Showing titles in Military

The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.

Until his assassination by US drone strike in January 2020, commander Qassem Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran and the military spearhead for Iranian foreign policy, enacting the wishes of the country's Supreme Leader in the region. A widely popular but also feared maverick operator, he helped to establish the Islamic Republic as a major force in the Middle East, with interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. This was a long way from where he began as a youth, living on the margins in a country ruled by a monarch supported by the United States.

Heading south to lands he once considered his home, Beobrand is plunged into a dark world of piracy and slavery when an old friend enlists his help to recover a kidnapped girl. Embarking onto the wind-tossed seas, Beobrand pursues his quarry with single-minded tenacity. But the Whale Road is never calm and his journey is beset with storms, betrayal and violence. As the winds of his wyrd blow him ever further from what he knows, will Beobrand find victory on his quest or has his luck finally abandoned him?

By the end of the nineteenth century, India was described as the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, but how did such a small island come to dominate one of the richest lands in the world? Without doubt the toughest opponents to British control was led by the Sikhs. Ranjit Singh, the brilliant "Lion of Punjab" who ruled the Sikh Empire, had revolutionized his army by employing French officers from Napoleon's Grand Army to train his artillery and infantry on the European model.

Why did India and China go to war in 1962? What propelled Jawaharlal Nehru's 'vision' of China? Why is it necessary to understand the trans-Himalayan power play of India and China in the formative period of their nationhoods? The past shadows the present in this relationship and shapes current...

ஹிட்லர் என்கிற ஒரு மனிதன் உலகத்தில் தோன்றாமல் இருந்திருந்தால் இரண்டாவது உலக யுத்தம் ஏற்பட்டிருக்குமா...

1775: British East India Company had won the battles of Plassey and Buxar. Their devastating tax measures and government machinery led to the Great Bengal Famine. Even as the masses struggled for survival, the Company was on a steady path towards maximizing profits and becoming the undisputed rulers of Bengal. Maharaja Nanda Kumar was an influential landowner in Bengal, who had been put in charge for revenue collection by the Company. He stumbled upon the elaborate game of money laundering and corruption with one man behind it all–Warren Hastings.

Bloomsbury presents Midway: The Pacific War’s Most Famous Battle by Mark Stille, read by John Chancer. A detailed re-examination of Midway, one of the most significant battles in the Pacific Theater of World War II. In April 1942, the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy was at the...

In this brilliant, myth-busting account, Rodric Braithwaite, the former British ambassador to Moscow, challenges much of what we know about the Soviets in Afghanistan. He provides an inside look at this little-understood episode, using first-hand accounts and piercing analysis to show the war as it was fought and experienced by the Russians.

Brought to you by Penguin. **Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024** A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world. *SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2024* On a...

On 25 December 1943, the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst slipped out Altenfjord in Norway to attack Arctic convoy JW55B which was carrying vital war supplies to the Soviet Union. But British naval intelligence knew of the Scharnhorst's mission before she sailed and the vulnerable convoy was protected by a large Royal Naval force, including the battleship Duke of York. In effect the Scharnhorst was sailing into a trap. One of the most compelling naval dramas of the Second World War had begun.

Get as close as you’ll get to a World War II–era P-51 Mustang without flying one yourself with this spellbinding collection of tales from the men who actually flew the planes into war. The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang first started appearing in real numbers in 1943, at the climax of...

A prize-winning historian’s major new history of the Second World War, arguing that Stalin’s USSR was the war’s driving force. “A provocative revisionist take on the Second World War … McMeekin is a formidable researcher.” —Financial Times We remember World War II as a struggle...

In December 1943, with the rising realization that the Allies are planning to invade Fortress Europe, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is assigned the title of General Inspector for the Atlantic Wall. His mission is to assess their readiness. His superior, theater commander, crusty old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had led the Reich to victory in the early years of the war, is now fed up with the whole Nazi regime. He lives comfortably in a plush villa in a quiet Paris suburb, waiting for the inevitable Allied invasion that will bring about their final defeat.

Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman, so she went underground.

“A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve Coll The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a...

From the authors who created Eyewitness to World War II and numerous other best-selling reference books, this is the shocking story behind the covert activity that shaped the outcome of one of the world's greatest conflicts - and the destiny of millions of people. National Geographic's landmark book illuminates World War II as never before. Seven narrative chapters reveal the truth behind the lies and deception that shaped the "secret war".

During his 20 years as a Navy SEAL, Commander Rich Diviney was intimately involved in the world-renowned SEAL selection process, which whittles exceptional candidates down to a small cadre of the most elite optimal performers. But Diviney was often surprised by which recruits washed out and which succeeded. Someone could have all the right skills and still fail, while recruits he might have initially dismissed would prove to be top performers. The seemingly objective criteria weren't telling him what he most needed to know: who could be part of the world's most elite military unit?

Why did the medieval Church bless William of Normandy's invasion of Christian England in 1066 and authorise cultural genocide in Provence? How could a Christian army sack Christian Constantinople in 1204? Why did thousands of ordinary men and women, led by knights and ladies, kings and queens, embark on campaigns of fanatical conquest in the world of Islam? The word 'Crusade' came later, but the concept of a 'war for the faith' is an ancient one.

Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion, and prisoners eat, work, and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket, or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes.