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Voldoen ten volle aan die vereistes van die Kurrikulum- en
assesseringsbeleidsverklaring (NKABV). Eksamenoefening en
assesseringsgeleenthede word verskaf. Riglyne van die volledige
Assesseringsprogram word verskaf. Klaskamers regoor Suid-Afrika het
die materiaal gebruik en beproef. Eksamensukses deur leerders te
ondersteun en te betrek. Nuttige wenke vir klaskameronderrig.
From national bestselling author and acclaimed military historian
Robert L. O’Connell, a dynamic history of four military leaders
whose extraordinary leadership and strategy led the United States
to success during World War I and beyond. By the first half of the
twentieth century, technology had transformed warfare into a series
of intense bloodbaths in which the line between soldiers and
civilians was obliterated, resulting in the deaths of one hundred
million people. During this period, four men exhibited unparalleled
military leadership that led the United States victoriously through
two World Wars: Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, George Marshall,
and Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower; or, as bestselling author Robert
O’Connell calls them, Team America. O’Connell captures these
men’s unique charisma as he chronicles the path each
forged—from their upbringings to their educational experiences to
their storied military careers—experiences that shaped them into
majestic leaders who would play major roles in saving the free
world and preserving the security of the United States in times of
unparalleled danger. O’Connell shows how the lives of these
men—all born within the span of a decade—twisted around each
other like a giant braid in time. Throughout their careers, they
would use each other brilliantly in a series of symbiotic
relationships that would hold increasingly greater consequences. At
the end of their star-studded careers (twenty-four out of a
possible twenty-five), O’Connell concludes that what set Team
America apart was not their ability to wield the proverbial sword,
but rather their ability to plot strategy, give orders, and inspire
others. The key ingredients to their success was mental agility, a
gravitas that masked their intensity, and an almost intuitive
understanding of how armies in the millions actually functioned and
fought. Without the leadership of these men, O’Connell makes
clear, the world we know would be vastly different.
Sacred Vessels is an irreverent account of the modern battleship
and its place in American naval history from the sinking of the
coal-fired Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898 to the deployment of the
cruise missile-armed Missouri in the Persian Gulf in 1991. With
provocative insight and wit, Robert O'Connell conclusively
demonstrates that the vaunted battleship was in fact never an
effective weapon of war, even before developments in aircraft and
submarine technology sealed its doom. The worlds navies failed to
recognize the full implications of rapid technological change at
the turn of the century but were enthralled by the revolutionary
design of the HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1903. Nations raced to
build and deploy the biggest, the fastest, and the greatest
possible number of battleships, usually at the expense of much more
effective forms of naval force. Dreadnoughts became the
international currency of great power status, subject to the same
anxious accountancy as nuclear weapons today. Their awesome beauty
captured the public s imagination and won the unquestioning
devotion of naval officers everywhere. When war came in 1914, the
world held its breath in anticipation of a modern-day Trafalgar,
but dreadnoughts everywhere avoided battle, and when they were
forced to fight, the results were inconclusive or irrelevant. In
spite of this display of impotence, the world's shipyards continued
to turn out the great vessels. The sinking of the heart of the U.S.
battlefleet at Pearl Harbor-an event that finally forced the United
States into World War II-ironically also began to shake the U.S.
Navy free from its infatuation with the dreadnought in favor of the
more practical charms of the aircraft carrier. Still, sheer faith
in the battleship ensured that it would live to fight again, this
time with even more questionable results. In fact, says O'Connell,
battleships have never played an important role in the outcome of
any modern war, but they have continued to be resurrected and
refurbished-even garnished with nuclear weapons-right up to the
present day. Television images of the Missouri and the Wisconsin
firing on the shores of Iraq in 1991 were not just a glimpse of an
anachronism: We were witnessing, with a lingering sense of awe, the
last gasp of a fire-breathing behemoth that in actuality was all
but toothless from the moment of its conception. Sacred Vessels is
more than the unmasking of a false idol of naval history. It is a
cautionary tale about the often unacknowledged influence of human
faith, culture, and tradition on the exceedingly important, costly,
and supposedly rational process of nations arming themselves for
war.
Writing critically about something you have come to regard with
affection must provoke mixed emotions. As I learned more and more
about the modern battleship's shortcomings, I found myself, like so
many before me, falling under its spell. I have traveled hundreds
of miles to visit these wonderful ships, reverently preserved like
a necklace of talismans around our nation's coasts. I have stood in
awe under the great guns, wondering what it must have been like to
hear them fire. Perhaps it is true that their sound and fury
signified very little in terms of actual destructive power. But
most people thought they did, and that was and still is important.
Besides, for the most part, we were proud of those ships. Now we
live in a time of weapons so terrible that we must actually hide
them-beneath the ground and below the surface of the sea. But, like
battleships, they keep the peace precisely because of what others
think they can do. All things being equal, who would not prefer the
dreadnoughts?
Sex in the Eighteenth-century was not simply a pleasure; it had
profound philosophical and political implications. This book
explores those implications, and in particular the links between
sexual freedom and liberty in a variety of European and British
contexts. Discussing prostitutes and politicians, philosophers and
charlatans, confidence tricksters and novelists, Libertine
Enlightenment presents a fascinating overview of the sexual
dimension of enlightened modernity.
This volume draws attention to some eighteenth-century figures who, by their mobility, their disrespect for authority, and in some cases their dishonesty, might once have been thought unworthy of scholarly attention. This book opposes the great thinkers of a supposedly monolithic Enlightenment to a peripheral world of radicals and miscreants and seeks to understand the coexistence, and to some degree the complicity, of a wide range of eighteenth-century "libertines" in the Enlightenment project. Through the study of a range of individuals --including female rakes and libertine whores (Con Phillips, Jeanne La Motte, Casanova's Henriette), the great thinkers (Voltaire, Kant, Goethe), and some of the most notorious adventurers and rebels (Wilkes, Casanova, Cagliostro, Sade)--this book reflects on the history of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the Europe that hosted it.
Now in paperback, from national bestselling author and acclaimed
military historian Robert L. O'Connell, a dynamic history of four
military leaders whose extraordinary leadership and strategy led
the United States to success during World War I and beyond. By the
first half of the twentieth century, technology had transformed
warfare into a series of intense bloodbaths in which the line
between soldiers and civilians was obliterated, resulting in the
deaths of one hundred million people. During this period, four men
exhibited unparalleled military leadership that led the United
States victoriously through two World Wars: Douglas MacArthur,
George Patton, George Marshall, and Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower; or, as
bestselling author Robert O'Connell calls them, Team America.
O'Connell captures these men's unique charisma as he chronicles the
path each forged-from their upbringings to their educational
experiences to their storied military careers-experiences that
shaped them into majestic leaders who would play major roles in
saving the free world and preserving the security of the United
States in times of unparalleled danger. O'Connell shows how the
lives of these men-all born within the span of a decade-twisted
around each other like a giant braid in time. Throughout their
careers, they would use each other brilliantly in a series of
symbiotic relationships that would hold increasingly greater
consequences. At the end of their star-studded careers (twenty-four
out of a possible twenty-five), O'Connell concludes that what set
Team America apart was not their ability to wield the proverbial
sword, but rather their ability to plot strategy, give orders, and
inspire others. The key ingredients to their success was mental
agility, a gravitas that masked their intensity, and an almost
intuitive understanding of how armies in the millions actually
functioned and fought. Without the leadership of these men,
O'Connell makes clear, the world we know would be vastly different.
Blood Wedding. Concerned with love that cannot become marriage
among the primitive hill people of Castile, this is a play of the
workings of tremendous passions and tribal ritual toward an
inescapable tragic end. Yerma. “The whole tragic burden of Yerma
is measured by the deepening of her struggle with the problem of
frustrated motherhood.” —From García Lorca, by Edwin Honig.
The House of Bernarda Alba. Again about “women whom love moves to
tragedy,” Bernarda Alba tells of the repression of five daughters
by a domineering mother, of how their natural spirits circumvent
her but bring violence and death.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
For millennia, Carthage's triumph over Rome at Cannae in 216 B.C.
has inspired reverence and awe. No general since has matched
Hannibal's most unexpected, innovative, and brutal military
victory. Now Robert L. O'Connell, one of the most admired names in
military history, tells the whole story of Cannae for the first
time, giving us a stirring account of this apocalyptic battle, its
causes and consequences.
O'Connell brilliantly conveys how Rome amassed a giant army to
punish Carthage's masterful commander, how Hannibal outwitted
enemies that outnumbered him, and how this disastrous pivot point
in Rome's history ultimately led to the republic's resurgence and
the creation of its empire. Piecing together decayed shreds of
ancient reportage, the author paints powerful portraits of the
leading players, from Hannibal--resolutely sane and uncannily
strategic--to Scipio Africanus, the self-promoting Roman military
tribune. Finally, O'Connell reveals how Cannae's legend has
inspired and haunted military leaders ever since, and the lessons
it teaches for our own wars.
From a broad, historical perspective, the dreadnought represents an
archetype, and its history a kind of moral tale. Its awesome size,
its formidable presence, and its immense power have gained it
tremendous respect, loyalty, and, as Robert O'Connell shows in this
myth-shattering book, unwarranted longevity as well. With
provocative insight and wit he offers us an irreverent history of
the modern battleship and its place in American history, from the
sinking of the coal-fueled Maine in 1898 to the deployment of the
cruise missile-armed Missouri in the Persian Gulf War of
1991.
The modern navies were the first of the armed services faced with
fundamental and abrupt technological change. The wooden sailing
ships that had fought sea battles for nearly two centuries were, in
only a few years, rendered obsolete by a veritable tidal wave of
innovation. With the deployment of the revolutionary HMS
Dreadnought in 1903, the new technology reached its full fruition:
the gigantic sleek, steel-clad, many-gunned vessel that would rule
the seas (or at least the minds of Naval commanders) for years to
come. O'Connell shows how other nations raced to emulate this new
prototype (much in the fashion of the nuclear arms race of later
decades), usually at the expense of much more effective forms of
naval force. He also demonstrates compellingly the dashed
expectations for the battleship occasioned by the outbreak of war
in 1914. While many anticipated a massive twentieth-century
Trafalgar, in actuality dreadnoughts everywhere avoided battle, and
when they did fight, the results were most often inconclusive or
even irrelevant. With the Battle of Jutland in 1916--the only real
naval showdown of the war--the ineffectiveness of the battleship as
the pre-eminent weapon of war was made abundantly clear: the German
navy scored on only 120 hits out of 3,597 heavy shells fired while
the British had an even more dismal showing--100 out of 4,598, or a
hit ratio of 2.17%. Yet, in spite of this display of impotence, the
world's great naval yards continued to turn out the huge vessels.
O'Connell observes that even after the heart of the American fleet
was sunk by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, the almost superstitious
faith in the battleship insured its survival. While they have never
played a decisive role in the outcome of any modern war, they have
continued to be resurrected and refurbished--even equipped with
cruise missles--right up to the present day.
Sacred Vessels is more than the unmasking of a false idol of naval
history. It is a cautionary tale about the often unacknowledged
influence of human faith, culture, and tradition on the exceedingly
important, costly, and suppossedly rational process of national
defense. Not only is it a gripping tale well-told, it is essential
reading for anyone hoping to understand the dynamics involved in
the arming of nations.
At the battle of Agincourt, over six thousand noblemen--the flower
of French knighthood--died in a day-long series of futile charges
against a small band of English archers. They charged not simply
because they failed to recognize the power of the longbow, but
because their whole ethos revolved round an idealized figure of the
knight that dated back to Homer: the man of great physical strength
and valor, who excelled at hand-to-hand combat with men of equal
worth. The bow was an affront to this ideal.
As Robert L. O'Connell points out in this vividly written history
of weapons in Western culture, the battle of Agincourt typifies the
complex and often paradoxical relationship between men and arms. In
a sweeping narrative that ranges from prehistorc times to the
Nuclear Age, O'Connell demonstrates how social and economic
conditions determine the types of weapons and the tactics employed
in warfare and how in turn innovations in weapons technology often
undercut social values. He reveals, for instance, how the Church
outlawed the use of crossbows--except against muslims--to preserve
the status quo of the medieval world; how the invention of the gun
required a redefinition of courage from aggressive ferocity to
calmness under fire; and how the machine gun in World War I so
overthrew traditional notions of combat that Lord Kitchener
exclaimed, "This isn't war " Indeed, as O'Connell points out, the
technology unleashed in the Great War radically changed our
perception of ourselves: weapons had made human qualities almost
irrelevant in combat. And with the invention of the atomic bomb,
humanity itself became subservient to the weapons they had
produced.
While its emphasis is historical, Of Arms and Men also draws on
such disciplines as biology, psychology, anthropology, sociology,
and literature to illuminate the course of arms. O'Connell
integrates the evolution of politics, weapons, strategy, and
tactics into a coherent narrative, one spiced with striking
portraits of men in combat and brilliant insight into why men go to
war.
Drawing upon anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, and literature, this brilliant insight into why men go to war traces the changes that have occurred in weapons and tactics since prehistoric times. Robert O'Connell demonstrates how the technology unleashed during World War I made human qualities almost irrelevant to the conduct of war, until now, in the nuclear age, humanity has become subservient to the weapons it has made.
The Ride of the Second Horseman is an ambitious examination of the origins, progress, and fate of war. In an accessible historical overview (5500 BC to the present), O'Connell lucidly depicts how specific cultural and economic conditions impact and alter warfare. Recent history leads O'Connell to conclude that, despite the violence in the world today, war is anachronistic and warfare may now be near its end.
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