Showing results for "History, Myth" in Military

Few, if any, 20th-century political leaders have enjoyed greater popularity among their own people than Hitler did in the decade or so following his rise to power in 1933. The personality of Hitler himself, however, can scarcely explain this immense popularity or his political effectiveness in the 1930s and '40s. His hold over the German people lay rather in the hopes and perceptions of the millions who adored him. Based largely on the reports of government officials, party agencies, and political opponents, Kershaw's study charts the creation, growth, and decline of the Hitler myth.

In The Myth of the Caudillo, Davis Truman unveils the untold story of how Spain’s dictator didn’t just win a civil war—he reinvented the past to secure his future. Through propaganda, censorship, and the rewriting of national memory, Franco transformed himself from a ruthless general into “El Caudillo,” the savior Spain supposedly needed.

Frequently depicted as “Scandinavian scavengers”, warlike pirates, raiders, and invaders, the Vikings have lately surfaced from the depths of history to become pop culture’s most adored ruffians. For Prof. Fee, this recent craze for all things Viking is a mixed blessing. The spike in popular fascination often occasions a need to separate the wheat from the chaff: fact from fiction, history from myth, literature from legend.

Contrary to movie and legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo in the war for Texan independence—including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William B. Travis—did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry. Instead, the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness. In this book, Dr. Tucker informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: most of the Alamo’s defenders died in breakouts from the fort, cut down by Santa Anna’s cavalry, positioned to intercept the escapees.

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth.

Tras su vivencia en territorios de conflicto, el médico y periodista Víctor de Currea-Lugo realizó una exhaustiva revisión de lo que ocurre en Palestina, Pakistán, Kurdistán el Estado Islámico, Afganistán, Sudán, Sahara Occidental, Siria y Etiopía, la cual le da forma al audiolibro Fanatismos, mitos y fusiles. Para pensar las guerras del siglo XXI, no se concentra en analizar desde afuera los diversos rostros y las dinámicas de los conflictos que han caracterizado a dichas regiones del globo. Esta apuesta es diferente.