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Churchill's Spy Files: MI5's Top-Secret Wartime Reports

by Nigel West

The Second World War saw the role of espionage, secret agents and spy services increase exponentially as the world was thrown into a truly global conflict on an unprecedented scale. At this time, very few people in government were fully aware of what MI5 and its brethren really did. But with Churchill at the country’s helm, MI5 reluctantly decided to let the inquisitive prime minister in on the secret, providing him with a weekly report of the organisation’s clandestine activities – so highly classified that he was handed each report personally and copies were never allowed to be made, nor was he allowed to keep hold of them. However, the original documents have survived, buried deep in the archives, with many pages annotated by hand by ‘W.S.C.’ himself. Here acclaimed intelligence expert Nigel West unravels the tales of previously unknown spy missions, revealing a fresh view of the worldwide intelligence scene of the Second World War, and exposing the Soviet mole who drafted Churchill’s briefings. With foreword from Lord Evans of Weardale, former Director-General of MI5.

Cinema and Unconventional Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Insurgency, Terrorism and Special Operations

by Paul B. Rich

Cinematic representations of unconventional warfare have received sporadic attention to date. However, this pattern has now begun to change with the rise of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing importance of jihadist terrorism in the wake of 9/11. This ground-breaking study provides a much-needed examination of global unconventional warfare in 20th-century filmmaking, with case studies from the United States, Britain, Ireland, France, Italy and Israel. Paul B. Rich examines Hollywood's treatment of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in the United States; British post-colonial insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya and British special operations in the Second World War; the Irish conflict before and during the Troubles; French filmmaking and the reluctance to deal with the bitter war in Algeria in the 1950s; Italian neorealism and its impact on films dealing with urban insurgency by Roberto Rossellini, Nanni Loy and Gillo Pontecorvo, and Israel and the upsurge of Palestinian terrorism. Whilst only a small number of films on these conflicts have been able to rise above stereotyping insurgents and terrorists - in some cases due to a pattern of screen orientalism - Cinema and Unconventional Warfare in the Twentieth Century stresses the positive political gains to be derived from humanizing terrorists and terrorists movements, especially in the context of modern jihadist terrorism. This is essential reading for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in 20th-century military history, politics and international relations, and film studies.

The City Lament: Jerusalem across the Medieval Mediterranean

by Tamar M. Boyadjian

Poetic elegies for lost or fallen cities are seemingly as old as cities themselves. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this genre finds its purest expression in the book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem; in Arabic, this genre is known as the ritha al-mudun. In The City Lament, Tamar M. Boyadjian traces the trajectory of the genre across the Mediterranean world during the period commonly referred to as the early Crusades (1095–1191), focusing on elegies and other expressions of loss that address the spiritual and strategic objective of those wars: Jerusalem. Through readings of city laments in English, French, Latin, Arabic, and Armenian literary traditions, Boyadjian challenges hegemonic and entrenched approaches to the study of medieval literature and the Crusades.The City Lament exposes significant literary intersections between Latin Christendom, the Islamic caliphates of the Middle East, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, arguing for shared poetic and rhetorical modes. Reframing our understanding of literary sources produced across the medieval Mediterranean from an antagonistic, orientalist model to an analogous one, Boyadjian demonstrates how lamentations about the loss of Jerusalem, whether to Muslim or Christian forces, reveal fascinating parallels and rich, cross-cultural exchanges.

City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul

by Ephraim Mattos Scott McEwen

A frontline witness account of the deadly urban combat of the Battle of Mosul told by former Navy SEAL and frontline combat medic Ephraim Mattos.After leaving the US Navy SEAL teams in spring of 2017, Ephraim Mattos, age twenty-four, flew to Iraq to join a small group of volunteer humanitarians known as the Free Burma Rangers, who were working on the frontlines of the war on ISIS.Until being shot by ISIS on a suicidal rescue mission, Mattos witnessed unexplainable acts of courage and sacrifice by the Free Burma Rangers, who, while under heavy machine gun and mortar fire, assaulted across ISIS minefields, used themselves as human shields, and sprinted down ISIS-infested streets-all to retrieve wounded civilians.In City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul, Mattos recounts in vivid detail what he saw and felt while he and the other Free Burma Rangers evacuated the wounded, conducted rescue missions, and at times fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iraqi Army against ISIS. Filled with raw and emotional descriptions of what it's like to come face-to-face with death, this is the harrowing and uplifting true story of a small group of men who risked everything to save the lives of the Iraqi people and who followed the credence, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."As the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestselling American Sniper, Scott McEwen has teamed up with Mattos to help share an unforgettable tale of an American warrior turned humanitarian forced to fight his way into and out of a Hell on Earth created by ISIS.

Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan: Identity and Transformation (Emerald Points)

by Dean Karalekas

The armed forces of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan are in dire need of reform to address a plethora of problems including inadequate training, low morale, poor public perception, and low recruitment numbers. This book uses the postmodern military model to measure how public perception of the military is influenced by self-identification in Taiwan, and it shows that the public has little confidence or trust in their military, even as they remain acutely aware of the threat posed by an increasingly belligerent China and its ever-growing People's Liberation Army. While there has been much analysis as to what strategies and weapons systems should be adopted by ROC defense planners, relatively little has been written on how to create a more relevant military within Taiwan society. Ultimately, this book addresses these matters and provides policymakers within the ROC government and military, as well as researchers of Asia Pacific security, with an understanding of the current relationship between military and society, to assist in the creation of a more accountable military.

Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan: Identity and Transformation (Emerald Points)

by Dean Karalekas

The armed forces of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan are in dire need of reform to address a plethora of problems including inadequate training, low morale, poor public perception, and low recruitment numbers. This book uses the postmodern military model to measure how public perception of the military is influenced by self-identification in Taiwan, and it shows that the public has little confidence or trust in their military, even as they remain acutely aware of the threat posed by an increasingly belligerent China and its ever-growing People's Liberation Army. While there has been much analysis as to what strategies and weapons systems should be adopted by ROC defense planners, relatively little has been written on how to create a more relevant military within Taiwan society. Ultimately, this book addresses these matters and provides policymakers within the ROC government and military, as well as researchers of Asia Pacific security, with an understanding of the current relationship between military and society, to assist in the creation of a more accountable military.

Civilians and Warfare in World History (Cass Military Studies)

by Nicola Foote Nadya Williams

This book explores the role played by civilians in shaping the outcomes of military combat across time and place. This volume explores the contributions civilians have made to warfare in case studies that range from ancient Europe to contemporary Africa and Latin America. Building on philosophical and legal scholarship, it explores the blurred boundary between combatant and civilian in different historical contexts and examines how the absence of clear demarcations shapes civilian strategic positioning and impacts civilian vulnerability to military targeting and massacre. The book argues that engagement with the blurred boundaries between combatant and non-combatant both advance the key analytical questions that underpin the historical literature on civilians and underline the centrality of civilians to a full understanding of warfare. The volume provides new insight into why civilian death and suffering has been so common, despite widespread beliefs embedded in legal and military codes across time and place that killing civilians is wrong. Ultimately, the case studies in the book show that civilians, while always victims of war, were nevertheless often able to become empowered agents in defending their own lives, and impacting the outcomes of wars. By highlighting civilian military agency and broadening the sense of which actors affect strategic outcomes, the book also contributes to a richer understanding of war itself. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, international history, international relations and war and conflict studies.

Civilians and Warfare in World History (Cass Military Studies)

by Nicola Foote Nadya Williams

This book explores the role played by civilians in shaping the outcomes of military combat across time and place. This volume explores the contributions civilians have made to warfare in case studies that range from ancient Europe to contemporary Africa and Latin America. Building on philosophical and legal scholarship, it explores the blurred boundary between combatant and civilian in different historical contexts and examines how the absence of clear demarcations shapes civilian strategic positioning and impacts civilian vulnerability to military targeting and massacre. The book argues that engagement with the blurred boundaries between combatant and non-combatant both advance the key analytical questions that underpin the historical literature on civilians and underline the centrality of civilians to a full understanding of warfare. The volume provides new insight into why civilian death and suffering has been so common, despite widespread beliefs embedded in legal and military codes across time and place that killing civilians is wrong. Ultimately, the case studies in the book show that civilians, while always victims of war, were nevertheless often able to become empowered agents in defending their own lives, and impacting the outcomes of wars. By highlighting civilian military agency and broadening the sense of which actors affect strategic outcomes, the book also contributes to a richer understanding of war itself. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, international history, international relations and war and conflict studies.

Civilians Under Siege from Sarajevo to Troy

by John Horne Alex Dowdall

This edited volume analyses siege warfare as a discrete type of military engagement, in the face of which civilians are particularly vulnerable. Siege warfare is a form of combat that has usually had devastating effects on civilian populations. From the near-contemporary Siege of Sarajevo to the real and mythical sieges of the ancient Mediterranean, this has been a recurring type of military engagement which, through bombardment, starvation, disease and massacre, places non-combatants at the heart of battle. To date, however, there has been little recognition of the effects of siege warfare on civilians. This edited volume addresses this gap. Using a distinctive regressive method, it begins with the present and works backwards, avoiding teleological interpretations that suggest the targeting of civilians in war is a modern phenomenon. Its contributors interrogate civilians’ roles during sieges, both as victims and active participants; the laws and customs of siege warfare; its place in historical memory, and the ways civilian survivors have dealt with trauma. Its scope and content ensure that the collection is essential reading for all those interested in the place of civilians in war.Chapter 2 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

Classic Stories of World War I

by Classic Stories Of World War I

Published to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of The Great War, Classic Stories of World War I is a compilation of fiction and non-fiction excerpts from the works of world-class authors - such as Joseph Conrad and W. Somerset Maugham - who lived through the conflict. From the home front to the western front, on land or at sea, this collection is a unique insight into the 'war to end war.' Contents: JOSEPH CONRAD, The Tale W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, The Traitor (from Ashenden) ERNEST HEMINGWAY, In Another Country (from Men Without Women) EDITH WHARTON, Coming Home STACY AUMONIER, Them Others JOHN W. THOMASON, JR, War Dog GEORGES DUHAMEL, Réchoussat's Christmas (from Civilisation) H. M. THOMLINSON, Armistice (from Waiting for Daylight) C. E. MONTAGUE, Honours Easy (from Fiery Particles) RICHARD ALDINGTON, Introduction to the Trenches (from Death of a Hero) JOHN GALSWORTHY, Defeat (from Six Short Plays) PAUL ALVERDES, The Man in the Next Bed (from The Next Man) LEO V. JACKS, One Hundred Per Cent KARL WILKE, Marie-Luise H. M. TOMLINSON, A Raid Night (from Waiting for Daylight) JAMES WARNER BELLAH, Fear JAMES B. WHARTON, Among the Trumpets W. TOWNEND, No Quarter W. F. MORRIS, Souvenirs ARED WHITE, The Watch on the Rhine

The Claymore Straker Vigilante Series (Claymore Straker #0)

by Paul E. Hardisty

Get all four books in the nerve-shredding, exhilarating, high-octane Claymore Straker series, in one GREAT-VALUE Box Set.Claymore Straker escapes his violent past to become a vigilante with a powerful social conscience, seeking justice in a succession of perilous encounters, life-threatening battles and challenging journeys. An action-packed, tense and unrelenting series of political/environmental thrillers by one of the world’s most renowned environmental scientists.‘A stormer of a thriller – vividly written, utterly tropical, totally gripping’ Peter James‘Hardisty is a fine writer and Straker is a great lead character’ Lee Child‘A fast-paced action thriller, beautifully written’ Tim MarshallThe Abrupt Physics of Dying (Book One)When he is hijacked by Islamic terrorists, an oil company engineer is forced to investigate a mysterious illness afflicting a small Yemen village … with shocking results. A stunning debut thriller and first in the addictive, eye-opening Claymore Straker series.The Evolution of Fear (Book Two)Vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker is on the run, with a price on his head. Wanted by the CIA for acts of terrorism he did not commit, his best friend has just been murdered and Rania, the woman he loves, has disappeared. He begins a terrifying search that will have unimaginable consequences…Reconciliation for the Dead (Book Three)Vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker returns to South Africa to testify to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recounting the horrifying events that led to his exile, years earlier. The explosive, thought-provoking, searingly emotive third instalment in the critically acclaimed Claymore Straker series…Absolution (Book Four)When vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker is witness to the murders of a family he has befriended, and his lover’s husband and son disappear, his investigations take him to the darkest places he could ever have imagined. The stunning final instalment in the gripping, frighteningly realistic Claymore Straker series.Praise for the Claymore Straker series**Shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger****Telegraph and Guardian BOOK of the YEAR**‘A page-turning adventure that grabs you from the first page and won’t let go’ Edward Wilson'A forceful novel by a writer not afraid of weighty issues’ Maxim Jakubowski‘Beautifully written, blisteringly authentic, heart-stoppingly tense and unusually moving’ Paul Johnston'Just occasionally, a book comes along to restore your faith in a genre and Paul Hardisty's The Abrupt Physics of Dying does this in spades' The Times‘Laces the thrills and spills with enough moral indignation to give the book heft … excellent’ Telegraph‘This is a remarkably well-written, sophisticated novel in which the people and places, as well as frequent scenes of violent action, all come alive on the page...’ Literary Review‘Searing … at times achieves the level of genuine poetry’ Publishers Weekly STARRED review‘A trenchant and engaging thriller that unravels this mysterious land in cool, precise sentences’ Stav Sherez, Catholic Herald‘Gripping and exciting … the quality of Hardisty’s writing and the underlying truth of his plots sets this above many other thrillers’ West Australian

Closing the Door on Globalization: Internationalism, Nationalism, Culture and Science in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine)

by Cláudia Ninhos Fernando Clara

This is a book about the tensions and entangled interactions between internationalism and nationalism, and about the effects both had on European scientific and cultural settings from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. From chemistry to philology the essays tackle different historical case studies exploring how the paths taken by science and culture during the period were affected by nationalism and internationalism.

Closing the Door on Globalization: Internationalism, Nationalism, Culture and Science in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine)

by Cláudia Ninhos

This is a book about the tensions and entangled interactions between internationalism and nationalism, and about the effects both had on European scientific and cultural settings from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. From chemistry to philology the essays tackle different historical case studies exploring how the paths taken by science and culture during the period were affected by nationalism and internationalism.

Codebreaker: The untold story of Richard Hayes, the Dublin librarian who helped turn the tide of World War II

by Marc McMenamin

When Richard Hayes, a gifted polymath and cryptographer, was drafted by Irish intelligence services to track the movements of a prolific Nazi spy, Hermann Görtz, it set in motion one of the most remarkable episodes in Irish history. What followed was a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that would wind its way through the capital and its suburbs, reverberate through the corridors of power, test the sympathies of those in high society, and even expand to jeopardise the Allied war effort.Codebreaker is a riveting and deeply researched account of an extraordinary period of history – when Dublin became a hotbed of Nazi intrigue and the fate of an independent Ireland settled on the shoulders of an unassuming employee of the National Library.

Codename: The Inside Account of How Obama Won the Biggest Prize in Politics

by Richard Wolffe

Written by British political reporter Richard Wolffe, Renegade is an election epic as well as an insightful biography of the new President of the United States. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama told Wolffe that, 'You'll get more access than anyone else', resulting in a riveting first-hand account of the 21-month journey from candidate to president. Wolffe covers the campaign in untold detail as well as revealing how Obama learned his personal and political skills in his youth and early career, which led him from his university lecturer's office in Iowa, to his nomination as the Democratic candidate, and finally to the Oval Office in Washington. Combining history, political psychology and biography, Renegade is an essential guide to understanding the president.

Codename Suzette: An extraordinary story of resistance and rescue in Nazi Paris

by Anne Nelson

The thrilling and previously untold true story of Suzanne Spaak, who abandoned her life of opulence to save the Jewish children of Occupied Paris during the Second World War.Suzanne Spaak was born into an affluent Belgian Catholic family and married into the country's leading political dynasty. Her brother-in-law was the prime minister while her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter René Magritte. In occupied Paris she was part of the cultural elite and a neighbour of Colette and Jean Cocteau. But Suzanne was living a double life.Her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her life's purpose. When France fell and the Nazis occupied Paris, she joined the Resistance. She used her fortune and social status to enlist allies among wealthy Parisians and church groups. Under the eyes of the Gestapo, Suzanne and women from the Jewish and Christian resistance groups 'kidnapped' hundreds of Jewish children to save them from the gas chambers. Codename Suzette is a masterpiece of research and narrative, bringing to life a truly remarkable woman and painting a vivid and unforgettable picture of wartime Paris.

Cold Black: Hetman 2 (An Aidan Snow SAS Thriller #2)

by Alex Shaw

Aidan Snow is back with a mission that is bigger than ever.

Cold Blood (An Aidan Snow SAS Thriller #1)

by Alex Shaw

Aidan Snow thought he could escape his past. But now it’s back, with a vengeance.

Cold East (An Aidan Snow SAS Thriller #3)

by Alex Shaw

The clock is ticking. Will Aidan Snow be able to save the world…again?

The Cold War: A World History

by Odd Arne Westad

'Odd Arne Westad's daring ambition, supra-nationalist intellect, polyglot sources, masterly scholarship and trenchant analysis make The Cold War a book ofresounding importance for appraising our global future as well as understanding our past' Richard Davenport-Hines, TLS, Books of the YearAs Germany and then Japan surrendered in 1945 there was a tremendous hope that a new and much better world could be created from the moral and physical ruins of the conflict. Instead, the combination of the huge power of the USA and USSR and the near-total collapse of most of their rivals created a unique, grim new environment: the Cold War.For over forty years the demands of the Cold War shaped the life of almost all of us. There was no part of the world where East and West did not, ultimately, demand a blind and absolute allegiance, and nowhere into which the West and East did not reach. Countries as remote from each other as Korea, Angola and Cuba were defined by their allegiances. Almost all civil wars became proxy conflicts for the superpowers. Europe was seemingly split in two indefinitely.Arne Westad's remarkable new book is the first to have the distance from these events and the ambition to create a convincing, powerful narrative of the Cold War. The book is genuinely global in its reach and captures the dramas and agonies of a period always overshadowed by the horror of nuclear war and which, for millions of people, was not 'cold' at all: a time of relentless violence, squandered opportunities and moral failure.This is a book of extraordinary scope and daring. It is conventional to see the first half of the 20th century as a nightmare and the second half as a reprieve. Westad shows that for much of the world the second half was by most measures even worse.

The Cold War: A New Oral History of Life Between East and West

by Bridget Kendall

The Cold War is one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting conflicts in modern history. It spanned the globe - from Greece to China, Hungary to Cuba - and lasted for almost half a century. It has shaped political relations to this day, drawing new physical and ideological boundaries between East and West. In this meticulously researched account, Bridget Kendall explores the Cold War through the eyes of those who experienced it first-hand. Alongside in-depth analysis that explains the historical and political context, the book draws on exclusive interviews with individuals who lived through the conflict's key events, offering a variety of perspectives that reveal how the Cold War was experienced by ordinary people. From pilots making food drops during the Berlin Blockade and Japanese fishermen affected by H-bomb testing to families fleeing the Korean War and children whose parents were victims of McCarthy's Red Scare, The Cold War covers the full geographical and historical reach of the conflict. The Cold War is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how the tensions of the last century have shaped the modern world, and what it was like to live through them.

The Cold War in East Asia

by Xiaobing Li

This textbook provides a survey of East Asia during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991. Focusing on the persistence and flexibility of its culture and tradition when confronted by the West and the US, this book investigates how they intermesh to establish the nations that have entered the modern world. Through the use of newly declassified Communist sources, the narrative helps students form a better understanding of the origins and development of post-WWII East Asia. The analysis demonstrates how East Asia’s position in the Cold War was not peripheral but, in many key senses, central. The active role that East Asia played, ultimately, turned this main Cold War battlefield into a "buffer" between the United States and the Soviet Union. Covering a range of countries, this textbook explores numerous events, which took place in East Asia during the Cold War, including: The occupation of Japan, Civil war in China and the establishment of Taiwan, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, China’s Reforming Movement. Moving away from Euro-American centric approaches and illuminating the larger themes and patterns in the development of East Asian modernity, The Cold War in East Asia is an essential resource for students of Asian History, the Cold War and World History.

The Cold War in East Asia

by Xiaobing Li

This textbook provides a survey of East Asia during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991. Focusing on the persistence and flexibility of its culture and tradition when confronted by the West and the US, this book investigates how they intermesh to establish the nations that have entered the modern world. Through the use of newly declassified Communist sources, the narrative helps students form a better understanding of the origins and development of post-WWII East Asia. The analysis demonstrates how East Asia’s position in the Cold War was not peripheral but, in many key senses, central. The active role that East Asia played, ultimately, turned this main Cold War battlefield into a "buffer" between the United States and the Soviet Union. Covering a range of countries, this textbook explores numerous events, which took place in East Asia during the Cold War, including: The occupation of Japan, Civil war in China and the establishment of Taiwan, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, China’s Reforming Movement. Moving away from Euro-American centric approaches and illuminating the larger themes and patterns in the development of East Asian modernity, The Cold War in East Asia is an essential resource for students of Asian History, the Cold War and World History.

Combats & Kisses

by P. W. Wolfendale

There comes a time in life when you have to walk away from your family and surround yourself with people who will be your everlasting friends, people who will be there for you in times of need, and people that will never let you suffer alone. As a sixteen year old lad, and still attached to my mother’s apron strings, I decided to fulfil my teenage dreams and join the Army. This is a true in-depth encounter spanning over ten years of military service. How the next ten years unfolded is something I felt I needed to share with the world. Basic training, military pranks, letters from our loved ones, the endless civil war in Northern Ireland, heartache, bullying, and last but not least, our fallen heroes. Feeling all alone as I waited for the train to arrive to take me away from my family and friends is a day I shall never forget.

Comfort Women And Sex In The Battle Zone (PDF)

by Ikuhiko Hata

Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone is an exhaustive examination of the controversial issue of comfort women, who provided sexual services to Japanese soldiers before and during World War II. This book provides extensive documents and narratives by witnesses to shed light on the reality of these women who worked in the battle zone. The book also covers Japan's political and diplomatic disagreements with neighboring nations, in particular South Korea and China, over this issue, as well as other international reactions, including the U.S. House of Representatives resolution that urged the Japanese government to apologize to former comfort women. The book is an English translation of the Japanese version first published in 1999 and reprinted several times, with additional sections covering recent developments.

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