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Great Commanders (Hardcover)
Christopher R Gabel, James H. Willbanks; Combat Studies Institute Press
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R1,087
Discovery Miles 10 870
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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A collection of essays profiling: Alexander the Great; Ghenghis
Khan; Napoleon Bonaparte; Horatio Nelson; John J. Pershing; Erwin
Rommell; Curtis LeMay.From the foreword: "In selecting the seven
great commanders presented in this volume, the contributors sought
to cover a wide spectrum of military endeavor, encompassing a very
broad time-frame, different nationalities and cultures, and
representatives from ground, sea, and air warfare. The commanders
selected were masters of warfare in their particular time and
environment. Each capitalized upon the social, political, economic,
and technological conditions of his day to forge successful
military forcees and win significant and noteworthy victories that
profoundly altered the world in which he lived."
Sting has successfully established himself as one of the most
important singer-songwriters in Western popular music over the past
twenty years. His affinity for collaborative work and disparate
musical styles has pushed his music into an astonishing array of
contexts, but no matter what the style or who the collaborator,
Sting's voice always remains distinct, and this fact has earned him
success amongst a correspondingly broad audience. Songs from his
period with The Police, such as "Roxanne," "Don't Stand So Close to
Me," "Every Breath You Take," and "King of Pain," helped establish
his reputation as a sophisticated craftsman; however, it is in his
solo career that he has truly come into his own as a songwriter,
and several of his solo works, including "Fragile," "All This
Time," "Fields of Gold," "Desert Rose," and "Moon Over Bourbon
Street," are modern classics. Aside from his commercial success,
Sting is also interesting for the use of recurring themes in his
lyrics (such as family relationships, love, war, spirituality, and
work) and for his use of jazz and world music to illustrate or work
against the "meaning" of a song. Sting's life also sheds light on
his music, as his working-class roots in Newcastle, England are
never far removed from his international superstardom. Throughout
his life, he has been musically open-minded and inquisitive, always
seeking out new styles and often incorporating them into his
compositions. The Words and Music of Sting subdivides Sting's life
and works into rough periods of creative activity and offers a
fantastic opportunity to view Sting's many stylistic changes within
a coherent general framework. After analyzing Sting's musical
output album byalbum and song by song, author Christopher Gable
sums up Sting's accomplishments and places him on the continuum of
influential singer-songwriters, showing how he differs from and
relates to other artists of the same period. A discography,
filmography, and bibliography conclude the work.
Since the early twentieth century, officers of the U.S. Army have
honed their professional knowledge and skills by conducting staff
rides to historical battlefields. Often, these educational
exercises have focused on the tactical level of war, through a
detailed examination of a single battle. The Vicksburg staff ride
presented in this booklet, by contrast, focuses at the operational
level of war. By studying the Vicksburg campaign and visiting the
places where it took shape, the military professional can gain a
greater appreciation for operational art-the conception, execution,
and adjustment of a campaign plan. Individual battles and the
tactics employed therein are not ignored but rather are set into
the context of an evolving campaign. There is much of value here
for military professionals in the twenty-first century. The Staff
Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863,
provides a systematic approach to the analysis of this key Civil
War campaign.
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Great Commanders (Paperback)
Ph. D. Christopher R. Gabel, Ph. D. James H. Willbanks; Combat Studies Institute
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R499
Discovery Miles 4 990
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The command of military forces in combat is unlike any other field
of human endeavor. If war is the ultimate form of human
competition, then the commander is the ultimate competitor. The
commander operates in an environment of chance, uncertainty, and
chaos, in which the stakes are, quite literally, life and death.
The commander is ultimately responsible for every variable that
factors into military success or failure-training, logistics,
morale, equipment, planning, and execution. The commander reaps the
lion's share of plaudits in victory, but also must accept the blame
in defeat, warranted or not. Very often the line that separates
fame and ignominy is slender indeed. It is not difficult to
identify "great" commanders, though the overwhelming majority of
generals who win battles are never considered "great." The truly
great commander is generally considered to be one who attains the
unexpected or the unprecedented; one who stands above his
contemporaries through his skill on the battlefield, or through the
sheer magnitude of his accomplishments. In selecting the seven
great commanders presented in this volume, the contributors sought
to cover a wide spectrum of military endeavor, encompassing a very
broad time-frame, different nationalities and cultures, and
representatives from ground, sea, and air warfare. The commanders
selected were masters of warfare in their particular time and
environment. Each capitalized upon the social, political, economic,
and technological conditions of his day to forge successful
military forces and win significant and noteworthy victories that
profoundly altered the world in which he lived. In regards to
social context, the societies from which these seven leaders sprang
varied tremendously, ranging from the nomadic tribal cultures of
Asia to American industrial-age egalitarianism. Each commander
faced particular challenges in operating within the social norms of
his day and age. These norms govern how leaders are selected, who
serves in the military, and to what purpose military operations are
conducted. The great commander recognizes these norms, and extracts
the maximum possible military effectiveness from them. Similarly,
this study embraces a wide variety of political contexts. Each of
the seven commanders herein proved adept at operating within the
political milieu of his era, understanding if not manipulating the
political systems of his country to best advantage. Three of the
seven were not only great commanders but also sovereign rulers.
Warfare is also closely shaped by its economic context, and the
commanders in this study were both enabled and restrained by the
economic world in which they lived. Ultimately, economics
determines how many men, how much materiel, and how much treasure
can be expended in waging any given war, and the successful
commander makes the most of the resources his economy affords him.
Technology is commonly thought to be one of the key determinants in
victory or defeat, but wars won chiefly through technological
superiority are actually rather rare in history. Finally, each of
the commanders in this study demonstrated extraordinary qualities
of leadership in the cauldron of combat. Moral courage, force of
will, and a capacity for critical reasoning under stress are all
required for a commander to succeed in the chaos, fog, and friction
of war. All of the commanders represented in this volume possessed
these traits to a remarkable degree. Many other generals could have
been included-some familiar names will be conspicuous by their
absence. Since the circumstances and context of every war differ,
there is no intent to prove that these are the "greatest" seven
commanders ever-any attempt to apply a "scorecard" mentality to war
as practiced in different places and times is essentially futile.
The commanders selected for this volume include: Alexander the
Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, John J.
Pershing, Erwin Rommel, and Curtis LeMay
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Great Commanders (Paperback)
Christopher R Gabel, James H. Willbanks; Combat Studies Institute Press
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R635
Discovery Miles 6 350
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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A collection of essays profiling: Alexander the Great; Ghenghis
Khan; Napoleon Bonaparte; Horatio Nelson; John J. Pershing; Erwin
Rommell; Curtis LeMay.From the foreword: "In selecting the seven
great commanders presented in this volume, the contributors sought
to cover a wide spectrum of military endeavor, encompassing a very
broad time-frame, different nationalities and cultures, and
representatives from ground, sea, and air warfare. The commanders
selected were masters of warfare in their particular time and
environment. Each capitalized upon the social, political, economic,
and technological conditions of his day to forge successful
military forcees and win significant and noteworthy victories that
profoundly altered the world in which he lived."
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