Krig

The thrilling true story behind the Allies' mission to take back Venice from the Germans - and save its artistic and architectural treasures.

Undaunted Mind tells the story of the development of Benjamin Franklin's intellect beginning with the earliest books he read as a child in Boston, his formal schooling and independent study, through his time in London, Paris, and Philadelphia, where he established himself as one of America's leading intellectuals and philanthropists. The story of Franklin's intellectual life is also the story of the friends he made in various stages of his life, so this book illuminates his circles of illustrious friends who encouraged his reading, his community improvement projects, and his scientific research.

Afghan wars

Relaying the events of Desmond Ibbotson's short but eventful but eventful career as well as what happened next, investigating his tragic death on a routine test flight, and how he came to have two graves

This book is the first comprehensive account of the tsarist army's relationship to Muslim soldiers in late imperial Russia. It will be of interest to researchers in European History, Modern History, Military and Naval History, and Central Asian, Russian and Eastern European Studies.

This book analyses the origins, experiences and challenges of total defence in Europe, and comprises a broad spectrum of national case studies as well as one international organisation - NATO.

Sounds of Survival tells a story of unexpected musical continuity across some of the twentieth century's most cataclysmic events. It examines an integrated Polish-Jewish musical community as its members contended with antisemitism in the 1930s, were persecuted during the Nazi occupation, and attempted to establish a renewed musical culture from the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust. Attending to these musicians from the 1920s into the 1950s, the book is a rigorous examination of Jewishness within twentieth-century Polish classical music, and the first to examine how the Holocaust was a defining event for the country's musical culture. J. Mackenzie Pierce argues that despite the nearly unimaginable violence experienced by these musicians, many of their projects and ideals were reinvited and preserved across war and genocide. Thus, he rejects the common assumption that World War II and the Holocaust were epoch-defining ruptures in Polish, Jewish, and European culture, instead showing that the midcentury was a period of fervent reinvention and cultural development in response to trauma.

Delve into the history, politics, literature and popular culture that defined the Cold War era. Matching superb narrative storytelling with scholarly analysis and visually stunning photography from the archives of the Imperial War Museum, this book gives a fascinating insight into a period that shaped the fabric of British society.

Exploring the role that courts martial played in the professional lives of flag officers in the late Georgian Royal Navy, this book examines the genesis, proceedings and outcomes of nine trials faced by British admirals in the American and French wars. Despite only one admiral being found guilty as charged, the implications of facing trial were highly significant on all of these officers' careers and their surrounding political climates. For some officers, courts martial provided them a means of preserving their honour and professional reputations in the face of perceived mistreatment or criticism.This study sets the experiences of these nine admirals in the context of the naval courts martial system and considers their charging and conviction rate with other naval personnel in the period to understand how the naval justice system worked at the top of society. Drawing on a range of sources, from Admiralty records in the National Archives to official and personal papers, publications of the Naval Records Society and press literature, it sheds new light on prominent individuals' careers and key moments in 18th century naval history.

'A true artist. A brilliant writer. An original thinker' Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieYorùbá Boy Running charts Samuel Ajayi Crowther's miraculous journey from slave to liberator, boy to man, running to resisting'Run, Àjàyí, run!'The day the Malian slave traders invaded the Nigerian town of Òsogùn, thirteen-year-old Àjàyí's life was split in two.Before, there was his childhood, surrounded by friends and family, watched over by the ancient Yorùbá gods of forest and water, earth and sky. After: capture, slavery - and release, into the service of a new god, his own culture left far behind. So Àjàyí becomes Samuel Crowther - missionary, linguist, minister - and abolitionist: driven to negotiate against his own people to end the miserable trade in human beings which destroyed his family.Drawing on the prolific writings of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Biyi Bándélé has created a many-voiced, kaleidoscopic portrait of an extraordinary man. From the heart-stopping drama of Àjàyí's last day of freedom to the farcical intrigue of the Òsogùn court; from a meeting with Queen Victoria; to his consecration as the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church, his journey, like all great odysseys, circles back to where he began. By turns witty, moving and quietly political, Biyi Bándélé's reimagining of Crowther's life is a brilliant tour de force.WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM WOLE SOYINKA'Biyi Bándélé had a prolifically talented and creative mind, shown in everything he touched. Yorùbá Boy Running is no exception' Chiwitel EjioforCover artwork Chris Ofili, Blind Leading Blind, 2005 (c) The artist.

Former intelligence officer Will Britten lifts the lid on his work for BRIXMIS at the height of the Cold War

This book is a unique combination of intellectual history, personal memoir, and military theory. When Conrad Crane retired from twenty six years of active duty to become a research professor at the Army War College, he never expected to become a modern Cassandra, fated to tell truth to power without being heeded. As he watched the world change after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he warned the Army that it was not prepared for Phase IV stability operations, counterinsurgency, and eventually the reconstruction of Iraq. Eventually his work attracted the attention of Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who along with his Marine counterpart James Mattis, was launching a broad program to make the American military a learning organization better prepared for modern war. Crane soon found himself in charge of a team of Soldiers, Marines, and civilian academics with the mission to create the very counterinsurgency doctrine he had pleaded for. For the next year he wrestled with conflicting ideas, complex personalities, and bureaucratic inertia to create the groundbreaking Field Manual 3-24/ Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency. The process was long and tortuous, and much more complicated than the way it has been characterized so far in other narratives. The end result was a unique blend of traditional and modern theory, tempered by hard lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. Its principles and paradoxes of counterinsurgency, focus on legitimacy, and concepts of operational campaign design have had immense influence on US and NATO doctrine. The new doctrine was not perfect, and had been rushed through production in record time, but the guidance it provided would be an essential element in the Surge in Iraq that secured breathing space for the nascent Iraqi government to solve its political differences. Crane found that out when General Petraeus asked him to come observe the Surge himself in late 2007. Traveling all around that embattled nation, Crane watched the greatest counterinsurgency force the world had ever seen adapting to the exigencies of modern counterinsurgency is a very complex environment. He describes in great detail the hard work of dedicated Soldiers, Marines, and civilians that were creating a mosaic peace out of a mosaic war, in places as disparate as Baghdad, Anbar Province, and the detention facilities at Bucca. There were still problem areas, such as in the British zone and Diyala Province, but the conflict was definitely trending in the right direction. Crane closes his book with an account of what went wrong in Iraq, as the mosaic peace unraveled with the Americandeparture, and also how the new counterinsurgency doctrine was never properly resourced or applied in Afghanistan. His final chapter covers the lessons be believes should be gleaned from the past decade and a half of global war. There have been many critics of the new doctrine, and Crane recounts their arguments and concedes that promises of counterinsurgency were oversold. But much of what has been labeled as counterinsurgency is really just modern warfare, and while the United States is understandably reluctant to engage in further irregular conflicts and nation building, they remain a growth industry in the rest of the world. The United States government, military and civilian agencies, must be prepared to do better next time. And Cassandra says, there will be a next time.

After four years of fighting and two major victories, Julius Caesar had the upper hand in the Third Roman Civil War and had control of Rome itself. Yet despite this success, his surviving opponents still fought on, with the two sons of Pompeius Magnus taking command of the war against Caesar, along with Titus Labienus, previously one of Caesars' own trusted subordinates. This opposition made another stand at Munda in Spain, which proved to be the final battle of Caesar's career, and the closest he came to defeat. Gareth Sampson describes the campaigns that set the context for the battle and analyses in detail the opposing commanders and their forces, their relative strengths and weaknesses, organization, equipment, and tactics. The battle itself is recounted in detail through its various phases before considering the aftermath of the victory which saw Caesar's victory unravel almost immediately, leading to his downfall on the Ides of March.

About 10 years ago a chance encounter led Bandy to be entrusted with a treasure trove of wartime notes, photos, paintings and ephemera that coalesced themselves into the memoirs of a WW2 RAF Nursing Orderley, LAC Harold Scrafield. A story unfolded through these papers of an older call up, wartime nursing, and travel through the Mediterranean area during the war. Further research found that one of "Scra's" postings was to a secret medical mission in Yugoslavia. This was Maj Lindsay Rogers' SOE medical expedition to Titos Partisans organised by Fitzroy Maclean. Of course, this is not described as such in his writings, just as a trip from Bari to Yugoslavia via landing craft, and "escape by HM Gunboat" back to Ancona in Italy. Included inside are many of Scra's original and unpublished photos, and an amount of his pictures of the partisans both in Yugoslavia and at Bari. Nursing at the Frontline tells of his entry into Carthage, initially sleeping on the hastily dug graves of the German defenders, the story of the units hosts, the White Sisters and the mostly unknown day to day routine of the an RAF Mobile Field Hospital. Scra also finds himself with air operational squadrons, finds time to photograph before and after pictures of the bombing of Monte Cassino, and to deal with death. Now, over 40 years since Scra wrote down his memoirs in long hand, almost 80 since the events he describes and 10 years since Bandy was entrusted with them,  they are published to make for a fascinating read. From Carthage and the White Sisters to the events in Yugoslavia that Scra was involved with. These memoirs take you into the under reported and little known world of the wartime male RAF Nursing Orderly at the sharp end.