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Napoleon and de Gaulle: Heroes and History
By Patrice Gueniffey. 2020
One of France’s most famous historians compares two exemplars of political and military leadership to make the unfashionable case that…
individuals, for better and worse, matter in history. Historians have taught us that the past is not just a tale of heroes and wars. The anonymous millions matter and are active agents of change. But in democratizing history, we have lost track of the outsized role that individual will and charisma can play in shaping the world, especially in moments of extreme tumult. Patrice Gueniffey provides a compelling reminder in this powerful dual biography of two transformative leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles de Gaulle. Both became national figures at times of crisis and war. They were hailed as saviors and were eager to embrace the label. They were also animated by quests for personal and national greatness, by the desire to raise France above itself and lead it on a mission to enlighten the world. Both united an embattled nation, returned it to dignity, and left a permanent political legacy—in Napoleon’s case, a form of administration and a body of civil law; in de Gaulle’s case, new political institutions. Gueniffey compares Napoleon’s and de Gaulle’s journeys to power; their methods; their ideas and writings, notably about war; and their postmortem reputations. He also contrasts their weaknesses: Napoleon’s limitless ambitions and appetite for war and de Gaulle’s capacity for cruelty, manifested most clearly in Algeria. They were men of genuine talent and achievement, with flaws almost as pronounced as their strengths. As many nations, not least France, struggle to find their soul in a rapidly changing world, Gueniffey shows us what a difference an extraordinary leader can make.They Were Soldiers: The Sacrifices and Contributions of Our Vietnam Veterans
By Marvin J. Wolf, Joseph L. Galloway. 2020
They Were Soldiers showcases the inspiring true stories of 49 Vietnam veterans who returned home from the "lost war" to enrich America's present and future.…
In this groundbreaking new book, Joseph L. Galloway, distinguished war correspondent and New York Times bestselling author of We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young, and Marvin J. Wolf, Vietnam veteran and award-winning author, reveal the private lives of those who returned from Vietnam to make astonishing contributions in science, medicine, business, and other arenas, and change America for the better.For decades, the soldiers who served in Vietnam were shunned by the American public and ignored by their government. Many were vilified or had their struggles to reintegrate into society magnified by distorted depictions of veterans as dangerous or demented. Even today, Vietnam veterans have not received their due. Until now. These profiles are touching and courageous, and often startling.They include veterans both known and unknown, including:Frederick Wallace (&“Fred&”) Smith, CEO and founder of FedExMarshall Carter, chairman of the New York Stock ExchangeJustice Eileen Moore, appellate judge who also serves as a mentor in California's Combat Veterans CourtRichard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state under Colin PowellGuion &“Guy&” Bluford Jr., first African American in space Engrossing, moving, and eye-opening, They Were Soldiers is a magnificent tribute that gives long overdue honor and recognition to the soldiers of this "forgotten generation."Nomadology: The War Machine
By Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari. 1986
In this daring essay inspired by Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari redefine the relation between the state and its…
war machine. Far from being a part of the state, warriers (the army) are nomads who always come from the outside and keep threatening the authority of the state. In the same vein, nomadic science keeps infiltrating royal science, undermining its axioms and principles. Nomadology is a speedy, pocket-sized treatise that refuses to be pinned down. Theorizing a dynamic relationship between sedentary power and "schizophrenic lines of flight," this volume is meant to be read in transit, smuggled into urban nightclubs, offices, and subways. Deleuze and Guattari propose a creative and resistant ethics of becoming-imperceptible, strategizing a continuous invention of weapons on the run. An anarchic bricolage of ideas uprooted from anthropology, aesthetics, history, and military strategy, Nomadology carries out Deleuze's desire to "leave philosophy, but to leave it as a philosopher."European Warfare, 1494-1660 (Warfare and History)
By Jeremy Black. 2002
The onset of the Italian Wars in 1494, subsequently seen as the onset of 'modern warfare', provides the starting point…
for this impressive survey of European Warfare in early modern Europe. Huge developments in the logistics of war combined with exploration and expansion meant interaction with extra-European forms of military might. Jeremy Black looks at technological aspects of war as well social and political developments and effects during this key period of military history. This sharp and compact analysis contextualises European developments and as establishes the global significance of events in Europe.European Crisis Management and Defence: The Search for Capabilities (Adelphi series)
By Hans-Christian Hagman. 2002
Assesses the EU and NATO's tools to prevent conflicts and manage international crises. It offers a unique insight into European…
security policy and questions the realism of the political goals. It argues for more coordination among European states, and an enhancement of the EU's strategic decision-making capabilities.Alfred Von Schlieffen's Military Writings (Military History and Policy)
By Robert T. Foley. 2002
A collection of some of the writings of Generalfeldmarschall Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, one of the more intriguing of Imperial…
Germany's military figures. Schlieffens 15 years as Chief of the General staff left a stamp upon both military and political institutions of Wilhelmine Germany.In this volume, Professor Colin Gray develops and applies the theory and scholarship on the allegedly historical practice of the…
'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA), in order to improve our comprehension of how and why strategy 'works'.The author explores the RMA hypothesis both theoretically and historically. The book argues that the conduct of an RMA has to be examined as a form of strategic behaviour, which means that, of necessity, it must "work" as strategy works. The great RMA debate of the 1990s is reviewed empathetically, though sceptically, by the author, with every major school of thought allowed its day in court.The author presents three historical RMAs as case studies for his argument: those arguably revealed in the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon; in World War I; and in the nuclear age. The focus of his analysis is how these grand RMAs functioned strategically. The conclusions that he draws from these empirical exercises are then applied to help us understand what, indeed, is - and what is not - happening with the much vaunted information-technology-led RMA of today.Caporetto 1917: Victory or Defeat? (Military History and Policy)
By Mario Morselli. 2002
This work concerns the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917, where the Austro-German Army broke through the Italian lines forcing…
them to retreat after losing half their force. The book examines why, having routed the Italian Army, the Central Alliance forces were not capable of forcing the surrender of Italy.War, Science and Terrorism: From Laboratory to Open Conflict
By J Richardson. 2002
Describes the application of research to the evolution of weapons. It shows how natural, engineering, information and environmental sciences are…
exploited how even social science is applied to recruitment, battlefield and logistical management, and careful preparation of terroristic acts.Patrick Blackett: Sailor, Scientist, Socialist
By Peter Hore. 2002
This edited volume comprises a series of essays about Patrick Maynard Stewart Blackett, one of the greatest scientists of the…
20th century, as well as a prominent figure in the Royal Navy and British politics.This title focuses on one aspect of migration, namely its ethnic competition. Rather than observe population movements in general, the…
study is limited to the movements of specific ethnic groups. It explores the role played by ethnicity in determining which groups move and which groups stay.Begun within months of the war's outbreak, and not completed for a further 33 years, the writing of the Official…
Histories of World War I was a venture of unprecedented scale and complexity.Who, then, was responsible for producing such an enterprise?White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian
By Jamie Bisher. 2005
This is the gripping story of a forgotten Russia in turmoil, when the line between government and organized crime blurred…
into a chaotic continuum of kleptocracy, vengeance and sadism. It tells the tale of how, in the last days of 1917, a fugitive Cossack captain brashly led seven cohorts into a mutinous garrison at Manchuli, a squalid bordertown on Russia's frontier with Manchuria. The garrison had gone Red, revolted against its officers, and become a dangerous, ill-disciplined mob. Nevertheless, Cossack Captain Grigori Semionov cleverly harangued the garrison into laying down its arms and boarding a train that carried it back into the Bolsheviks' tenuous territory. Through such bold action, Semionov and a handful of young Cossack brethren established themselves as the warlords of Eastern Siberia and Russia's Pacific maritime provinces during the next bloody year. Like inland pirates, they menaced the Trans-Siberian Railroad with fleets of armoured trains, Cossack cavalry, mercenaries and pressgang cannon fodder. They undermined Admiral Kolchak's White armies, ruthlessly liquidated all Reds, terrorized the population, sold out to the Japanese, and antagonized the American Expeditionary Force and Czech Legion in a frenzied orchestration of the Russian Empire's gotterdammerung. Historians have long recognized that Ataman Semionov and Company were a nasty lot. This book details precisely how nasty they were.The Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation Building
By Tuong Vu, Sean Fear. 2020
Through the voices of senior officials, teachers, soldiers, journalists, and artists, The Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975, presents us with an…
interpretation of "South Vietnam" as a passionately imagined nation in the minds of ordinary Vietnamese, rather than merely as an expeditious political construct of the United States government.The moving and honest memoirs collected, translated, and edited here by Tuong Vu and Sean Fear describe the experiences of war, politics, and everyday life for people from many walks of life during the fraught years of Vietnam's Second Republic, leading up to and encompassing what Americans generally call the "Vietnam War." The voices gift the reader a sense of the authors' experiences in the Republic and their ideas about the nation during that time. The light and careful editing hand of Vu and Fear reveals that far from a Cold War proxy struggle, the conflict in Vietnam featured a true ideological divide between the communist North and the non-communist South.Problematics of Military Power: Government, Discipline and the Subject of Violence
By Michael S. Drake. 2002
This book traces the relations between the organization of violence and social and political order from ancient Rome to early…
modern Europe. Following the work of Michel Foucault, the author studies the ways authority, obedience and forms of self-conduct were produced by the micro-techniques used to govern the bodies of violence deployed in different forms of warfare.International Intervention: Sovereignty versus Responsibility
By Michael Keren, Donald A. Sylvan. 2002
National sovereignty, defined as a nation's right to exercise its own law and practise over its territory, is a cherished…
norm in the modern era, and yet it raises great legal, political and ethical dilemmas. This study looks at the problems created by international intervention.A Separate Space: Creating a Military Service for Space
By Michael Spirtas, Forrest E. Morgan, Frank Camm, Debra Knopman, John S. Crown, Yool Kim, Shirley M. Ross, Sebastian Joon Bae, M. Scott Bond, Elaine Simmons. 2020
As the United States creates the Space Force as a service within the Department of the Air Force, RAND assessed…
which units to bring into the Space Force, analyzed career field sustainability, and drew lessons from other defense organizations. The report focuses on implications for effectiveness, efficiency, independence, and sense of identity for the new service.Trends in Russia's Armed Forces: An Overview of Budgets and Capabilities
By Olga Oliker, Keith Crane, Brian Nichiporuk. 2019
The authors assess how Russian military forces are postured and resourced and how they are likely to operate. They also…
discuss the goals and effects of Russian military reform efforts, including initiatives that span all of the Russian armed forces’ services and independent branches. Touching on most of Russia’s armed forces’ major capabilities, the authors conclude with a look at how those capabilities are being integrated in practice.Before and After the Cold War: Using Past Forecasts to Predict the Future
By George H. Quester. 2002
The end of the Cold War came as good news for most of the world. No one had predicted the…
collapse of Communist rule for several decades. This book looks at how political scientists failed to predict such a quick resolution and ways in which the world might develop post Cold War.