Why do people wage war? How can wars be won? How has warfare been an engine of change for human civilization-for better and for worse? In this book Paul Schuurman shows how some of the best Western minds between 1650 and 1900 tried to answer these questions in an epoch when European developments became a matter of global concern. In eight wide-ranging chapters he discusses the key concepts that philosophers and generals of this era developed to grasp and influence the dramatic and horrific phenomenon of war. Their concepts remain fresh and relevant down to the present day.

Five daring escapes carried out by the famous fighting force during WWII.

From the infamous 1944 desert campaign to the unforgiving terrain of the Vosges Mountains; from a perilous escape across Europe aided by Resistance networks to three Captains fleeing an Italian Prisoner of War camp in 1943, and a death-defying return to Britain via boat, tunnel and train.

These inspirational true stories bring to life the do-or-die spirit of the SAS, as they faced an enemy hell-bent on wreaking vengeance.

Damien Lewis has worked closely with World War Two veterans and the families of those portrayed, accessing never-before-seen wartime diaries, letters, mission reports, interrogation transcripts and more, to reveal terrifying yet astounding feats of survival from the band of elite soldiers.

The Battle of Peach Tree Creek marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, for it turned the page from the patient defence displayed by General Joseph E. Johnston to the bold offense called upon by his replacement, General John Bell Hood. Until this point in the campaign, the Confederates had fought primarily in the defensive from behind earthworks, forcing Federal commander William T. Sherman to either assault fortified lines, or go around them in flanking moves. At Peach Tree Creek, the roles would be reversed for the first time, as Southerners charged Yankee lines. The Gate City, as Atlanta has been called, was in many ways the capstone to the Confederacy's growing military-industrial complex and was the transportation hub of the fledgling nation. For the South it had to be held. For the North it had to be taken. With General Johnston removed for failing to parry the Yankee thrust into Georgia, the fate of Atlanta and the Confederacy now rested on the shoulders of thirty-three-year-old Hood, whose body had been torn by the war. Peach Tree Creek was the first of three battles in eight days in which Hood led the Confederate Army to desperate, but unsuccessful, attempts to repel the Federals encircling Atlanta. This particular battle started the South on a downward spiral from which she would never recover. After Peach Tree Creek and its companion battles for Atlanta, the clear-hearing Southerner could hear the death throes of the Confederacy. It was the first nail in the coffin of Atlanta and Dixie.

From lesser-known state figures to the ancestors of Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman, and James Meredith, Mississippi Zion: The Struggle for Liberation in Attala County, 1865-1915 brings the voices and experiences of everyday people to the forefront and reveals a history dictated by people rather than eras. Author Evan Howard Ashford, a native of the county, examines how African Americans in Attala County, after the Civil War, shaped economic, social, and political politics as a nonmajority racial group. At the same time, Ashford provides a broader view of Black life occurring throughout the state during the same period. By examining southern African American life mainly through Reconstruction and the civil rights movement, historians have long mischaracterized African Americans in Mississippi by linking their empowerment and progression solely to periods of federal assistance. This book shatters that model and reframes the postslavery era as a Liberation Era to examine how African Americans pursued land, labor, education, politics, community building, and progressive race relations to position themselves as societal equals. Ashford salvages Attala County from this historical misconception to give Mississippi a new history. He examines African Americans as autonomous citizens whose liberation agenda paralleled and intersected the vicious redemption agenda, and he shows the struggle between Black and white citizens for societal control. Mississippi Zion provides a fresh examination into the impact of Black politics on creating the anti-Black apparatuses that grounded the state's infamous Jim Crow society. The use of photographs provides an accurate aesthetic of rural African Americans and their connection to the historical moment. This in-depth perspective captures the spectrum of African American experiences that contradict and nuance how historians write, analyze, and interpret southern African American life in the postslavery era.