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.

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.

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.

In "George C. Marshall: Servant of the American Nation," a talented cast of historians and social scientists provide fresh insights and perspectives into the exceptional life of a distinguished American soldier-statesman. Marshall's extraordinary career in the first half of the twentieth century paralleled the emergence of the United States as a global power. Indeed, this great servant leader contributed substantively to almost every important event and issue comprising that rise to power. The essays collected here are organized around the major roles assumed by Marshall over those five decades and provide an unusually balanced look at the key issues of the era. As a result, they also shed important light on the legacy of his enigmatic commander in chief, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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 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.

As World War II and the Nazi assault on Europe ended, some 25,000 Jews--entire families in some instances--walked out of the forests of Eastern Europe. Based on numerous interviews with these survivors, "Fugitives of the Forest" tells their harrowing and heroic stories.

"An exciting and dramatic episode."--"Library Journal" "Cliff-hanging suspense."--"Christian Science Monitor""" "Assault in Norway" is the classic account of a legendary raid on the Nazi war program. By 1942 Germany had a seemingly insurmountable lead over the Allies in developing an atomic bomb. Contributing to this situation was its access to a crucial ingredient: "heavy water," found in great abundance at a fortresslike factory in occupied Norway. Allied hopes of stalling the Nazi nuclear program soon focused on sabotaging the cliffside plant--a suicidal mission. But a team of brave Norwegian exiles, trained in Britain, infiltrated their homeland and, hiding in the wilds, awaited the opportunity to launch one of the war's most daring commando raids. Basing his gripping narrative in large part on interviews with the commandos themselves, Thomas Gallagher recounts in vivid detail the planning and execution of Operation Gunnerside. "Assault in Norway" recalls the intrigue found in such wartime classics as David Howarth's "We Die Alone" and "The Sledge Patrol," and the mission it recounts inspired the 1965 Hollywood film "The Heroes of Telemark."

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?

From North Africa to Nazi Prison Camps tells the harrowing story of a young American school teacher from the Missouri Ozarks that fulfilled his country's call to duty during World War II. This biographical account describes the courage that the author and his comrades summoned and the determination of the human spirit as the young soldiers use their tenacity and character to endure the hardships of captivity and to keep their spirits high and remain patriotic to their country. General Rommel's North African Campaign was an important front where American and German forces clashed. The 34th Division fought in the battle for Faid Pass until the majority of troops were injured, killed or captured. This true story tells the ruthless aspects of war from a medic's experience as portrayed by the author.

'Goodbye! There's my good girl.' The German got hold of Papa's arm roughly and said, 'Come on!' They got in the car and sped away, leaving the two breathless girls standing on the street corner, staring at where the car had been. 'What on earth was all that about? Why has my Daddy gone with that German?' It made no sense. It made no sense at all. France, 1940: The British have retreated, evacuating their forces from Dunkirk. Nell and her girls stand on the beach on a clear day and see the outline of Dover Castle but it will be four and a half long years before they return to Britain. Jeanne, her sisters and their mother Nell are left to fend for themselves in occupied France when her father is arrested by the Nazis and taken to an internment camp.Proudly British, they have also been raised speaking French. Nell is determined to keep going, keep food on the table and see her girls continue in education. She takes in washing, teaches English and tries growing vegetables but the soil is too poor. They apply for Red Cross Parcels but are told, as they are not behind barbed wire, they don't qualify.Yet amid the struggles come great friendships and pleasure in the smallest things; the rare treat of a piece of cake or tart, a Christmas tree decorated with cotton or singing in church. Jeanne's sisters are distinct personalities, one bookish and quiet, the other outgoing. Letters from her interned husband Tom Sarginson and occasional visits to see him only temporarily eases the pain of being parted. Nell falls in love with a kindly German soldier. When liberation comes in 1944 Nell and the girls' excitement is tempered by a shocking event in their then home village of Rieux-en-Cambresis. There follows an exhilarating and frustrating stay in newly liberated Paris and the shock of arriving back in the war weary Britain of late 1944. Nell and the Girls is a remarkable, dramatic and heartwarming true story of a family told from the viewpoint of young Jeanne Sarginson, later Gask.

In this surprising reinterpretation of Hitler's impact on the outcome of World War II, James Duffy reveals that the war was not won through American strength and ingenuity alone. Rather, it was lost due to Hitler's phenomenal military blunders. Challenging popular American views, the author shows how Nazi Germany at first substantially won the war in Europe. Yet Hitler proceeded to lose it even before the United States had entered the conflict. "Hitler Slept Late" sets the stage for each of Hitler's major errors, uncovering why each was made, what happened as a result, and how the outcome of the war might have been different had Hitler followed the advice of others. Duffy shows how Hitler's conquest of Europe ultimately failed due to two glaring faults--his inability to develop a concrete long-range plan and his maniacal belief in the strength of his own will. Offering new insight into Hitler as a military leader, this provocative study provides a clear view of Hitler's strengths and weaknesses and looks at what might have happened had he not blundered so often at vital times during the war.

Duffy begins with a look at Hitler's early victories in the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. These victories, achieved through swift surprise attacks, worked because of the indecisiveness and reluctance to act exhibited by the British and French. Hitler's most egregious errors included his belief in his own infallibility as a military leader, his failure to heed the warnings of advisers, and his ultimate decision to surround himself with yes men. Fatal strategic errors include allowing the British army to escape from Dunkirk, failing to invade Great Britain immediately after Dunkirk, and not recognizing the primary importance of Moscow as a target in the Soviet invasion. These character flaws and leadership foibles, as described and analyzed in "Hitler Slept Late," vividly illustrate the words of Sir Christopher Foxley Norris, retired Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force: Had it not been for Hitler, the Germans] would have won.

The Battle of Britain lasted for sixteen weeks during later 1940, yet this struggle for air supremacy was vital in thwarting Hitler's invasion threat. The Good Fight discusses wartime propaganda where "The Few," the RAF's fighter and bomber pilots, captivated the world through their combat prowess and valour. Projected through press, film, radio broadcasts and publications, this book assesses the constituencies, organisations, censorship and approaches deployed in exploiting this fortuitous opportunity, and the impact upon British morale. Charting its roots in the run up to war, it discusses the evolving propaganda coverage throughout the war years, and the post-war historiography.

The purpose of this book is two-fold. First, it presents in a single place a coherent account of the tumultuous naval events that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1940 and 1945 during World War II. Second, the book aims to demonstrate in an interesting fashion what naval warfare in the narrow seas is really like.

Koburger demonstrates that there was a definite Allied strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War II. He delineates that strategy, showing its two halves, and demonstrates the roles of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. Koburger contends that the Eastern Mediterranean offers an excellent example of what warfare in the narrow seas is about. He remains convinced that, in the 1990s, the narrow seas are where the wars are going to be. This book will be of interest to policymakers, the military, and military historians.

After the Soviets trapped the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and his Army Group Don orchestrated a dramatic reversal of fortune between November 1942 and March 1943, enabling Germany to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front and continue fighting for two more years. Sadarananda relies on an in-depth analysis of war diaries to piece together the course of this pivotal campaign and shows how Manstein brilliantly anticipated Soviet moves and effectively handled an indecisive Hitler.