The First World War marked a key turning point in America's involvement on the global stage. Isolationism fell, and America joined the ranks of the Great Powers. Civil-Military relations would face new challenges as a result. Ford examines the multitude of changes that stemmed from America's first major overseas coalition war, including the new selective service process; mass mobilization of public opinion; training diverse soldiers; civil liberties, anti-war sentiment and conscientious objectors; segregation and warfare; Americans under British or French command. Post war issues of significance, such as the Red Scare and retraining during demobilization are also covered. Both the federal government and the military were expanding rapidly both in terms of size and in terms of power during this time. The new group of citizen-soldiers, diverse in terms of class, religion, ethnicity, regional identity, education, and ideology, would provide training challenges. New government-military-business relationships would experience failures and successes. Delicate relationships with allies would translate into diplomatic considerations and battlefield command concerns.

At least 8,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War. A few served together in Jewish companies while most fought alongside Christian comrades. Yet even as they stood "shoulder-to-shoulder" on the front lines, they encountered unique challenges.

In Jews and the Civil War, Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn assemble for the first time the foremost scholarship on Jews and the Civil War, little known even to specialists in the field. These accessible and far-ranging essays from top scholars are grouped into seven thematic sections--Jews and Slavery, Jews and Abolition, Rabbis and the March to War, Jewish Soldiers during the Civil War, The Home Front, Jews as a Class, and Aftermath--each with an introduction by the editors. Together they reappraise the impact of the war on Jews in the North and the South, offering a rich and fascinating portrait of the experience of Jewish soldiers and civilians from the home front to the battle front.

Dissects the politics of commemoration of soldiers, veterans, and relatives from WWI The United States lost thousands of troops during World War I, and the government gave next-of-kin a choice about what to do with their fallen loved ones: ship them home for burial or leave them permanently in Europe, in makeshift graves that would be eventually transformed into cemeteries in France, Belgium, and England. World War I marked the first war in which the United States government and military took full responsibility for the identification, burial, and memorialization of those killed in battle, and as a result, the process of burying and remembering the dead became intensely political. The government and military attempted to create a patriotic consensus on the historical memory of World War I in which war dead were not only honored but used as a symbol to legitimize America's participation in a war not fully supported by all citizens. The saga of American soldiers killed in World War I and the efforts of the living to honor them is a neglected component of United States military history, and in this fascinating yet often macabre account, Lisa M. Budreau unpacks the politics and processes of the competing interest groups involved in the three core components of commemoration: repatriation, remembrance, and return. She also describes how relatives of the fallen made pilgrimages to French battlefields, attended largely by American Legionnaires and the Gold Star Mothers, a group formed by mothers of sons killed in World War I, which exists to this day. Throughout, and with sensitivity to issues of race and gender, Bodies of War emphasizes the inherent tensions in the politics of memorialization and explores how those interests often conflicted with the needs of veterans and relatives.

In 1999, the Alliance mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Around the same period, allegations were made regarding its involvement in human trafficking and forced prostitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A decade later, NATO airplanes hit a fuel truck causing significant civilian casualties in Kunduz, Afghanistan. After more than 60 years of existence and a track-record of more than 30 missions performed worldwide, it is surprising that there is still uncertainty on the scope and content of NATO's responsibility for wrongful conduct during its military operations. This timely book deals with the international responsibility of NATO during military operations. It examines, the status of the Alliance, the existence of international obligations and conditions of attribution of conduct in NATO.

Witnessing the Holocaust presents the autobiographical writings, including diaries and autobiographical fiction, of six Holocaust survivors who lived through and chronicled the Nazi genocide. Drawing extensively on the works of Victor Klemperer, Ruth Kluger, Michal Glowinski, Primo Levi, Imre Kertesz and Bela Zsolt, this books conveys, with vivid detail, the persecution of the Jews from the beginning of the Third Reich until its very end. It gives us a sense both of what the Holocaust meant to the wider community swept up in the horrors and what it was like for the individual to weather one of the most shocking events in history. Survivors and witnesses disappear, and history, not memory, becomes the instrument for recalling the past. Judith M. Hughes secures a place for narratives by those who experienced the Holocaust in person. This compelling text is a vital read for all students of the Holocaust and Holocaust memory.

One man, Abraham Lincoln, was the sole cause of the War Between the States, l861 - 1865, and the deaths of almost one million Americans. Honest, compassionate and kind hearted, but forthright to an extreme, Lincoln spoke for millions of Americans who detested slavery, and wanted to eradicate it, and for millions more who wanted to preserve the Union upon confronting the secession of eleven southern states By calling for 75,000 volunteers, men to defend the Union immediately following the attack in Charleston Harbor, Lincoln knowingly inflamed the situation. The war was on. Lincoln wanted it. He also knew that it could have been avoided, it could have been settled amicably without the loss of any men from the North or the South. Lincoln knew that the U.S. Constitution was silent on the issue of secession, that there was then, as there is now, absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prevents any state or any number of states, from peacefully leaving the Union. REVIEW: "A great yarn - worthy of a Pulitzer." B. Ballard, Rockville, MD

When Vladimir Putin became President of Russia in 2000, his first priority was to reestablish the intelligence agencies' grip on the country by portraying himself as a strongman protecting Russian citizens from security threats. Despite condemnation by the United Nations, the European Parliament, and European Union, the policy of brutal "ethnic cleansing" in Chechnya continued. For Putin, Islamist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, were a welcome opportunity to rebrand the war against Chechen independence, not as the crushing of a democracy, but as a contribution to President George W. Bush's "War on Terror." In the years that followed, Putin's regime covertly supported and manipulated extremist factions in Chechnya and stage-managed terrorist attacks on its own citizens to justify continuing aggression. US and European condemnation of Russian atrocities in Chechnya dwindled as Russia continued to portray Chechen independence as an international terrorist threat. Chechnya's Prime Minister-in-Exile Akhmed Zakaev, who had to escape Chechnya, faced Russian calls for his extradition from the United Kingdom, which instead granted him political asylum as Russia's increased its oppressive operations.

'Shiloh' as Seen by a Private Soldier
by Warren Olney
The Battle of Shiloh
by Joseph W. Rich
Shiloh from the ranks-Shiloh from the historian
The first piece in his vital book is a description of battle from the sharpest end of combat. It is the recollection of this momentous conflict of the American Civil War by a very ordinary private soldier who stood in the ranks of the Union Army-more significantly from his perspective-among his comrades of Company B, Third Iowa Infantry. It is not-nor does it purport to be-an overview of the battle. It is an ordinary soldier's narrow view-devoid of the larger picture-filled with noise, smoke, mud, fear and blood. For those who study military history it is, of course, precisely the kind of invaluable material that brings history alive. The second piece offers that objective perspective that the first account lacks. It is an overview and appraisal of that day of relentless and often controversial collision of arms. More significantly the author's interest and focus is drawn from the fact that this was a highly significant event for the State of Iowa since there were, apart from the Third Infantry, no less than ten other Iowa regiments engaged upon the field. This is an ideal book to help gain an understanding of 'both perspectives' of this famous battle-the human and the academic-within one volume and is recommended to all students of the period. Available in soft cover and hard back with dust jacket.

France, 1940. The once glittering boulevards of Paris teem with spies, collaborators, and the Gestapo now that France has fallen to Hitler's Wermacht. For Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery, and scores of other cultural elite who have been denounced as enemies of the Third Reich the fear of imminent arrest, deportation, and death defines their daily life. Their only salvation is the Villa Air-Bel, a chateau outside Marseille where a group of young people will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive.

A powerfully told, meticulously researched true story filled with suspense, drama, and intrigue, "Villa Air-Bel" delves into a fascinating albeit hidden saga in our recent history. It is a remarkable account of how a diverse intelligentsia--intense, brilliant, and utterly terrified--was able to survive one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century.

Waite provides an honest and raw perspective on the Iraq War from that of a citizen-soldier. He describes the effects war has on the extraordinary people who fight in it, and the families left behind.