway musicals, art and architecture of the period, scientific breakthroughs, and sports notables. The final part, It Happened Over There, completes the picture with two chapters on the ominous international situation and early American efforts to deal with the impending war.

The Japanese government disposed of "dangerous animals" (not only carnivores but also herbivores, such as elephants) in zoos and circuses during World War II, including those in Japan's three "colonies"--Korea, Taiwan, and Manchukuo, Japan's puppet state in current Northeast China. Strangely, the "disposal order" was issued in August 1943, more than 15 months before U.S. B-29 air raids on Japan began. While some European zoos also destroyed their animals, none of the authorities in Europe enforced the disposal of zoo animals as systematically as the Japanese Home Ministry. No country conducted as nationwide and systematic a disposal of captive animals as Japan. This policy was an integral part of the Japanese government propaganda to mobilize the whole civilian population into total war, rather than for the ostensible purpose of public safety.

"The Seventh Million" is the first book to show the decisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Drawing on diaries, interviews, and thousands of declassified documents, Segev reconsiders the major struggles and personalities of Israel's past, including Ben-Gurion, Begin, and Nahum Goldmann, and argues that the nation's legacy has, at critical moments--the "Exodus "affair, the Eichmann trial, the case of John Demjanjuk--have been molded and manipulated in accordance with the ideological requirements of the state. "The Seventh Million" uncovers a vast and complex story and reveals how the bitter events of decades past continue to shape the experiences not just of individuals but of a nation. Translated by Haim Watzman.

It is increasingly important to understand the complexity of central and southeastern Europe following the enlargement of NATO into Central Europe, the ongoing problems of the Balkans, and the subsequent focus of global attention on the entire region. Gardner brings together exceptional French and Eastern European scholars who present first-hand accounts of their experience and knowledge of the region. Each provides differing political, social, cultural, and economic perspectives on Central and Southeastern Europe.

The volume begins with a general discussion of the place of central and southeastern Europe in the greater scheme of European history. This is followed by an examination of the western European and Russian attitudes toward the Balkans, and the largely ignored affects of the Ottoman empire on the Balkans. The importance of culture and the crucial role it played in undermining both the theory and practice of communism is explored. The impact of the media is then examined in two chapters that look at the process of media liberalization in the context of each country's political situation and the particular problems the media faces in the region. The focus shifts to the role of finance capital and its impact in emerging privatized economies. How the global drug wars affect the Balkan region are also explored. The ecological damage to Central and eastern Europe and Russia caused by the communist system is detailed, and the volume ends with a look at the complexity of factors that led NATO to enlarge into Central Europe and intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo. This wide-ranging collection will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers involved with all facets of contemporary central and eastern European life.

Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence form the backbone of the Army's operating system. But while much attention has been given in the literature to the other three elements, Communications in the British Army during World War II have been widely ignored. This book rectifies the omission. It shows that failures in front line communications contributed to several of the set backs suffered by the Army but also that ultimate victory was only achieved after a successful communications system was in place. It explains how the outcome of the main campaigns in Europe and North Africa depended on communications, how the system operated and how it evolved from a relatively primitive and inadequately supplied state at Dunkirk to a generally effective system at the time of the Rhine crossings. Problems still occurred however, for example at infantry platoon level and famously with paratrooper communications at Arnhem, often simply due to the shortcomings of existing technology. The book concludes that it is only very recently that advances in technology have allowed those problems to be solved.

Following their occupation by the Third Reich, Warsaw and Minsk became home to tens of thousands of Germans. In this exhaustive study, Stephan Lehnstaedt provides a nuanced, eye-opening portrait of the lives of these men and women, who constituted a surprisingly diverse population-including everyone from SS officers to civil servants, as well as ethnically German city residents-united in its self-conception as a "master race." Even as they acclimated to the daily routines and tedium of life in the East, many Germans engaged in acts of shocking brutality against Poles, Belarusians, and Jews, while social conditions became increasingly conducive to systematic mass murder.

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.

This carefully researched study is the first to chronicle the history of Allied involvement in the defense of British, French, and Dutch possessions in the Caribbean. The study is extremely well researched and well written. . . . The definitive work in this particular area of historical research, based on all available sources in English, French, and Dutch, published and unpublished. Choice Although few military campaigns were fought in the Caribbean, the region had strategic importance throughout World War II for the United States and its allies. This carefully researched study is the first to chronicle the history of Allied involvement in the defense of British, French, and Dutch possessions in the Caribbean. The first chapter examines the events and diplomacy that led in 1939 to Britain's granting the United States permission to base military facilities in Bermuda, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and to the creation of the Caribbean Sea Frontier. Later chapters detail the troubled course of British-American cooperation as U.S. military commitments--and regional dominance--increased. Also described is the role of the Netherlands, with Britain and the United States, in the defense of the oil and bauxite reserves in the Dutch Caribbean territories, and the friction between Britain and the United States over French Caribbean possessions. The final chapters analyze strategic shifts occuring as a result of the war and influencing postwar settlements negotiated for the region.

The cinema was the most popular form of entertainment during the Second World War. Film was a critically important medium for influencing opinion. Films, such as In Which We Serve and One of Our Aircraft is Missing, shaped the British people's perceptions of the conflict. British War Films, 1939-45 is an account of the feature films produced during the war, rather than government documentaries and official propaganda, making the book an important index of British morale and values at a time of desperate national crisis.

The Good War is a book about World War 2. It takes place in 1944 at the time of the Battle of the Bulge. The 981st U.S. Army is encamped in Brussels, Belgium. The 981st is made up of Engineering, Heavy Artillery, and Intelligence. The intelligence unit is sent behind enemy lines to find out what the enemy is up to. The unit is split into two groups, when one group is picked up by Belgian Partisans. The corporal Alex McDowell meets among the partisans a woman that he could fall in love with, but her overprotective brother stands in the way of their happiness. The unit now again in the Ardennes forest to fight the Battle of the Bulge. While war rages through the beautiful European landscape, partisans fight and die for freedom. One in particular Eva Rimmel, a young woman of great courage and compassion helps a unit of lost American soldiers. Her attraction to one of the soldiers is undeniable. Corporal Alex McDowell a soldier of the 981st intelligence unit was far from his home of Dallas, Texas. Separated from his unit he found the beautiful young partisan irresistible. Can their love survive a war?