Following on from his acclaimed book, The Battle for Wau, Phillip Bradley turns his attention to the Salamaua campaign - the first of the New Guinea offensives by the Australian Army in the Second World War. Opening with the pivotal air-sea battle of the Bismarck Sea, this important title recounts the fierce land campaign that was fought for the ridges that guarded the Japanese base at Salamaua. From Mount Tambu to Old Vickers and across the Francisco River, the Australians and their American allies fought a desperate struggle to keep the Imperial Japanese Army diverted from the strategic prize of Lae. To Salamaua covers the entire campaign in one volume for the first time. From the strategic background of the campaign and the heated conflicts, to the mud and blood of the front lines, this is the extraordinary story.

The Battle for Wau brings together for the first time the full story of the early World War II conflicts in New Guinea, from the landing of the Japanese at Salamaua in March 1942 to their defeat at Wau in February 1943. Phillip Bradley draws on the recollections of over 70 veterans from the campaign and on his own first-hand knowledge of the region. Beginning with the early commando operations in Salamaua, the story unfolds with the burning of Wau, the clashes around Mubo, the Japanese convoy to Lae and the United States air operation to Wau. The book climaxes with the fortitude of Captain Sherlock's outnumbered company. Desperately fighting an enemy regiment debouching from the rugged unguarded ranges to the east, Sherlock's men fought to hold Wau airfield open for the arrival of vital reinforcements.

"Democracy in America" has had the singular honor of being even to this day the work that polit?ical commentators of every stripe refer to when they seek to draw large conclusions about the soci?ety of the United States. Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, came to the young nation to investigate the functioning of American democracy and the social, political, and economic life of its citizens, publishing his observations in 1835 and 1840. Brilliantly written and vividly illustrated with vignettes and portraits, "Democracy in America" is far more than a trenchant analysis of one soci?ety at a particular point in time. What will most intrigue modern readers is how many of Tocqueville's observations still hold true: on the mixed advantages of a free press, the strained relations among the races, and the threats posed to democracies by consumerism and corruption.

So uncanny is Tocqueville's insight and so accurate are his predictions, that it seems as though he were not merely describing the American identity but actually helping to create it.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)