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Heydrich: Butcher of Prague (Images of War)
By Ian Baxter. 2022
Reinhard Heydrich along with Heinrich Himmler, whose deputy he was, will always be regarded as one of the most ruthless…
of the Nazi elite. Even Hitler described him as ‘a man with an iron heart’. He established his fearsome reputation in the 1930s, as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence organization which neutralized opposition to the Nazi Party by murder and deportation. He organized Kristalnacht and played a leading role in the Holocaust, chairing the 1942 Wannsee Conference which formalized plans for the ‘Final Solution’. In addition, as head of the Einsatzgruppen murder squads in Eastern Europe he was responsible for countless murders. Appointed Deputy Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, he died of wounds inflicted by British trained SOE operatives in Prague in May 1942. The reprisals that followed his assassination were extreme by even the terrible standards of Nazi ruthlessness. Heydrich’s shocking and leading role in the Nazi regime is graphically portrayed in this Images of War book.Vietnam: The Necessary War
By Michael Lind. 1999
Michael Lind casts new light on one of the most contentious episodes in American history in this controversial bestseller.In this…
groundgreaking reinterpretation of America's most disatrous and controversial war, Michael Lind demolishes enduring myths and put the Vietnam War in its proper context—as part of the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lind reveals the deep cultural divisions within the United States that made the Cold War consensus so fragile and explains how and why American public support for the war in Indochina declined. Even more stunning is his provacative argument that the United States failed in Vietnam because the military establishment did not adapt to the demands of what before 1968 had been largely a guerrilla war.In an era when the United States so often finds itself embroiled in prolonged and difficult conflicts, Lind offers a sobering cautionary tale to Ameicans of all political viewpoints.Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy
By Jena Pincott. 2013
Brain Candy for expectant parents! Pregnancy is an adventure. Lots of books tell you the basics—“the baby is the size…
of [insert fruit here].” But pregnant science writer Jena Pincott began to wonder just how a baby might tinker with her body—and vice versa—and chased down answers to the questions she wouldn’t ask her doctor, such as: • Does stress sharpen your baby’s mind—or dull it? • Can you predict your baby’s temperament? • Why are babies born in the darker months of the year more likely to grow up to be novelty-loving risk takers? • Are bossy, dominant women more likely to have boys? • How can the cells left behind by your baby affect you years later? This is a different kind of pregnancy book—thoughtful, fun, and filled with information you won’t find anywhere else.The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice
By Vanessa M. Gezari. 2013
A “sharp-eyed look at the complexities of war” (Parade), that explores the inner workings of the Human Terrain System, a…
Pentagon program that sends civilian social scientists into war zones to help soldiers understand local culture.On the day Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, a small group of American civilians took their optimism and experience to a village west of Kandahar, Afghanistan. They were part of the Pentagon’s controversial attempt to bring social science to the battlefield, driven by the notion that you can’t win a war if you don’t understand the enemy and his culture. The field team in Afghanistan that day included an intrepid Texas blonde, a former bodyguard for Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and an ex-military intelligence sergeant who had come to Afghanistan to make peace with his troubled past. But not all goes as planned. In this tale of moral suspense, journalist Vanessa Gezari follows these three idealists from the hope that brought them to Afghanistan through the events of the fateful day when one is gravely wounded, an Afghan is dead, and a proponent of cross-cultural engagement is charged with his murder. Through it all, these brave Americans ended up showing the world just how determined they were to get things right, how hard it was to really understand a place like Afghanistan where storytelling has been a major tool of survival, and why all future wars will involve this strange mix of fighting and listening.Vanessa Gezari is the only journalist to have gained access to the lives of people inside this troubled Army program, including the brilliant, ambitious figures who conceived it. This true story of war and sacrifice will upend your ideas about what really went wrong in Afghanistan.&“Compellingly chronicles one of the least studied great episodes of World War II with power and authority…A riveting read&” (Donald…
L. Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Masters of the Air) about World War II&’s largest airborne operation—one that dropped 17,000 Allied paratroopers deep into the heart of Nazi Germany.On the morning of March 24, 1945, more than two thousand Allied aircraft droned through a cloudless sky toward Germany. Escorted by swarms of darting fighters, the armada of transport planes carried 17,000 troops to be dropped, via parachute and glider, on the far banks of the Rhine River. Four hours later, after what was the war&’s largest airdrop, all major objectives had been seized. The invasion smashed Germany&’s last line of defense and gutted Hitler&’s war machine; the war in Europe ended less than two months later.Four Hours of Fury follows the 17th Airborne Division as they prepare for Operation Varsity, a campaign that would rival Normandy in scale and become one of the most successful and important of the war. Even as the Third Reich began to implode, it was vital for Allied troops to have direct access into Germany to guarantee victory—the 17th Airborne secured that bridgehead over the River Rhine. And yet their story has until now been relegated to history&’s footnotes.In this viscerally exciting account, paratrooper-turned-historian James Fenelon &“details every aspect of the American 17th Airborne Division&’s role in Operation Varsity...inspired&” (The Wall Street Journal). Reminiscent of A Bridge Too Far and Masters of the Air, Four Hours of Fury does for the 17th Airborne what Band of Brothers did for the 101st. It is a captivating, action-packed tale of heroism and triumph spotlighting one of World War II&’s most under-chronicled and dangerous operations.The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World
By Michael Karpin. 2007
THE BOMB IN THE BASEMENT tells the fascinating story of how Israel became the Middle East's only nuclear power and…
-- unlike Iraq and Iran -- succeeded in keeping its atomic program secret. Veteran Israeli journalist Michael Karpin explains how Israel, by far the smallest of the nuclear powers, succeeded in its ambitious effort. David Ben-Gurion saw the need for an atomic capability to offset the numerical superiority of Arab armies at war with Israel. The Israeli program relied heavily on French assistance in its early years, until President Charles de Gaulle reduced his country's cooperation. Once it was discovered, Israel's nuclear program cast a shadow over relations between Israel and the United States. The Kennedy administration opposed it, and President Lyndon Johnson approved it only tacitly. Significant change took place when President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger adopted a new strategy. An Israel that possessed nuclear capability was a more valuable asset to the West than an Israel without such an option. President Nixon ceased to press Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and dropped U.S. surveillance of the Israeli reactor at Dimona. In exchange, Israel committed itself to maintain official ambiguity about its nuclear program. That policy remains in place nearly forty years later. Without American approval and the financial assistance and lobbying of Jews in North America, Israel could not have achieved its nuclear capability. This is a fascinating story of scientists, politicians, spies, and major international personalities who all played a part in an extraordinary undertaking that continues to shape the politics of the world's most volatile region. Today it remains to be seen whether Israel will permit Iran to build a nuclear bomb and threaten Israel's security.American Political Thought, volume 13 number 2 (Spring 2024)
By American Political Thought. 2024
This is volume 13 issue 2 of American Political Thought. Bridging the gap between historical, empirical, and theoretical research, American…
Political Thought (APT) is the only journal dedicated exclusively to the study of the American political tradition. Interdisciplinary in scope, APT features research by political scientists, historians, literary scholars, economists, and philosophers who study the foundation and political tradition of concepts such as democracy, constitutionalism, equality, liberty, citizenship, political identity, and the role of the state.General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse
By Joseph Glatthaar. 2009
"You would be surprised to see what men we have in the ranks," Virginia cavalryman Thomas Rowland informed his mother…
in May 1861, just after joining the Army of Northern Virginia. His army -- General Robert E. Lee's army -- was a surprise to almost everyone: With daring early victories and an invasion into the North, they nearly managed to convince the North to give up the fight. Even in 1865, facing certain defeat after the loss of 30,000 men, a Louisiana private fighting in Lee's army still had hope. "I must not despair," he scribbled in his diary. "Lee will bring order out of chaos, and with the help of our Heavenly Father, all will be well." Astonishingly, after 150 years of scholarship, there are still some major surprises about the Army of Northern Virginia. In General Lee's Army, renowned historian Joseph T. Glatthaar draws on an impressive range of sources assembled over two decades -- from letters and diaries, to official war records, to a new, definitive database of statistics -- to rewrite the history of the Civil War's most important army and, indeed, of the war itself. Glatthaar takes readers from the home front to the heart of the most famous battles of the war: Manassas, the Peninsula campaign, Antietam, Gettysburg, all the way to the final surrender at Appomattox. General Lee's Army penetrates headquarters tents and winter shanties, eliciting the officers' plans, wishes, and prayers; it portrays a world of life, death, healing, and hardship; it investigates the South's commitment to the war and its gradual erosion; and it depicts and analyzes Lee's men in triumph and defeat. The history of Lee's army is a powerful lens on the entire war. The fate of Lee's army explains why the South almost won -- and why it lost. The story of his men -- their reasons for fighting, their cohesion, mounting casualties, diseases, supply problems, and discipline problems -- tells it all. Glatthaar's definitive account settles many historical arguments. The Rebels were fighting above all to defend slavery. More than half of Lee's men were killed, wounded, or captured -- a staggering statistic. Their leader, Robert E. Lee, though far from perfect, held an exalted place in his men's eyes despite a number of mistakes and despite a range of problems among some of his key lieutenants. General Lee's Army is a masterpiece of scholarship and vivid storytelling, narrated as much as possible in the words of the enlisted men and their officers.A Financial Times Best Book of the Year 2020A TIMELY AND PROVOCATIVE ARGUMENT FROM LEADING POLITICAL ANALYST DAVID GOODHART ABOUT…
THE SEVERELY IMBALANCED DISTRIBUTION OF STATUS AND WORK IN WESTERN SOCIETIES.The coronavirus pandemic revealed what we ought to have already known: that nurses, caregivers, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, cleaners, and so many others are essential. Until recently, this work was largely regarded as menial by the same society that now lauds them as heroes. How did we get here?In his groundbreaking follow-up to the bestselling The Road to Somewhere, David Goodhart divides society into people who work with their Heads (cognitive work), with their Hands (manual work), or with their Hearts (caring work), and considers each group&’s changing status and influence. Today, the &“best and the brightest&” trump the &“decent and hardworking.&” Qualities like character, compassion, craft, and physical labor command far less respect in our workforce. This imbalance has led to the disaffection and alienation of millions of people.David Goodhart reveals the untold history behind this disparity and outlines the challenges we face as a result. Cognitive ability has become the gold standard of human esteem, and those in the cognitive class now shape society largely in their own interest. To put it bluntly: smart people have become too powerful.A healthy democratic society respects and rewards a broad range of achievement, and provides meaning and value for people who cannot—or do not want to—achieve in the classroom and professional career market. We must shift our thinking to see all workers as essential, and not just during crises like the coronavirus pandemic. This is the dramatic story of the struggle for status and dignity in the 21st century.Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America
By Amy Goodman, David Goodman, Denis Moynihan. 2016
A celebration of the revolutionary change Amy and David Goodman have witnessed during the two decades of their acclaimed television…
and radio news program Democracy Now!—and how small individual acts from progressive heroes have produced lasting results.In 1996 Amy Goodman began hosting a show called Democracy Now! to focus on the issues and movements that are too often ignored by the corporate media. Today it is the largest public media collaboration in the US. This important book looks back over the past twenty years of Democracy Now! and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world. Goodman takes us along as she goes to where the silence is, bringing out voices from the streets of Ferguson to Staten Island, Wall Street, and South Carolina to East Timor—and other places where people are rising up to demand justice.Giving voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful, Democracy Now! pays tribute to those progressive heroes—the whistleblowers, the organizers, the protestors—who have brought about remarkable, often invisible change over the last couple of decades in seismic ways. This is “an impassioned book aiming to fuel informed participation, outrage, and dissent” (Kirkus Reviews).Rights Talk: The Impoverishment Of Political Discourse
By Mary Ann Glendon. 1993
Political speech in the United States is undergoing a crisis. Glendon's acclaimed book traces the evolution of the strident language…
of rights in America and shows how it has captured the nation's devotion to individualism and liberty, but omitted the American traditions of hospitality and care for the community.The Ambassadors: America's Diplomats on the Front Lines
By Paul Richter. 2019
Veteran diplomatic correspondent Paul Richter goes behind the battles and the headlines to show how American ambassadors are the unconventional…
warriors in the Muslim world—running local government, directing drone strikes, building nations, and risking their lives on the front lines.The tale&’s heroes are a small circle of top career diplomats who have been an unheralded but crucial line of national defense in the past two decades of wars in the greater Middle East. In The Ambassadors, Paul Richter shares the astonishing, true-life stories of four expeditionary diplomats who &“do the hardest things in the hardest places.&”The book describes how Ryan Crocker helped rebuild a shattered Afghan government after the fall of the Taliban and secretly negotiated with the shadowy Iranian mastermind General Qassim Suleimani to wage war in Afghanistan and choose new leaders for post-invasion Iraq. Robert Ford, assigned to be a one-man occupation government for an Iraqi province, struggled to restart a collapsed economy and to deal with spiraling sectarian violence—and was taken hostage by a militia. In Syria at the eruption of the civil war, he is chased by government thugs for defying the country&’s ruler. J. Christopher Stevens is smuggled into Libya as US Envoy to the rebels during its bloody civil war, then returns as ambassador only to be killed during a terror attach in Benghazi. War-zone veteran Anne Patterson is sent to Pakistan, considered the world&’s most dangerous country, to broker deals that prevent a government collapse and to help guide the secret war on jihadists.&“An important and illuminating read&” (The Washington Post) and the winner of the prestigious Douglas Dillon Book Award from the American Academy of Diplomacy, The Ambassadors is a candid examination of the career diplomatic corps, America&’s first point of contact with the outside world, and a critical piece of modern-day history.Psychosocial and Cultural Perspectives on the War in Ukraine: Imprints and Dreamscapes
By Bohdan Shumylovych, Magdalena Zolkos. 2024
This innovative and important book explores how war imprints on culture and the psychosocial effects of war on individuals and…
societies, based on the first few months after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022.The book approaches the conflict in Ukraine through the prism of creative and artistic material alongside scholarly analysis to highlight the multiplicity of subjective experiences. Essays are complemented by material from the ‘war diaries’, which comprise day diaries, dream diaries, artistic and poetic material composed by students and academics in February and March 2022. With chapters focusing on fear, ruptures and resistance, the book examines different aspects of subjective, cultural and embodied experiences of war. It examines elements that dominant perspectives of war often overlook; the quotidian, personal and emotive ways that war is registered individually and collectively in societies and cultures.Highlighting different narratives that illuminate the complex effects of war, this book is highly relevant for postgraduate students, researchers and advanced undergraduate students in the fields of cultural psychology, psychosocial studies, peace and conflict studies and cultural history.Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 7 and Chapter 10 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.To read the online archive of Two Months of War, please visit the Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History (Lviv, Ukraine): https://uma.lvivcenter.org/en/collections/178/interviewsSociety and the Environment: Pragmatic Solutions to Ecological Issues
By Michael S Carolan. 2024
The fourth edition of Society and the Environment centers its discussion on realistic solutions to the problems that persist and…
examines current controversies within a socio‑organizational context, shifting focus away from simply explaining what is wrong with the world around us. Introducing this “pragmatic environmentalism,” Carolan discusses the complex pressures and variables that exist where ecology and society collide, with population growth, the increase in demands for food and energy, and transportation and its outsized influence on urban and community patterns. With further attention given to the social phenomena and structural dynamics driving today’s environmental problems, the book concludes with an important reflection on truly sustainable solutions and what constitutes meaningful social change.Each chapter in this interdisciplinary text follows a three‑part structure beginning with an overview of what is wrong and why. This leads into a discussion on each issue’s wide‑ranging implications and, finally, a balanced consideration of realistic solutions. Featuring updated and expanded examples, discussion points, and coverage of recent developments, including the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, “booming” national economies and wealth distribution, growing global interest in environmental justice—with particular focus on the links between injustice and race and inequality—climate change, and renewable energy, this new edition remains an essential companion for courses on environmental sociology and sustainability.Chinese Politics: The Xi Jinping Difference (ISSN)
By Stanley Rosen, Daniel C. Lynch. 2024
Written by a team of leading China specialists, this updated 2nd edition of Chinese Politics explores the dynamics of state…
power and politics in contemporary China, focusing on the Xi Jinping era.Through its multi-disciplinary contributions, this book explores the extent to which Xi has reshaped the political, economic, socio-cultural, and demographic terrains of the PRC, as well as Beijing’s foreign policy. The book will help readers to think productively about the trajectory of these aspects of Chinese politics and society through Xi’s current term and beyond. The book also highlights the potential role outside countries and non-state actors might play in shaping China’s trajectory as the PRC’s economic rise may be stalling. Through each exploration of these issues, the book addresses the central question of what The Xi Jinping Difference has been, and will likely continue to be, in Chinese politics.Key subjects covered in this new edition include: Law and the political system Socialization of youth The fate of the private sector Technology and digital authoritarianism The Belt and Road Initiative Population aging Chinese Politics continues to be an essential textbook for all students of contemporary China as well as scholars interested in the dynamics of political and social change.A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA
By Joshua Kurlantzick. 2017
The untold story of how America&’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection…
of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy.January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA&’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever.With &“revelatory reporting&” and &“lucid prose&” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew.Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA&’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today&’s war on terrorism.From Legacy Media to Going Viral: Generational Media Use and Citizen Engagement (Routledge Studies in Media, Communication, and Politics)
By Robert H. Wicks, Shauna A. Morimoto, Jan LeBlanc Wicks. 2024
From Legacy Media to Going Viral: Generational Media Use and Citizen Engagement examines how the prominent media available shapes each…
rising generation of citizens. The authors discuss how global and national events along with the media each generational group most frequently accessed defined these groups.Drawing on interdisciplinary social science insights into social media and civic and political engagement, the book contextualizes the civic and political rise of the Millennials and Gen Z with comparative insights from Gen X and the Baby Boomers. With a focus on emergent patterns of American citizenship, the authors examine issues such as a decline in social trust, new and sustained patterns of civic and political engagement and the continuing importance of political consumerism. Looking beyond the impact of media on youth and issues of civic and political generational change, this book explores how the media accessible to each American generation contributes to that generation’s collective experience, thus solidifying their civic and political attitudes.The book will be of interest to students and scholars concerned with civic and political engagement, political consumerism and media use, in the areas of media studies, advertising, communication, journalism, political science and sociology.Anthropocene and Cosmopolitan Citizenship criticizes the Westphalia system of international relations and, as an alternative, proposes cosmopolitan citizenship. The book…
offers a critique of the theory of international relations based on the Westphalian system and the principle of national sovereignty.At the end of the Second World War, the two superpowers agreed on a new international order that, to this day, has prevented a new world war. This era is over. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic and political affirmation of new international powers – such as China, India and Brazil – have generated a multipolar world, in which growing tensions between great and small powers are manifested, up to the threat of nuclear war. To this threat, a second one has been added: the possible collapse of the biosphere, an epoch called the Anthropocene, because the pollution of nature is suffocating the life of every living species on the Planet, including Homo sapiens. The United Nations can be viewed as the first step towards a post-Westphalian system, and the European Union represents an alternative model for peaceful relationships among national peoples. The book’s methodology draws on an interdisciplinary relationship between social sciences and nature sciences to provide a European foreign policy strategy that shows how the European Union can play a crucial role in current international politics, helping build a just world in harmony with nature, including by calling for a Global Green Deal and an Earth Constitution. The integration of the national peoples of the European Union shows that supranational citizenship is possible and that national independence is compatible with peaceful international interdependence. The author explores how this can be achieved and how alternatives have failed, with reference to federalism, ecologism, liberalism, democracy, socialism, nationalism, security and patriotism.This book will be of interest to scholars of international relations and European studies and activists, including ecologists, young people, federalists and members of political parties.'A corporation, or a government department isn't a conscious being, but it is an artificial intelligence. It has the capability…
to take decisions which are completely distinct from the intentions of any of the people who compose it. And under stressful conditions, it can go stark raving mad.'When we avoid taking a decision, what happens to it? In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies examines why markets, institutions and even governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want. He casts new light on the writing of Stafford Beer, a legendary economist who argued in the 1950s that we should regard organisations as artificial intelligences, capable of taking decisions that are distinct from the intentions of their members. Management cybernetics was Beer's science of applying self-regulation in organisational settings, but it was largely ignored - with the result being the political and economic crises that that we see today. With his signature blend of cynicism and journalistic rigour, Davies looks at what's gone wrong, and what might have been, hadthe world listened to Stafford Beer when it had the chance.Yoga – Anticolonial Philosophy: An Action-Focused Guide to Practice
By Shyam Ranganathan. 2024
Providing a decolonial, action-focused account of Yoga philosophy, this practical work from Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, pioneering scholar in the field…
of Indian moral philosophy, focuses on the South Asian tradition to explore what Yoga was like prior to colonization. It challenges teachers and trainees to reflect on the impact of Western colonialism on Yoga as well as understand Yoga as the original decolonial practice in a way that is accessible. Each chapter takes the reader through a journey of sources and traditions, beginning with an investigation into the colonial -Platonic and Aristotelian- approaches to pedagogy in colonized yoga spaces, through contrary, ancient philosophies of South Asia, such as Jainism, Buddhism, Sankhya, and various forms of Vedanta, to sources of Yoga, including the Upanisads, Yoga Sutra, Bhagavad Gita and Hatha Yoga Pradipika. With discussions of the precolonial philosophy of Yoga, its relationship to social justice, and modern postural yoga's relationship with colonial trauma, this is a comprehensive guide for any yoga teacher or trainee to activate and synergize their practice. Supplementary online resources bring the text to life, making this the perfect text for yoga teacher trainings.