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A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 8–21, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series)
by Chris Mackowski Kristopher D. WhiteA gripping narrative of one of the Civil War&’s most consequential engagements. In the spring of 1864, the newly installed Union commander Ulysses S. Grant did something none of his predecessors had done before: He threw his army against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific twenty-two-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8 to 21, 1864—fourteen long days of battle and maneuver. Grant, the irresistible force, hammering with his overwhelming numbers and unprecedented power, versus Lee, the immovable object, hunkered down behind the most formidable defensive works yet seen on the continent. Spotsylvania Court House represents a chess match of immeasurable stakes between two master opponents. This clash is detailed in A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May –21, 1864. A Season of Slaughter is part of the new Emerging Civil War Series offering compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War&’s most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with hundreds of photos, illustrations, and maps. &“[A] wonderful book for anyone interested in learning about the fighting around Spotsylvania Court House or who would like to tour the area. It is well written, easy to read, and well worth the price.&” —Civil War News
A Secret About a Secret: A novel
by Peter SpiegelmanA hypnotic literary mystery thriller about a murder at a secluded research facility and the secrets that it exposes. • "Cyber thievery, lust, corporate espionage, and a host of deleterious secrets comprise the chords of this sweeping, riveting symphony. A bold and original thriller by a masterful storyteller.&” —Elizabeth Brundage, author of The Vanishing PointLooming high above the cliffside along a remote coastline, Ondstrand House is the headquarters of the shadowy biotech firm Ondstrand Biologic. When the body of the organization&’s most gifted young scientist, Allegra Stans, is discovered in a walk-in refrigerator—her neck has been broken—Agent Myles is called in to investigate. Myles works for Standard Division, the most feared element of a vast state security apparatus, and he&’s been dispatched to the brooding manor, a massive stone campus that once housed a notorious boarding school, to do what Standard Division agents do best—complete the task at hand.As his investigation proceeds, Myles discovers that &“gifted scientist&” is only one thread in the complicated fabric of Allegra&’s life. There are darker strands as well—of ambition, manipulation, and bitter grievance—all woven into a pattern of secrets, each presenting a reasonable motive for murder. It appears everyone has something to hide, including Allegra&’s colleagues, lovers, and former lovers—even the very halls of Ondstrand House itself.Questions continue to pile up: What interest does Standard Division, an organization best known for intelligence gathering and clandestine international operations, have in this seemingly straightforward case? Could the killing have anything to do with the sprawling estate&’s sordid past? And what, exactly, is this research facility researching? Before long, another murder is discovered, and Myles finds himself an increasingly unwelcome presence in an ever more hostile landscape with few allies and fewer answers.
A Secret Society History of the Civil War
by Mark A. LauseThis unique history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for freemasonry in the United States, Mark A. Lause analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European Revolutions of 1848. Lause traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, including the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. This book shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions and may have played a part in key events such as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860-1861.
A Sense of Honor
by James WebbA fascinating portrayal of a gung-ho first classman's campaign to shepherd an unprepared plebe through the Academy's complex and unforgiving ethos.
A Sense of Place (The Alison Plantaine Sagas)
by Maisie MoscoA successful Jewish stage actress in 1930s London finds love and sacrifice when she travels to pre-war Berlin in this heartwarming historical saga. The year is 1930, and Alison Plantaine is a star. She is thirty and in the full bloom of her stage career. But she is lonely, and for years, no man had been able to compete with the pace and intensity of her life. Only when she visits Berlin does she find a passion to rival the theatre. She falls madly in love with Richard Lindemann, who opens her eyes to what is happening around her. He shows her the dangers that may befall a nation under the grip of the Nazi regime. As Alison becomes involved in the concerns of those she cares for, she contemplates a world beyond the stage—a world that was moving faster and faster towards tragedy and war . . . A historical saga about love from a much-loved novelist, perfect for fans of Rita Bradshaw and Margaret Dickinson.Praise for the writing of Maisie Mosco&“Once in every generation or so a book comes along which lifts the curtain.&” —The Guardian&“Full of freshness and fascination.&” —Manchester Evening News &“The undisputed queen of her genre.&” —Jewish Chronicle
A Sense of Power: The Roots of America's World Role
by John A. ThompsonWhy has the United States assumed so extensive and costly a role in world affairs over the last hundred years? The two most common answers to this question are "because it could" and "because it had to." Neither answer will do, according to this challenging re-assessment of the way that America came to assume its global role. The country's vast economic resources gave it the capacity to exercise great influence abroad, but Americans were long reluctant to meet the costs of wielding that power. Neither the country's safety from foreign attack nor its economic well-being required the achievement of ambitious foreign policy objectives. In A Sense of Power, John A. Thompson takes a long view of America's dramatic rise as a world power, from the late nineteenth century into the post-World War II era. How, and more importantly why, has America come to play such a dominant role in world affairs? There is, he argues, no simple answer. Thompson challenges conventional explanations of America's involvement in World War I and World War II, seeing neither the requirements of national security nor economic interests as determining. He shows how American leaders from Wilson to Truman developed an ever more capacious understanding of the national interest, and why by the 1940s most Americans came to support the price tag, in blood and treasure, attached to strenuous efforts to shape the world. The beliefs and emotions that led them to do so reflected distinctive aspects of U.S. culture, not least the strength of ties to Europe. Consciousness of the nation's unique power fostered feelings of responsibility, entitlement, and aspiration among the people and leaders of the United States. This original analysis challenges some widely held beliefs about the determinants of United States foreign policy and will bring new insight to contemporary debates about whether the nation should--or must--play so active a part in world politics.
A Sensory History of Ancient Warfare: Reconstructing the Physical Experience of War in the Classical World
by Conor WhatelyHow can we attempt to understand the experience of those involved in ancient battles, sieges and campaigns? What was the visual impact of seeing the massed ranks of the enemy approaching or the sky darkened with their arrows? How did it feel to be trapped in the press of bodies as phalanxes clashed shield to shield? What of the taste of dust on the march or the smell of split blood and entrails? What of the rumble of approaching cavalry, the clash of iron weapons and the screams of the dying? The assault on all five senses which must have occurred is the subject of this innovative book. Sensory history is a new approach that attempts to understand the full spectrum of the experience of the participants in history. Conor Whately is the first to apply the discipline in a dedicated study of warfare in the classical world. He draws on literary, archaeological, reconstructive and comparative evidence to understand the human experience of the ancient battlefield in unprecedented depth.
A Separate Civil War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era)
by Jonathan Dean SarrisMost Americans think of the Civil War as a series of dramatic clashes between massive armies led by romantic-seeming leaders. But in the Appalachian communities of North Georgia, things were very different. Focusing on Fannin and Lumpkin counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains along Georgia's northern border, A Separate Civil War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South argues for a more localized, idiosyncratic understanding of this momentous period in our nation's history. The book reveals that, for many participants, this war was fought less for abstract ideological causes than for reasons tied to home, family, friends, and community.Making use of a large trove of letters, diaries, interviews, government documents, and sociological data, Jonathan Dean Sarris brings to life a previously obscured version of our nation's most divisive and destructive war. From the outset, the prospect of secession and war divided Georgia's mountain communities along the lines of race and religion, and war itself only heightened these tensions. As the Confederate government began to draft men into the army and seize supplies from farmers, many mountaineers became more disaffected still. They banded together in armed squads, fighting off Confederate soldiers, state militia, and their own pro-Confederate neighbors. A local civil war ensued, with each side seeing the other as a threat to law, order, and community itself. In this very personal conflict, both factions came to dehumanize their enemies and use methods that shocked even seasoned soldiers with their savagery. But when the war was over in 1865, each faction sought to sanitize the past and integrate its stories into the national myths later popularized about the Civil War. By arguing that the reason for choosing sides had more to do with local concerns than with competing ideologies or social or political visions, Sarris adds a much-needed complication to the question of why men fought in the Civil War.
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 SimmonsAs 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.
A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin
by Scott Andrew SelbyAs the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own reign of terror. This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich. For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high command. Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trains--trains often used by women riding home alone from the factories. Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims to choose from, Ogorzow's depredations grew more and more horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear. It was up to Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police's serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their midst. For the first time, the gripping full story of Ogorzow's killing spree and Lüdtke's relentless pursuit is told in dramatic detail.
A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer
by Scott Andrew SelbyAs the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own reign of terror.This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich. For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high command.Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trains--trains often used by women riding home alone from the factories.Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims to choose from, Ogorzow's depredations grew more and more horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear.It was up to Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police's serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their midst. For the first time, the gripping full story of Ogorzow's killing spree and Lüdtke's relentless pursuit is told in dramatic detail.From the Hardcover edition.
A Serious Disappointment: The Battle of Aubers Ridge 1915 and the Munitions Scandal
by Adrian BristowOn 9 May 1915 the British First Army under Haig and the French Tenth Army launched a joint offensive against the Germans on the Western Front. The British attempt to capture Aubers Ridge ended up a disaster. The full story h as never been told before.
A Shadow Intelligence
by Oliver Harris'Scary if true, or even half true' Sunday Times star pick'A gripping, fast-moving and intelligent novel from new spy fiction star Oliver Harris' Irish IndependentThere is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane - mercurial, inquisitive, free floating. He's spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is forced centre stage. Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to steering them. He's used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare - but snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it's impossible to work out who is manipulating who. And Kane's not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing.Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work out who is driving events, and why...
A Shadow Intelligence (An\elliot Kane Thriller Ser.)
by Oliver HarrisA BRILLIANT NEW ESPIONAGE THRILLER FOR FANS OF JOHN LE CARREThe intelligence service puts two years and over £100k into the training of new field officers. You're shown how to steal cars, strip weapons, hack bank accounts. There are courses on the use of blackmail and improvised explosives, two workshops solely dedicated to navigating by the stars. But nothing about what I had heard one old spy call whiplash. No one tells you how to go home.There is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane - mercurial, inquisitive, free floating. He's spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is forced centre stage. Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to steering them. He's used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare - but snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it's impossible to work out who is manipulating who. And Kane's not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing.Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work out who is driving events, and why...
A Shadow Intelligence: an utterly unputdownable spy thriller
by Oliver Harris'Oliver Harris is always pure quality and I'm loving the hell out of his foray into the contemporary spy novel' Ian RankinThe intelligence service puts two years and over £100k into the training of new field officers. You're shown how to steal cars, strip weapons, hack bank accounts. There are courses on the use of blackmail and improvised explosives, two workshops solely dedicated to navigating by the stars. But nothing about what I had heard one old spy call whiplash. No one tells you how to go home.There is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane - mercurial, inquisitive, free floating. He's spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is forced centre stage. Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to steering them. He's used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare - but snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it's impossible to work out who is manipulating who. And Kane's not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing.Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work out who is driving events, and why...
A Shau Valor: American Combat Operations in the Valley of Death, 1963–1971
by Thomas R. YarboroughFrom the author of Da Nang Diary: A military history of the Battle of Hamburger Hill and other fights between the NVA and the US and its Vietnamese allies. Throughout the Vietnam War, one focal point persisted where the Viet Cong guerrillas and Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) were not a major factor, but where the trained professionals of the North Vietnamese and US armies repeatedly fought head-to-head. A Shau Valor is a thorough study of nine years of American combat operations encompassing the crucial frontier valley and a fifteen-mile radius around it―the most deadly killing ground of the entire war. Beginning in 1963, Special Forces A-teams established camps along the valley floor, followed by a number of top-secret Project Delta reconnaissance missions through 1967. Then, US Army and Marine Corps maneuver battalions engaged in a series of sometimes-controversial thrusts into the A Shau, designed to disrupt NVA infiltrations and to kill enemy soldiers, part of what came to be known as Westmoreland&’s &“war of attrition.&” The various campaigns included Operation Pirous (1967); Operations Delaware and Somerset Plain (1968); and Operations Dewey Canyon, Massachusetts Striker, and Apache Snow (1969)―which included the infamous battle for Hamburger Hill―culminating with Operation Texas Star and the vicious fight for and humiliating evacuation of Fire Support Base Ripcord in the summer of 1970, the last major US battle of the war. By 1971, the fighting had once again shifted to the realm of small Special Forces reconnaissance teams assigned to the ultra-secret Studies and Observations Group (SOG). Other works have focused on individual battles or units, but A Shau Valor is the first to study the campaign―for all its courage and sacrifice―chronologically and within the context of other historical, political, and cultural events.
A Ship To Remember: The Saga of The Hornet
by Alexander R GriffinIn the one short year of life allotted to it, the carrier Hornet placed itself in the illustrious company of such ships as the Constitution, the Merrimar, the Monitor, Admiral Dewey’s Olympia, and the iron-clad Oregon.Untried and still on her shakedown cruise, the Hornet was plunged into the Battle of the Pacific with orders to defend by attack while the main power of the Pacific fleet was being resurrected from Pearl Harbor. How she did it is attested by her casualty lists at Midway, her raids on Japanese supply lines, her breathless ferrying job to within 800 miles of Japan with Doolittle’s bombers. She left the wreckage of 18 enemy ships and countless enemy planes behind her in the course of her short career.Alexander R. Griffin tells his throbbing story with restraint and true affection. It is an adventure narrative that out-thrills fiction.“This book is a distinct addition to the literature of the war. It tells a magnificent story in sharp and realistic fashion; and all the officers and men aboard the Hornet throughout her career are given their just due. It is from books like this that the American public must piece together the real history of the war.”—Lincoln Colcord, The New York Times Herald Tribune“A swift-paced narrative of history and humor, of biography and battle of salt-spray, tropical dawns and fighting young yankees…it is one long spectacle of action from the day the Hornet emerged from Hampton Roads on her shakedown cruise to the fateful afternoon of her death thousands of miles distant and over in the Pacific.”—Charles Lee, Philadelphia Record“Here is much naval history that has not been told before. Mr. Griffin, writing from a detached viewpoint, does not get the reader all entangled in the rigging. A SHIP TO REMEMBER is a must for those who like to read their history contemporaneously and get it straight.”—Foster Hailey, The New York Times
A Ship for the King (Kit Faulkner Naval Adventures)
by Richard WoodmanWith war on the horizon, his path to greatness will be revealed.Bristol, England, 1618. Kit Faulkner is a young vagrant orphan, taking life as he finds it in the rough world of the docks. But after a chance encounter with two men while out scavenging for food, his fortunes are changed forever.Kit is taken aboard the Swallow, a large merchant ship partly owned by the two men, and after spotting some promising qualities in him they decide to train the boy for a life at sea.And so begin the adventures of Kit, which see him rise through the ranks and risk all on the high seas. Meanwhile, England edges ever closer to civil war, and very soon Kit must choose which side he will fight for…A scintillating adventure at sea, based in detailed historical research, perfect for fans of Patrick O’Brian, C. S. Forrester and Julian Stockwin.Praise for Richard Woodman‘Woodman is a master of both maritime nonfiction and fiction’ Booklist‘Gripping … Woodman spins an exciting tale’ Publishers Weekly
A Ship in the Harbor, Mother and Me: Book II
by Julian Padowicz"Mother and Me recounts a chilling journey during the war." A story of escape from the Nazis during WWII continues.
A Shipyard at War: Unseen Photographs from John Brown's, Clydebank 1914–1918
by Ian JohnstonA treasury of photos illustrating the work of the famed British shipbuilders of World War I. Although best known for large liners and capital ships, between 1914 and 1920 the Clydebank shipyard of John Brown & Co. built a vast range of vessels—major warships down to destroyers and submarines, unusual designs like a seaplane carrier and submarine depot ship, and even a batch of war-standard merchant ships. This makes the yard a particularly good example of the wartime shipbuilding effort. Clydebank employed professional photographers to record the whole process of construction, using large plate cameras that produced pictures of stunning clarity and detail; but unlike most shipyard photography, Clydebank’s collection has survived, although relatively few of the images have ever been published. For this book, some two hundred of the most telling were carefully selected and scanned to the highest standards, depicting in unprecedented detail every aspect of the yard’s output, from the liner Aquitania in 1913 to the cruiser Enterprise, completed in 1920. Although ships are the main focus of the book, the photos also chronicle the impact of the war on working conditions in the yard—and the introduction of women in large numbers to the workforce. With lengthy and informative captions, and an authoritative introduction by Ian Johnston, this book is a vivid portrait of a lost industry at the height of its success.
A Short History Of The American Civil War (Short Histories)
by Paul Christopher AndersonThe American Civil War (1861-65) remains a searing event in the collective consciousness of the United States. It was one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history, claiming the lives of at least 600,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians and slaves. The Civil War was also one of the world's first truly industrial conflicts, involving railroads, the telegraph, steamships and mass-manufactured weaponry. The eventual victory of the Union over the Confederacy rang the death-knell for American slavery, and set the USA on the path to becoming a truly world power. <p><p> Paul Christopher Anderson shows how and why the conflict remains the nation's defining moment, arguing that it was above all a struggle for power and political supremacy but was also a struggle for the idea of America. Melding social, cultural and military history, the author explores iconic battles like Shiloh, Chickamauga, Antietam and Gettysburg, as well as the bitterly contesting forces underlying them and the myth-making that came to define them in aftermath. He shows that while both sides began the war in order to preserve - the integrity of the American state in the case of the Union, the integrity of a culture, a value system, and as slave society in the case of the Confederacy - it allowed the American South to define a regional identity that has survived into modern times.
A Short History of Costume & Armour
by Francis M. Kelly Randolph SchwabeThis magnificent fashion history is a stylistic panorama that ranges from the Norman conquest to the early 19th century, focusing chiefly on armor, from the Crusades to the 17th century; clothing of the English upper classes, both sexes, 11th to 19th centuries; and accessories, including gloves, belts, corsets, shoes, and headgear. 342 black-and-white illustrations.
A Short History of Napoleon the First
by Sir John Robert SeeleyThere have been many biographies of the Emperor Napoleon over the years and in many languages, however most tend to be either overly laudatory, mostly those written in French, or caustically negative, mostly those written in English. Thankfully this work suffers neither polarity of opinion, sticking to historical fact, rigorous analysis and an even handed portrayal of the subject, without any undue distortion from the realities of the era.Professor Seeley’s biography grew, as he says himself in his preface, out of an impossible task to provide a shortened biographical sketch of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Unsatisfied that so great a subject could be adequately be dealt with in such a format, he penned his excellent short work on Napoleon.Free from vitriol the book sets a standard that few modern works can be said to have achieved.
A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-ups
by Jefferson Chase Rudolph HerzogIn the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, a blackly sardonic people's history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the hushed-up and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with catastrophe. Rudolph Herzog, the acclaimed author of Dead Funny, presents a devastating account of history's most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From the rarely discussed nightmare of "Broken Arrows" (40 nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War) to "Operation Plowshare" (a proposal to use nuclear bombs for large engineering projects, such as a the construction of a second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs) . . . Herzog focuses in on long-forgotten nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster.Digging deep into archives, interviewing censored scientists, and including dozens of photos, Herzog also explores the "accidental" drop of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train conductor's home, the implanting of plutonium into patients' hearts, and the invention of wild tactical nukes, including weapons designed to kill enemy astronauts.Told in a riveting narrative voice, Herzog--the son of filmmaker Werner Herzog--also draws on childhood memories of the final period of the Cold War in Germany, the country once seen as the nuclear battleground for NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and discusses evidence that Nazi scientists knew how to make atomic weaponry ... and chose not to. An unprecedented people's history.
A Short History of War
by Jeremy BlackA wonderfully engaging, accessible introduction to war, from ancient times to the present and into the future Throughout history, warfare has transformed social, political, cultural, and religious aspects of our lives. We tell tales of wars—past, present, and future—to create and reinforce a common purpose. In this engaging overview, Jeremy Black examines war as a global phenomenon, looking at the First and Second World Wars as well as those ranging from Han China and Assyria, Imperial Rome, and Napoleonic France to Vietnam and Afghanistan. Black explores too the significance of warfare more broadly and the ways in which cultural understandings of conflict have lasting consequences in societies across the world. Weaponry, Black argues, has had a fundamental impact on modes of war: it created war in the air and transformed it at sea. Today, as twentieth-century weapons are challenged by drones and robotics, Black examines what the future of warfare looks like.