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Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema
By Elizabeth Reich. 2016
Militant Visions examines how, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the cinematic figure of the black soldier helped change the…
ways American moviegoers saw black men, for the first time presenting African Americans as vital and integrated members of the nation. In the process, Elizabeth Reich reveals how the image of the proud and powerful African American serviceman was crafted by an unexpected alliance of government propagandists, civil rights activists, and black filmmakers. Contextualizing the figure in a genealogy of black radicalism and internationalism, Reich shows the evolving images of black soldiers to be inherently transnational ones, shaped by the displacements of diaspora, Third World revolutionary philosophy, and a legacy of black artistry and performance. Offering a nuanced reading of a figure that was simultaneously conservative and radical, Reich considers how the cinematic black soldier lent a human face to ongoing debates about racial integration, black internationalism, and American militarism. Militant Visions thus not only presents a new history of how American cinema represented race, but also demonstrates how film images helped to make history, shaping the progress of the civil rights movement itself.El Fuego Griego y su contribución al poder bizantino
By E2e, Konstantinos Karatolios. 2006
Una maravilla como el Imperio Bizantino de los mil años no podría haber sido lograda sin sus fuerzas armadas, que…
le permitieron mantener su poder frente a los constantes retos que le presentaban enemigos externos de naturalezas significativamente diferentes. En un contexto así, lo heredado de los romanos era tan importante como la adopción de nuevas armas y tácticas de batalla. El Fuego Griego, pese a no ser la más importante arma, era ciertamente la que más fama cosechó. Fue utilizada en todo el imperio ayudando a conseguir espectaculares victorias a su marina. Este arma aterradora marcó época, y pese a ello todo lo que sabemos sobre su historia se encuentra difuminado por la vaguedad de los escritos contemporáneos. En este trabajo, Konstantinos Karatolios trata de responder una serie de preguntas relacionadas con el Fuego Griego: ¿Cuál era la fórmula? ¿Qué efectividad poseía? ¿Quién es su verdadero creador? ¿Cómo se utilizaba en batallas de tierra y mar? Este libro trata de no solo ofrecer una visión breve y global sobre el estado actual de las investigaciones que puede ser fácilmente leída por no especialistas, haciendo al mismo tiempo una contribución a su estudio respetando los métodos de investigación académicos.O Fogo Grego e a sua contribuição para o poderio Bizantino
By Adelaide Franco Nikolic, Konstantinos Karatolios. 2017
A supremacia do Império Bizantino, que durou mil anos, não poderia ter sido alcançada sem as suas forças armadas, o…
que lhe permitiu manter o seu poder face aos constantes desafios de inimigos externos, que diferiam significativamente na sua natureza. Neste contexto, o que tinha sido herdado dos Romanos foi tão importante como a adoção de novas armas e táticas de combate. O Fogo Grego, se não a mais importante dessas armas, foi, certamente, a que alcançou a maior fama. Foi usado ao longo da duração do Império Bizantino e garantiu vitórias retumbantes à sua marinha. Esta terrível arma era lendária, mas quase tudo o que sabemos sobre ela e o seu uso está obscurecido pela ambiguidade dos relatos contemporâneos. Neste trabalho, Konstantinos Karatolios tenta responder a uma série de perguntas sobre o Fogo Grego: Qual era a sua fórmula? Quão eficaz era? Quem foi o seu verdadeiro inventor? Como era usado em batalhas em terra e no mar? Este livro tem como objetivo, não só fornecer uma visão geral do estado atual da pesquisa, que pode ser facilmente lida por não-especialistas, mas também dar a sua própria contribuição para o estudo do assunto, respeitando os métodos de investigação académica.A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind
By Michael Axworthy. 2010
Iran is a land of contradictions. It is an Islamic republic, but one in which only 1.4 percent of the…
population attend Friday prayers. Iran's religious culture encompasses the most censorious and dogmatic Shi'a Muslim clerics in the world, yet its poetry insistently dwells on the joys of life: wine, beauty, sex. Iranian women are subject to one of the most restrictive dress codes in the Islamic world, but make up nearly 60 percent of the student population of the nation's universities. In A History of Iran, acclaimed historian Michael Axworthy chronicles the rich history of this complex nation from the Achaemenid Empire of sixth century B.C. to the present-day Islamic Republic. In engaging prose, this revised edition explains the military, political, religious, and cultural forces that have shaped one of the oldest continuing civilizations in the world, bringing us up modern times. Concluding with an assessment of the immense changes the nation has undergone since the revolution in 1979, including a close look at Iran's ongoing attempts to become a nuclear power, A History of Iran offers general readers an essential guide to understanding this volatile nation, which is once again at the center of the world's attention.The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State
By Shlomo Avineri. 1981
An expanded edition of a classic intellectual history of Zionism, now covering the rise of religious Zionism since the 1970sFor…
eighteen centuries pious Jews had prayed for the return to Jerusalem, but only in the revolutionary atmosphere of nineteenth-century Europe was this yearning transformed into an active political movement: Zionism. In The Making of Modern Zionism, the distinguished political scientist Shlomo Avineri rejects the common view that Zionism was solely a reaction to anti-Semitism and persecution. Rather, he sees it as part of the universal quest for self-determination. In sharply-etched intellectual profiles of Zionism's major thinkers from Moses Hess to Theodore Herzl and from Vladimir Jabotinsky to David Ben Gurion, Avineri traces the evolution of this quest from its intellectual origins in the early nineteenth century to the establishment of the State of Israel. In an expansive new epilogue, he tracks the changes in Israeli society and politics since 1967 which have strengthened the more radical nationalist and religious trends in Zionism at the expense of its more liberal strains. The result is a book that enables us to understand, as perhaps never before, one of the truly revolutionary ideas of our time.At times, even his admirers seemed unsure of what to do with General Douglas MacArthur. Imperious, headstrong, and vain, MacArthur…
matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific--the first in the history of warfare--secured America’s triumph in World War II and changed the course of history. In The Most Dangerous Man in America, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour. As Perry shows, Franklin Roosevelt and a handful of MacArthur’s subordinates made this feat possible, taming MacArthur, making him useful, and finally making him victorious. A gripping, authoritative biography of the Pacific Theater’s most celebrated and misunderstood commander, The Most Dangerous Man in America reveals the secrets of Douglas MacArthur’s success--and the incredible efforts of the men who made it possible.The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition: A Compendium of Knowledge from the Classical Islamic World
By Elias Muhanna, Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri. 2016
For the first time in English, a catalog of the world through fourteenth-century Arab eyes--a kind of Schott's Miscellany for…
the Islamic Golden Age An astonishing record of the knowledge of a civilization, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition catalogs everything known to exist from the perspective of a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar and litterateur. More than 9,000 pages and thirty volumes--here abridged to one volume, and translated into English for the first time--it contains entries on everything from medieval moon-worshipping cults, sexual aphrodisiacs, and the substance of clouds, to how to get the smell of alcohol off one's breath, the deliciousness of cheese made from buffalo milk, and the nesting habits of flamingos. Similar works by Western authors, including Pliny's Natural History, have been available in English for centuries. This groundbreaking translation of a remarkable Arabic text--expertly abridged and annotated--offers a look at the world through the highly literary and impressively knowledgeable societies of the classical Islamic world. Meticulously arranged and delightfully eclectic, it is a compendium to be treasured--a true monument of erudition.From the Trade Paperback edition.Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America's Special Operations Forces
By Mark Moyar. 2017
Oppose Any Foe is the epic story of America's most elite warriors: the Special Operations Forces. Born as small appendages…
to the conventional armies of World War II, the Special Operations Forces have grown into a behemoth of 70,000 troops, including Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, Air Force Night Stalkers, Special Operations Marines, Rangers, and Delta Force. Weaving together their triumphs and tribulations, acclaimed historian Mark Moyar introduces a colorful cast of military men, brimming with exceptional talent, courage and selflessness.In a nation where the military is the most popular institution, America's Special Operations Forces have become the most popular members of the military. Through nighttime raids on enemy compounds and combat advising of resistance movements, special operators have etched their names into the nation's registry of heroes. Yet the public knows little of the journey that they took to reach these heights, a journey that was neither easy nor glamorous.Fighting an uphill battle for most of their seventy-five year history, the Special Operations Forces slipped on many an occasion, and fell far on several. Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama have enthusiastically championed Special Operations Forces, but their enthusiasm has often surpassed their understanding, resulting in misuse or overuse of the troops. Lacking clearly defined missions, Special Operations Forces have had to reinvent themselves time and again to prove their value in the face of fierce critics-many of them from the conventional military, which from the start opposed the segregation of talent in special units.Highlighting both the heroism of America's most elite soldiers and the controversies surrounding their meteoric growth, Oppose Any Foe presents the first comprehensive history of these special warriors and their daring missions. It is essential reading for anyone interested in America's military history-and the future of warfare.The Middle East: A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guides)
By Philip Robins. 2016
The Middle East- the uprisings, the fallen leaders, the insurgencies and civil conflict plaguing the regionIn this pioneering introduction, Oxford…
University's Philip Robins argues that the region is plagued by the same problems that afflict the rest of the developing world. With each chapter focusing on a topic essential to a rounded understanding of the region, Robins weaves together the disparate countries into a coherent and entertaining narrative. From leadership and gender to religion and society, The Middle East: A Beginner's Guide is replete with case studies, astute analysis, profiles of key personalities, and even jokes from the region. There is no better resource for understanding the modern Middle East.The Shining Sea: David Porter and the Epic Voyage of the U.S.S. Essex during the War of 1812
By George C. Daughan. 2013
Shortly after the outbreak of the War of 1812, Captain David Porter set out at the helm of the USS…
Essex, intent on rounding Cape Horn and hunting British whaling and merchant ships in the Pacific Ocean. Porter’s odyssey took him to exotic isles and brought glory to the fledgling American navy, and in The Shining Sea, celebrated historian George C. Daughan tells the full story of this historic voyage for the first time. Porter’s cruise is now regarded as the greatest maritime adventure of the period, but his monomaniacal quest to capture a British man-of-war ultimately cost him his ship and the lives of over two-thirds of his crew--a disgraceful end to a daring journey. A thrilling narrative of risk and ruin on the high seas, The Shining Sea brings to life one of the war’s greatest tragedies, capturing Porter’s immense hubris and his cataclysmic failure.The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History
By Don Oberdorfer, Robert Carlin. 2014
Ever since Korea was first divided at the end of World War II, the tension between its northern and southern…
halves has rivetedand threatened to embroilthe rest of the world. In this landmark history, now thoroughly revised and updated in conjunction with Korea expert Robert Carlin, veteran journalist Don Oberdorfer grippingly describes how a historically homogenous people became locked in a perpetual struggle for supremacyand how they might yet be reconciled.Where Have All the Flowers Gone? The Diary of Molly MacKenzie Flaherty (Dear America)
By Ellen Emerson White. 2002
In 1968 Massachusetts, after her brother Patrick goes to fight in Vietnam, fifteen-year-old Molly records in her diary how she…
misses her brother, volunteers at a Veterans' Administration Hospital, and tries to make sense of the Vietnam War and tumultuous events in the United States. Includes historical notes.Foreign Fighters under International Law and Beyond
By Christophe Paulussen, Andrea De Guttry, Francesca Capone. 2016
This book offers various perspectives, with an international legal focus, on an important and underexplored topic, which has recently gained…
momentum: the issue of foreign fighters. It provides an overview of challenges, pays considerable attention to the status of foreign fighters, and addresses numerous approaches, both at the supranational and national level, on how to tackle this problem. Outstanding experts in the field - lawyers, historians and political scientists - contributed to the present volume, providing the reader with a multitude of views concerning this multifaceted phenomenon. Particular attention is paid to its implications in light of the armed conflicts currently taking place in Syria and Iraq. Andrea de Guttry is a Full Professor of International Law at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy. Francesca Capone is a Research Fellow in Public International Law at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. Christophe Paulussen is a Senior Researcher at the T. M. C. Asser Instituut in The Hague, the Netherlands, and a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague.The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East
By Eugene Rogan. 2015
In 1914 the Ottoman Empire was depleted of men and resources after years of war against Balkan nationalist and Italian…
forces. But in the aftermath of the assassination in Sarajevo, the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and not even the Middle East could escape the vast and enduring consequences of one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. The Great War spelled the end of the Ottomans, unleashing powerful forces that would forever change the face of the Middle East. In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region’s crucial role in the conflict. Bolstered by German money, arms, and military advisors, the Ottomans took on the Russian, British, and French forces, and tried to provoke Jihad against the Allies in their Muslim colonies. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies’ favor. The great cities of Baghdad, Jerusalem, and, finally, Damascus fell to invading armies before the Ottomans agreed to an armistice in 1918. The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands between the victorious powers, and laid the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.The Taste of Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World
By Lizzie Collingham. 2017
A history of the British Empire told through twenty meals eaten around the worldIn The Taste of Empire, acclaimed historian…
Lizzie Collingham tells the story of how the British Empire's quest for food shaped the modern world. Told through twenty meals over the course of 450 years, from the Far East to the New World, Collingham explains how Africans taught Americans how to grow rice, how the East India Company turned opium into tea, and how Americans became the best-fed people in the world. In The Taste of Empire, Collingham masterfully shows that only by examining the history of Great Britain's global food system, from sixteenth-century Newfoundland fisheries to our present-day eating habits, can we fully understand our capitalist economy and its role in making our modern diets.The Lonely War: One Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran
By Nazila Fathi. 1979
As a nine-year-old Tehrani schoolgirl during the Iranian Revolution, Nazila Fathi watched her country change before her eyes. The revolutionaries--most…
of them poor, uneducated, and radicalized--seized jobs, housing, and positions of power, transforming Iranian society practically overnight. But this socioeconomic revolution had an unintended effect. As Fathi shows, the forces unleashed in 1979 inadvertently created a robust Iranian middle class, one that today hungers for more personal freedoms and a renewed relationship with the outside world. And unless an international confrontation allows Iranian leaders to justify an internal crackdown, this internal pressure for reform will soon set the country on a more stable track. In The Lonely War, Fathi describes Iran’s awakening alongside her own, revealing how moderates are retaking the country--and how foreign powers can aid their progress.1812: The Navy's War
By George C. Daughan. 2011
At the outbreak of the War of 1812, America’s prospects looked dismal. It was clear that the primary battlefield would…
be the open oceanbut America’s war fleet, only twenty ships strong, faced a practiced British navy of more than a thousand men-of-war. Still, through a combination of nautical deftness and sheer bravado, the American navy managed to take the fight to the British and turn the tide of the war: on the Great Lakes, in the Atlantic, and even in the eastern Pacific. In 1812: The Navy’s War, prizewinning historian George C. Daughan tells the thrilling story of how a handful of heroic captains and their stalwart crews overcame spectacular odds to lead the country to victory against the world’s greatest imperial power. A stunning contribution to military and national history, 1812: The Navy’s War is the first complete account in more than a century of how the U. S. Navy rescued the fledgling nation and secured America’s future.The Arabs: A History
By Eugene Rogan. 2009
This excellent history of the Middle East, a paperbound reprint of the 2009 edition, provides readers with a compelling narrative…
that explains the current state of the wider Arab world through an exploration of the major periods in its recent history. Divided chronologically, the work examines the period of Ottoman rule from 1516 to the early 1800s, the era of European colonization, the Cold War era, and the ongoing period of U. S. intervention. Drawing on primary source material, the work discusses the continuity of Arab culture in relation to dominating external powers and provides a cogent analysis of the current political and religious conflicts gripping the nations of the Arab world. The work includes a collection of color plates. Rogan is a professor of Middle East studies at St. Anthony's College, Oxford. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East
By Shibley Telhami. 2013
The uprisings that transformed the Middle East beginning in 2011 have left experts scrambling to understand where the region is…
likely to go in years to come. But missing from most of the analysis is a longer view of the evolution of Arab Public opinion and identity and how this is likely to influence this fast-changing region. In The World Through Arab Eyes, Shibley Telhami shows how the roots of these rebellions stretch back decades and explains how they will continue to affect the stability of the Middle East in the years to come. Telhami draws on a decade’s worth of polling data and analysis to provide a comprehensive look at this evolution of Arab identity and opinion. The demand for dignity, which was foremost in the chants of millions of Arab demonstrators, went far beyond being a struggle for food” and individual rights. Telhami identifies the key prisms through which Arabs view issues ranging from democracy and religion to foreign actors, including the United States, European and Asian countries, Iran, Turkey, and, centrally, Israel. These prisms provide a key to interpreting the past, comprehending the seismic changes in Arab politics today, and engaging with the region in the future.Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect
By Noam Chomsky, Reese Erlich. 2014
Based on first-hand reporting from Syria and Washington, journalist Reese Erlich unravels the complex dynamics underlying the Syrian civil war.…
Through vivid, on-the-ground accounts and interviews with both rebel leaders and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erlich gives the reader a better understanding of this momentous power struggle and why it matters.Through his many contacts inside Syria, the author reveals who is supporting Assad and why; he describes the agendas of the rebel factions; and he depicts in stark terms the dire plight of many ordinary Syrian people caught in the cross-fire. The book also provides insights into the role of the Kurds, the continuing influence of Iran, and the policies of American leaders who seem interested only in protecting US regional interests.Disturbing and enlightening at once, this timely book shows you not only what is happening inside Syria but why it is so important for the Middle East, the US, and the world.