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This book, the latest in the International Child Neurology Review
series, is the first authoritative synthesis of the role of vitamin
treatments in children with neurological disorders. It covers all
the conditions seen in paediatric neurology that are treatable by
vitamin supplementation and consists of up-to-date, concise reviews
by an international group of experts in their specific fields. They
cover: biotinidase deficiency; the role of vitamins in the
developing nervous system, mitochondrial disorders and autism;
homocysteinuria; conditions responsive to vitamin E or riboflavin;
disorders of folic acid and vitamin B12 metabolism; folinic acid
responsive seizures, and all aspects of pyridoxine-dependent and
pyridoxine-responsive seizures. It is the first time that clinical
and data research in this field has been drawn together in one
source, making available previously unpublished material. This will
be a unique data resource for anyone involved in the care of
children with vitamin-responsive neurological disorders.
The fate of the lost Franklin Expedition of 1847 is an enigma that
has tantalised generations of historians, archaeologists and
adventurers. The expedition was lost without a trace and all 129
men died in what is arguably the worst disaster in Britain's
history of polar exploration. In the aftermath of the crew's
disappearance, Lady Jane Franklin, Sir John's widow, maintained a
crusade to secure her husband's reputation, imperiled alongside him
and his crew in the frozen wastes of the Artic. Lady Franklin was
an uncommon woman for her age, a socially and politically astute
figure who ravaged anyone who she viewed as a threat to her
husband's legacy. Meanwhile John Rae, an explorer and employee of
the Hudson Bay Company, recovered deeply disturbing information
from the Expedition. His shocking conclusions embroiled him in a
bitter dispute with Lady Franklin which led to the ruin of his
reputation and career. Against the background of Victorian society
and the rise of the explorer celebrity, we learn of Lady Franklin's
formidable grit to honour her husband's legacy; of John Rae being
discredited and his eventual ruin, despite later being proven
right. It is a fascinating assessment of the aftermath of the
Franklin Expedition and its legacy.
It is 25 years since the end of the Cold War, now a generation old.
It began over 75 years ago, in 1944 long before the last shots of
the Second World War had echoed across the wastelands of Eastern
Europe with the brutal Greek Civil War. The battle lines are no
longer drawn, but they linger on, unwittingly or not, in conflict
zones such as Iraq, Somalia and Ukraine. In an era of mass-produced
AK-47s and ICBMs, one such flashpoint was the Middle East On the
afternoon of 6 October, 1973, the colossus of the Israeli Defence
Forces was awakened by a wave of airstrikes, followed by an
artillery bombardment along the Suez Canal that preceded a
meticulously planned Egyptian invasion of the Israeli-held Sinai.
Simultaneously, a massive Syrian armoured assault bore down on
Israeli positions on the Golan Heights. The day was Yom Kippur, the
most holy day on the Jewish religious calendar, and the
commencement of a war that would bring the young state of Israel to
the very brink of defeat.In the aftermath of the Six-Day War of
1967, a stunning Arab reversal at the hands of the untested Israeli
Defence Forces, Israel occupied and held Arab territory on the West
Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. These were for the
most part territorial buffer zones, retained to protect Israel
against an inevitable future war, but their ongoing occupation
remained an open diplomatic wound. In the meanwhile, a mood of
complacency came to affect the Israeli military machine, in the
belief that air and armoured dominance of the battlefield would, as
had been the case in 1967, guarantee a quick victory in any future
war. The Yom Kippur War proved the fallacy of this belief,
revealing critical weaknesses in Israeli intelligence capability
and battlefield strategy. The ferocity and effectiveness of the
combined invasion pushed the much-storied Israeli armed forces
almost to the point of collapse. Only the rapid resupply of arms
and equipment by the United States, and a display of extraordinary
reliance and determination by the fighting forces of Israel,
rescued the young state from annihilation.The story of the Yom
Kippur War is an object lesson in the dynamism of military
thinking, the evolution of battlefield technology and the uneasy
alliance of east and west during the Cold War era of d tente.Yom
Kippur was both a military and political manoeuvre that adjusted
the balance of power in the Middle East, and set the tone for the
ideological stand-off that continues in the region to this day
The Second World War forever altered the complexion of the British
Empire. From Cyprus to Malaya, from Borneo to Suez, the dominoes
began to fall within a decade of peace in Europe. Africa in the
late 1940s and 1950s was energized by the grant of independence to
India, and the emergence of a credible indigenous intellectual and
political caste that was poised to inherit control from the waning
European imperial powers. The British on the whole managed to
disengage from Africa with a minimum of ill feeling and violence,
conceding power in the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone under
an orderly constitutional process, and engaging only in the
suppression of civil disturbances in Nyasaland and Northern
Rhodesia as the practicalities of a political handover were
negotiated. In Kenya, however, matters were different. A vociferous
local settler lobby had accrued significant economic and political
authority under a local legislature, coupled with the fact that
much familial pressure could be brought to bear in Whitehall by
British settlers of wealth and influence, most of whom were utterly
irreconciled to the notion of any kind of political handover. Mau
Mau was less than a liberation movement, but much more than a mere
civil disturbance. Its historic importance is based primarily on
the fact that the Mau Mau campaign was one of the first violent
confrontations in sub-Saharan Africa to take place over the
question of the self-determination of the masses. It also
epitomized the quandary suffered by the white settler communities
of Africa who had been promised utopia in an earlier century, only
to be confronted in a post-war world by the completely unexpected
reality of black political aspiration. This book journeys through
the birth of British East Africa as a settled territory of the
Empire, and the inevitable politics of confrontation that emerged
from the unequal distribution of resources and power. It covers the
emergence and growth of Mau Mau, and the strategies applied by the
British to confront and nullify what was in reality a tactically
inexpert, but nonetheless powerfully symbolic black expression of
political violence. That Mau Mau set the tone for Kenyan
independence somewhat blurred the clean line of victory and defeat.
The revolt was suppressed and peace restored, but events in the
colony were nevertheless swept along by the greater movement of
Africa toward independences, resulting in the eventual
establishment of majority rule in Kenya in 1964.
This is the first complete history of Rhodesia, the country founded by Empire Builder, Cecil John Rhodes. It tells how Rhodes’ men engaged Lobengula, the Matabele king, in lengthy negotiations while at the same time seeking a Royal Charter and the right for white pioneers to occupy Mashonaland. It tells of the Pioneer Column and the occupation in 1890, the Matabele War, the Matabele and Mashona rebellions, Rhodesian military involvement in the Boer War and World War I when Rhodesians fought for King and country in SW Africa, East Africa and on the Western Front.
Baxter explains the granting of self government by Britain in 1923 and the rapid development that took place between the wars, including the realisation of the tobacco dream. He writes about Rhodesian involvement in World War II when conscription was introduced as a necessity to halt a flood of volunteers that had become so great that if it had not been stopped it would have damaged the economy of the country. Men and women were detached to British and South African units to avoid the savage casualties of World War I when volunteers had fought in purely Rhodesian units. In this way the Rhodesians fought in every theatre of war, on land, sea and in the air.
Baxter details the tide of white immigration after the war, the establishment and breakup of the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland and the rising political awareness of the black populace. The bid for full independence from Britain and finally UDI when Rhodesians went alone despite comprehensive UN sanctions. He details the rising tide of the Bush War waged by black nationalists, sustained by the military support of the Soviet Bloc and Red China, and finally the Lancaster House talks that led to a ‘free and fair’ British and Commonwealth supervised elections which led to the black demagogue Robert Mugabe coming to power.
Throughout this historical tapestry the author has skilfully threaded in the many often larger-than-life personalities who shaped Rhodesia’s destiny from the early characters like Cecil John Rhodes, Leander Starr Jameson, Frank Johnson, King Lobengula, Archibald Colquhoun and many others, to the later ones like Godfrey Huggins, Sir Edgar Whitehead, Sir Roy Welensky, Garfield Todd, Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe, Ian Smith and a host of others.
Winner of the 2011 BMA book awards: medicine category In the five
decades since its first publication, Hunter's Diseases of
Occupations has remained the pre-eminent text on diseases caused by
work, universally recognized as the most authoritative source of
information in the field. It is an important guide for doctors in
all disciplines who may encounter occupational diseases in their
practice, covering topics as diverse as work and stress,
asbsetos-related disease, working at high altitude and major
chemical incidents, many of which are highly topical. The Tenth
Edition of Hunter's Diseases of Occupations has been fully revised
and updated, presenting all practitioners considering an
occupational cause for a patient's condition with comprehensive
coverage of work-related diseases as they present in modern and
developing industralised societies. It draws on the wide-ranging
and in-depth clinical knowledge and experience, and acadmic
excellence, of top experts in the field.
South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfighting over Cuito
Cuanavale, the largest tank battle on African soil since El
Alamein; Puma troopships shot out of the skies by Strela missiles
and RPG-7 rockets; Alouette III gunships hovering menacingly above
Koevoet tracker-combat teams as they close in for the kill;
Hercules and Transall transports disgorging their loads of Parabats
over Cassinga; suicidal helicopter hot-extractions of Recce
operators deep in enemy territory; and a lone Alouette pilot who
disobeyed orders and under intense ground fire evacuated a
critically wounded soldier ... such is the story of the South
African Air Force, the SAAF, over the 23-year period 1966-1989, the
period of conflict that became known as the 'Border War'. Set
against the backdrop of the Cold War, the SAAF was effectively
South Africa's first line of defence against Soviet expansionism in
southern Africa. That the Soviets, through their surrogates - the
Cuban military, Angola's FAPLA and Namibia's SWAPO - sought a
communist regime in South Africa is indisputable, as too was the
SAAF's skill, quality, determination and capability to defeat the
best Soviet air defences of the time. This account covers all the
major operations that the SAAF was involved in, from Operation
Blouwildebees, the opening salvo of the conflict at Omgulumbashe,
South West Africa in 1966 to the final curtain, Operation Merlyn,
the so-called April Fool's Day 'war' of 1989 when the SAAF and
Koevoet, almost alone, frustrated SWAPO's last throw of the dice
with its illegal invasion of South West Africa. In this account,
highlighting such operations as Reindeer, Bootlace/Uric, Sceptic,
Protea, Daisy, Askari, Moduler, Hooper and Packer, among many, as
well as the ongoing methodological operations like Lunar, Maanskyn,
Donkermaan and Butterfly, Baxter examines and brings to life the
squadrons and aviators that fought in both counter-insurgency and
conventional warfare roles. Besides an extensive selection of rare
photographs, the book features a comprehensive section on
camouflage and markings and 11 pages of colour aircraft profiles
and insignia by noted SAAF authority William Marshall, making this
title especially useful for modelers.
Nigeria was a unique concept in the formation of modern Africa. It
began life as a highly lucrative if climatically challenging
holding of the Royal Niger Company, a British Chartered Company
under the control of Victorian capitalist Sir George Taubman
Goldie. It was handed over to indigenous rule in 1960 with the best
of intentions and a profound hope on the part of the British Crown
that it would become the poster child of successful political
transition in Africa. It did not. One of the signal failures of
imperial strategists at the turn of the 19th century was to take
little if any account of the traditional demographics of the
territories and societies that were subdivided, and often joined
together, into spheres of foreign influence, later evolving into
colonies, and finally into nation states. Many of the signature
crises in post-colonial Africa have owed their origins to this very
phenomenon: incompatible and mutually antagonistic tribal and
ethnic groupings forced to cohabit within the indivisible precincts
of political geography. Congo, Rwanda/Burundi, Sudan and many
others have suffered ongoing attrition within their borders as
historic enmities surge and boil in restless and ongoing violence.
Such was the case with Nigeria in the post-independence period. The
traditions and practices of the Islamic north and the
Christian/Animist south, and even within the multiplicity of ethnic
division in the south itself, proved to be impossible to reconcile.
The result was an immediate centrifuge away from the centre,
complicated by the vast infusion of oil revenues and the inevitable
explosion of corruption that followed. All of this created the
alchemy of civil war and genocide, which erupted into violence in
1967 as the eastern region of Nigeria attempted to secede. The war
that followed shocked the conscience of the world, and revealed for
the first time the true depth of incompatibility of the four
partners in the Nigerian federation. This book traces the early
history of Nigeria from inception to civil war, and the complex
events that defined the conflict in Biafra, revealing how and why
this awful event played out, and the scars that it has since left
on the psyche of the disunited federation that has continued to
exist in the aftermath.
It has been over four decades since the Union Jack was lowered on
the colony of Rhodesia, but the bitter and divisive civil war that
preceded it has continued to endure as a textbook
counter-insurgency campaign fought between a mobile, motivated and
highly trained Rhodesian security establishment and two constituted
liberations movements motivated, resourced and inspired by the
ideals of communist revolution in the third world. A complicated
historical process of occupation and colonization set the tone as
early as the late 1890s for what would at some point be an
inevitable struggle for domination of this small, landlocked nation
set in the southern tropics of Africa. The story of the Rhodesian
War, or the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle, is not only an epic of
superb military achievement, and revolutionary zeal and fervour,
but is the tale of the incompatibility of the races in southern
Africa, a clash of politics and ideals and, perhaps more
importantly, the ongoing ramifications of the past upon the
present, and the social and political scars that a war of such
emotional underpinnings as the Rhodesian conflict has had on the
modern psyche of Zimbabwe. The Rhodesian War was fought with finely
tuned intelligence-gathering and -analysis techniques combined with
a fluid and mobile armed response. The practitioners of both have
justifiably been celebrated in countless histories, memoirs and
campaign analyses, but what has never been attempted has been a
concise, balanced and explanatory overview of the war, the military
mechanisms and the social and political foundations that defined
the crisis. This book does all of that. The Rhodesian War is
explained in digestible detail and in a manner that will allow
enthusiasts of the elements of that struggle - the iconic exploits
of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, the SAS, the Selous Scouts, the
Rhodesian African Rifles, the Rhodesia Regiment, among other
well-known fighting units - to embrace the wider picture in order
to place the various episodes in context.
Nigeria was a unique concept in the formation of modern Africa. It
began life as a highly lucrative if climatically challenging
holding of the Royal Niger Company, a British Chartered Company
under the control of Victorian capitalist Sir George Taubman
Goldie. It was handed over to indigenous rule in 1960 with the best
of intentions and a profound hope on the part of the British Crown
that it would become the poster child of successful political
transition in Africa. It did not. One of the signature failures of
imperial strategists at the turn of the 19th century was to take
little if any account of the traditional demographics of the
territories and societies that were subdivided, and often joined
together, into spheres of foreign influence, later evolving into
colonies, and finally into nation states. Many of the signature
crises in post-colonial Africa have owed their origins to this very
phenomenon: incompatible and mutually antagonistic tribal and
ethnic groupings forced to cohabit within the indivisible precincts
of political geography. Congo, Rwanda/Burundi, Sudan and many
others have suffered ongoing attrition within their borders as
historic enmities surge and boil in restless and ongoing violence.
Such was the case with Nigeria in the post-independence period. The
traditions and practices of the Islamic north and the
Christian/Animist south, and even within the multiplicity of ethnic
division in the south itself, proved to be impossible to reconcile.
The result was an immediate centrifuge away from the centre,
complicated by the vast infusion of oil revenues and the inevitable
explosion of corruption that followed. All of this created the
alchemy of civil war and genocide, which erupted into violence in
1967 as the eastern region of Nigeria attempted to secede. The war
that followed shocked the conscience of the world, and revealed for
the first time the true depth of incompatibility of the four
partners in the Nigerian federation.
France in Centrafrique explores the early colonial and
post-colonial history of French Equatorial Africa with a particular
emphasis on the role of the Central African Republic in the Second
World War and the Free French Movement. One of the key figures to
emerge from this period, and a man who would shape the modern
destiny of the Central African Republic, was Jean-Bedel Bokassa.
Bokassa served alongside the Free French under General Charles de
Gaulle and later in the metropolitan French military as an NCO in
Indo-China. The narrative traces his ascent from these humble
beginnings to his position as one of the region's most notorious
dictators, exploring both his excesses of violence and personal
aggrandizement and the role played by France and the wide-reaching
Foccart intelligence network in his rise and fall. Baxter examines
the past and present relationship of France with her erstwhile
African colonial possessions, giving substance to the cause and
effect of the many French interventions and the play of various
individual personalities, both French and African, and how this has
affected the current complexion of the region and its ongoing
relationship with France. The book traces the overt and covert
French military actions in the region, the rise of internal
violence and insecurity and the increasing involvement of the
international community in the series of coups and counter-coups
that characterized the 1990s and the new century. Featured are
Operation Barracuda, Operations Almandin I, II and II, Operation
Boali and the various regional, international and European regional
interventions.
Towards the end of 1906, a meeting took place between two emerging
giants of the age, Mohandas K. Gandhi and General Jan Christian
Smuts. United under the same empire, but separated by distance and
culture, Smuts was born in the Cape Colony, and Gandhi in
Porbandar, a duchy of the Indian province of Gujarat. Both,
however, went on to study law in Britain, and while developing a
great admiration for the institutions of empire, each man also
suffered his own particular crisis of faith. From their widely
dispersed origins, Gandhi and Smuts collided over the issue of race
and equality in a turbulent province of the empire, each attempting
to hold the British to their stated ideals. This insightful book
explores attitudes to race, and belonging, in an age when the
English speaking peoples straddled the globe, and sought to impose
on all of their subject races, basking under the radiance of
Britannia, a common ideal of parity, equal opportunity and free
movement.
The end of the Cold War introduced an altered global dynamic. The
old bond of East/West patronage in Africa was broken, weakening the
first crop of independent revolutionary leadership on the continent
who no longer had the support of one or other of the superpowers.
With collapse of the Soviet Union, all this changed. The question
of global/strategic security devolved into regional peacekeeping
and peace enforcement, characterized primarily by the Balkans War,
but also many other minor regional squabbles across the developing
world that erupted as old regimes fell and nations sought to build
unity out of the ashes. In Africa the situation was exacerbated by
an inherent tribalism and factionalism that had tended to be
artificially suppressed by powerful, often military, dictatorships,
generally unconcerned with the needs and requirements of an
oppressed population. No more striking example of this can be found
than Somalia. One of the only effective armed resistance movements
mounted against European colonisation in Africa took place in
Somalia, which was suppressed only after enormous military
expenditure. The crisis in Somalia that began to take shape with
the ouster of military leader Mohammed Siad Barre during the early
years of the 1990s forced both the United States and the United
Nations to adapt their collective military policy toward the
challenges of peacekeeping, and peace enforcement, in a human
environment only dimly understood, extremely austere in terms of
local infrastructure and with a warring clan leadership. This book
tells the story of the international intervention that took place
in Somalia, the successes, failures and lessons learned. Many broad
assumptions were made based on an unclear understanding of the
dynamics of a regional conflict, coupled with the necessity for the
first time in modern military history to balance political
necessities with military. The crisis in Somalia set the tone for
military intervention in a post-Cold War world, and although the
same mistakes have been depressingly often repeated, the complexion
of global military organization changed dramatically as a
consequence of this episode.
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