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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations
Dillon J. Carroll's Invisible Wounds examines the effects of
military service, particularly combat, on the psyches and emotional
well-being of Civil War soldiers-Black and white, North and South.
Soldiers faced harsh military discipline, arduous marches, poor
rations, debilitating diseases, and the terror of battle, all of
which took a severe psychological toll. While mental collapses
sometimes occurred during the war, the emotional damage soldiers
incurred more often became apparent in the postwar years, when it
manifested itself in disturbing and self-destructive behavior.
Carroll explores the dynamic between the families of mentally ill
veterans and the superintendents of insane asylums, as well as
between those superintendents and doctors in the nascent field of
neurology, who increasingly believed the central nervous system or
cultural and social factors caused mental illness. Invisible Wounds
is a sweeping reevaluation of the mental damage inflicted by the
nation's most tragic conflict.
Shortlisted for the 2021 Society for Army Historical Research's
Templer Medal Operation Crusader, launched in November 1941, was
the third and final British attempt to relieve the siege of Tobruk
and break the German and Italian forces in North Africa. After
tough initial fighting, the British made important gains, only to
be countered by a stunning breakthrough overseen personally by Lt.
General Erwin Rommel. As the British situation teetered, the
commander of the 8th Army, Lt. General Alan Cunningham, was
relieved of duty by his superior, General Claude Auchinleck. This
decision changed the direction of the battle and perhaps the war
itself. Why and how Cunningham was relieved has been the subject of
commentary and speculation since it occurred. Using newly
discovered evidence, Alexander Joffe rethinks the events that
brought about the sudden relief of the operation's commanding
officer, including insubordination. The book then discusses how
narratives regarding the operation were created, were incorporated
into British and Commonwealth official and unofficial historical
writing about the war, and contributed to British historical
memory. Based on a decade of archival work, the book presents a new
and detailed analysis of a consequential battle and, importantly,
of how its history was written and received in the context of
post-war Britain.
The Russo-Turkish War""was one of the most decisive conflicts of
the 18th century. In this book, Brian Davies offers a thorough
survey of the war and explains why it was crucial to the political
triumph of Catherine the Great, the southward expansion of the
Russian Empire, and the rollback of Ottoman power from southeastern
Europe. The war completed the incorporation of Ukraine into the
Russian Empire, ended the independence of the great Cossack hosts,
removed once and for all the military threat from the Crimean
Khanate, began the partitions of Poland, and encouraged Catherine
II to plan projects to complete the "liberation" of the lower
Danubian and Balkan Slavs and Greeks. The war legitimated and
secured the power of Catherine II, finally made the Pontic steppe
safe for agricultural colonization, and won ports enabling Russia
to control the Black Sea and become a leading grain exporter.
Traditionally historians (Sorel, for example) have treated this war
as the beginning of the "Eastern Question," the question of how the
European powers should manage the decline of the Ottoman Empire. A
thorough grasp of the Russo-Turkish War is essential to
understanding the complexity and volatility of diplomacy in
18th-century Europe. This book will be an invaluable resource for
all scholars and students on European military history and the
history of Eastern Europe.
The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is the site of one
of America's most famous armed struggles, but the events
surrounding Custer's defeat there in 1876 are only the beginning of
the story. As park custodians, American Indians, and others have
contested how the site should be preserved and interpreted for
posterity, the Little Bighorn has turned into a battlefield in more
ways than one. In Stricken Field, one of America's foremost
military historians offers the first comprehensive history of the
site and its administration in more than half a century.Jerome A.
Greene has produced a compelling account of one of the West's most
hallowed and controversial attractions, beginning with the battle
itself and ending with the establishment of an American Indian
memorial early in the twenty-first century. Chronicling successive
efforts of the War Department and the National Park Service to
oversee the site, Greene describes the principal issues that have
confounded its managers, from battle observances and memorials to
ongoing maintenance, visitor access, and public use. Stricken Field
is a cautionary tale. Greene elucidates the conflict between the
Park Service's dual mission to provide public access while
preserving the integrity of a historical resource. He also traces
the complex events surrounding the site, including Indian protests
in the 1970s and 1980s that ultimately contributed to the 2003
dedication of a monument finally recognizing the Lakotas, Northern
Cheyennes, and other American Indians who fought there.
Glenn Beck, the New York Times bestselling author of The Great
Reset, revisits Thomas Paine's Common Sense. In any era, great
Americans inspire us to reach our full potential. They know with
conviction what they believe within themselves. They understand
that all actions have consequences. And they find commonsense
solutions to the nation's problems. One such American, Thomas
Paine, was an ordinary man who changed the course of history by
penning Common Sense, the concise 1776 masterpiece in which,
through extraordinarily straightforward and indisputable arguments,
he encouraged his fellow citizens to take control of America's
future-and, ultimately, her freedom. Nearly two and a half
centuries later, those very freedoms once again hang in the
balance. And now, Glenn Beck revisits Paine's powerful treatise
with one purpose: to galvanize Americans to see past government's
easy solutions, two-party monopoly, and illogical methods and take
back our great country.
Since the end of World War II, there have been 181 insurgencies
around the world. Today, there are over three dozen violent
insurgencies, including in such high-profile countries as Iraq,
Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. These insurgencies have
been led by a range of groups, from the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria to the Taliban in Afghanistan. In fact, most warfare today
occurs in the form of insurgencies. If we are to understand modern
warfare, we need to understand insurgencies. While numerous books
have been written on the subject of insurgencies, there is no book
that brings together all of what we know into one accessible volume
that policymakers can understand and use. Waging Insurgent Warfare
is that book. Seth G. Jones, who has been deeply involved in the
Afghanistan war over the last decade, aims to help policymakers,
scholars, and general readers better understand how groups start,
wage, and end insurgencies. He weaves together examples from today
and from recent history into an analytic synthesis that focuses on
several sets of questions. First, what factors contribute to the
rise of an insurgency? Second, what are the key components involved
in conducting an insurgency? As he explains, insurgent groups need
to decide on a strategy, employ a range of tactics, select an
organizational structure, secure outside aid from state and
non-state actors, and conduct information campaigns. They then have
to routinely re-assess these decisions over the course of an
insurgency. Third, what factors contribute to the end of
insurgencies? Finally, what do the answers to these questions mean
for the conduct of counterinsurgency warfare? Waging Insurgent
Warfare is not only a practical handbook for understanding
insurgent warfare, but it also has implications for waging
counterinsurgent warfare. Highly readable, empirically
sophisticated, and historically informed, Waging Insurgent Warfare
will become a standard work on the topic.
The gripping, vividly told story of the largest POW escape in the
Second World War - organized by an Australian bank clerk, a British
jazz pianist and an American spy. In August 1944 the most
successful POW escape of the Second World War took place - 106
Allied prisoners were freed from a camp in Maribor, in present-day
Slovenia. The escape was organized not by officers, but by two
ordinary soldiers: Australian Ralph Churches (a bank clerk before
the war) and Londoner Les Laws (a jazz pianist by profession), with
the help of intelligence officer Franklin Lindsay. The American was
on a mission to work with the partisans who moved like ghosts
through the Alps, ambushing and evading Nazi forces. How these
three men came together - along with the partisans - to plan and
execute the escape is told here for the first time. The Greatest
Escape, written by Ralph Churches' son Neil, takes us from Ralph
and Les's capture in Greece in 1941 and their brutal journey to
Maribor, with many POWs dying along the way, to the horror of
seeing Russian prisoners starved to death in the camp. The book
uncovers the hidden story of Allied intelligence operations in
Slovenia, and shows how Ralph became involved. We follow the
escapees on a nail-biting 160-mile journey across the Alps, pursued
by German soldiers, ambushed and betrayed. And yet, of the 106 men
who escaped, 100 made it to safety. Thanks to research across seven
countries, The Greatest Escape is no longer a secret. It is one of
the most remarkable adventure stories of the last century.
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