The Great Boer War


Byron Farwell - 1976
    1990 1st Thus Norton

The Blue and the Gray (2 Vols in 1)


Henry Steele Commager - 1950
    Moving accounts cover every campaign and battle on land and sea and tell a sequential story, of the war Includes letters, journals, diaries, memoirs, official records, state papers, and more. and-white illustrations throughout.

AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War


Larry Kahaner - 2006
    This book examines the legacy of this world-changing weapon, from its creation as means of fighting the Nazis to its ubiquity today in every kind of conflict, from civil wars in Africa to gang wars in L.A. This is not a 'gun book' per se but a look at how this weapon has changed the world.

1809 Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon's Defeat of the Habsburgs


John H. Gill - 2008
    Napoleon faced the Archduke Charles, the best of the Habsburg commanders, and a reformed Austrian Army that was arguably the best ever fielded by the Danubian Monarchy. The French ultimately triumphed but the margin of superiority was decreasing and all of Napoleon's skill and determination was required to achieve a victorious outcome. Gill tackles the political background to the war, especially the motivations that prompted Austria to launch an offensive against France while Napoleon and many of his veterans were distracted in Spain. Though surprised by the timing of the Austrian attack on April 10th, the French Emperor completely reversed a dire strategic situation with stunning blows that he called his 'most brilliant and most skillful maneuvers'. Following a breathless pursuit down the Danube valley, Napoleon occupied the palaces of the Habsburgs for the second time in four years. The Austrians recovered, however, and Napoleon suffered his first unequivocal repulse at the Battle of Aspern-Essling on the shores of the Danube opposite Vienna. He would win many battles in his future campaigns, but never again would one of Europe's great powers lie broken at his feet. In this respect 1809 represents a high point of the First Empire as well as a watershed, for Napoleon's armies were declining in quality and he was beginning to display the corrosive flaws that contributed to his downfall five years later.

Saigon Has Fallen


Peter Arnett - 2015
    Arnett’s clear-eyed coverage incurred the wrath of President Lyndon Johnson and officials on all sides of the conflict. Writing candidly and vividly about his gambles and glories, Arnett also shares his fears and fights in reporting against the backdrop of war. Arnett places readers at the historic pivot-points of Vietnam: covering Marine landings, mountaintop battles, Saigon’s decline and fall, and the safe evacuation of a planeload of 57 infants in the midst of chaos. Peter Arnett’s sweeping view and his frank, descriptive, and dramatic writing brings the Vietnam War to life in a uniquely insightful way for this year’s 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Arnett won the Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for his Vietnam coverage. He later went on to TV-reporting fame covering the Gulf War for CNN. Includes 21 dramatic photographs from the AP Archive and the personal collection of Peter Arnett. About the Author Peter Arnett started as an intern at his local newspaper at age 18, but knew even then his interest was in covering the world. Less than a decade later, he was traveling the globe for The Associated Press, the first of several major American news organizations he would work for. His Vietnam War coverage for the AP won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1966. Arnett joined CNN at its birth in the early 1980s, earning a television Emmy for his live television coverage of the first Gulf War from Baghdad in 1991. Born in New Zealand in 1934, he later became an American citizen and now lives in Fountain Valley, CA. About The Associated Press The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP.

The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567-1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries' Wars


Geoffrey Parker - 1972
    Constantly cited since its first publication in English (with translations into Spanish and Dutch), this revised updated second edition includes new sources and references but otherwise remains faithful to the original edition. First Edition Hb (1972): 0-521-08462-8 First Edition Pb (1975): 0-521-09907-2

Zeebrugge: Eleven VCs Before Breakfast


Barrie Pitt - 1959
     This is the story, brilliantly told, of a desperate and heroic venture - the raid by British warships of the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, 23 April 1918. The objective was to sink blockships in the mouth of the canal, sealing off access to the English Channel from the U-boats and destroyers based in the harbour at Bruges. The British crews were all volunteers, yet highly trained and ready for the fight. Many knew they were unlikely to survive the firestorm from the German batteries. It was the ultimate example of heroism in the face of defeat. The Germans removed the obstructions, and the U-boats continued to operate through the summer. But in that one brief morning, eleven men won the VC, 21 the DSO, 29 the DSC, among many other awards. Barrie Pitt, the bestselling author of The Crucible of War (about the Battle of Alamein) and History of the SBS, captures logistics, action and spirit of the men during the campaign. Zeebrugge is a military classic, a testament to British heroism. Recommended reading for fans of Antony Beevor, Max Hastings and James Holland. Barrie Pitt (1918-2006) was well known as a military historian and editor of Purnell’s History of the Second World War and History of the First World War. His publications include 'Coronel and Falkland', 'Churchill and the Generals' and 'The Crucible of War', a trilogy covering the North African campaign of the Second World War. He was born in Galway and later lived near Ilminster in Somerset. Praise for Barrie Pitt: 'As much a thriller as it is a history book.' Daily Mail 'A breathless and unforgettable narrative.' Sphere 'A magnificent book. Barrie Pitt has almost a novelist's skill and perception of character.' Daily Telegraph Totally readable, Mr Pitt's study depicts equally well the broad outlines of strategy, the confusions and hazards of the battlefield and the personalities of the generals of private soldiers fighting there.' Oxford Times

The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War


Giles Tremlett - 2020
    Over 35,000 volunteers from fifty-two countries around the world came to defend democracy against the troops of Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini. Ill-equipped and disorderly, yet fueled by a shared sense of purpose and potential glory, disparate groups of idealistic young men and women banded together to form a volunteer army of a size and kind unseen since the Crusades, known as the International Brigades. These passionate liberal fighters-from across Europe, China, Africa and the Americas-would join the Republican cause, fighting for over two years on the bloody battlegrounds of Madrid, Jarama and Ebro. Were they heroes or fools? Saints or bloodthirsty adventurers? And what exactly did they achieve? In this magisterial history, award-winning historian Giles Tremlett tells-for the first time-the story of the Spanish Civil War through all the human drama of an historic mission to halt fascist expansion in Europe. The International Brigades shows just how far ordinary people will go to save democracy against overwhelming odds.

Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World it Made


Richard Rhodes - 2015
    The Spanish Civil War inspired and haunted an extraordinary number of exceptional artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, and John Dos Passos. The idealism of the cause—defending democracy from fascism at a time when Europe was darkening toward another world war—and the brutality of the conflict drew from them some of their best work: Guernica, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homage to Catalonia, The Spanish Earth.The war spurred breakthroughs in military and medical technology as well. New aircraft, new weapons, new tactics and strategy all emerged in the intense Spanish conflict. Indiscriminate destruction raining from the sky became a dreaded reality for the first time. Progress also arose from the horror: the doctors and nurses who volunteered to serve with the Spanish defenders devised major advances in battlefield surgery and front-line blood transfusion. In those ways, and in many others, the Spanish Civil War served as a test bed for World War II, and for the entire twentieth century. From the life of John James Audubon to the invention of the atomic bomb, readers have long relied on Richard Rhodes to explain, distill, and dramatize crucial moments in history. Now, he takes us into battlefields and bomb shelters, into the studios of artists, into the crowded wards of war hospitals, and into the hearts and minds of a rich cast of characters to show how the ideological, aesthetic, and technological developments that emerged in Spain changed the world forever.

The Armada


Garrett Mattingly - 1959
    The esteemed and critically acclaimed historian Garrett Mattingly explores all dimensions of the naval campaign, which captured the attention of the European world and played a deciding role in the settlement of the New World. “So skillfully constructed it reads like a novel” (New York Times), The Armada is sure to appeal to the scholar and amateur historian alike.

Durruti in the Spanish Revolution


Abel Paz - 1976
    Abel Paz's magnificent biography resurrects the very soul of Spanish anarchism.”—Mike Davis, author of Planet of SlumsAK Press has commissioned an elegant, new and unabridged translation of the definitive biography of Spanish revolutionary and military strategist, Buenaventura Durruti. But Abel Paz, who fought alongside Durruti in the Spanish Civil War, has given us much more than an account of a single man’s life. Durruti in the Spanish Revolution is as much a biography of a nation and of a tumultuous historical era. Paz seamlessly weaves intimate biographical details of Durruti’s life—his progression from factory worker and father to bank robber, political exile and, eventually, revolutionary leader—with extensive historical background, behind-the-scenes governmental intrigue, and blow-by-blow accounts of major battles and urban guerrilla warfare. An amazing and exhaustive study of an incredible man and his life-long fight against fascism in both its capitalist and Stalinist forms.Includes Jose Luis Gutierres Molina’s introduction about Abel Paz’s life and the historiography of the Spanish Civil War.Abel Paz was born in 1921. At 15, he joined the Durruti Column and fought in the Spanish Revolution. After the revolution's defeat, he was active as a guerilla fighter against the Franco regime and spent eleven years in prison. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.Chuck Morse founded the Institute for Anarchist Studies, co-edited Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, and founded and edited The New Formulation: An Anti-Authoritarian Review of Books. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944


Anna Reid - 2011
    The siege was not lifted for two and a half years, by which time some three quarters of a million Leningraders had died of starvation.Anna Reid's Leningrad is a gripping, authoritative narrative history of this dramatic moment in the twentieth century, interwoven with indelible personal accounts of daily siege life drawn from diarists on both sides. They reveal the Nazis' deliberate decision to starve Leningrad into surrender and Hitler's messianic miscalculation, the incompetence and cruelty of the Soviet war leadership, the horrors experienced by soldiers on the front lines, and, above all, the terrible details of life in the blockaded city: the relentless search for food and water; the withering of emotions and family ties; looting, murder, and cannibalism- and at the same time, extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice.Stripping away decades of Soviet propaganda, and drawing on newly available diaries and government records, Leningrad also tackles a raft of unanswered questions: Was the size of the death toll as much the fault of Stalin as of Hitler? Why didn't the Germans capture the city? Why didn't it collapse into anarchy? What decided who lived and who died? Impressive in its originality and literary style, Leningrad gives voice to the dead and will rival Anthony Beevor's classic Stalingrad in its impact.

Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure


Don Kladstrup - 2001
    "To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine." -Claude Terrail, owner, Restaurant La Tour d'ArgentIn 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown-until now. This is the thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them. Wine and War illuminates a compelling, little-known chapter of history, and stands as a tribute to extraordinary individuals who waged a battle that, in a very real way, saved the spirit of France.

Bolívar: American Liberator


Marie Arana - 2013
    He freed six countries from Spanish rule, traveled more than 75,000 miles on horseback to do so, and became the greatest figure in Latin American history. His life is epic, heroic, straight out of Hollywood--he fought battle after battle in punishing terrain, forged uncertain coalitions of competing forces and races, lost his beautiful wife soon after they married and never remarried (although he did have a succession of mistresses, including one who held up the revolution and another who saved his life), and he died relatively young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945


Max Hastings - 2011
    World War II involved tens of millions of soldiers and cost sixty million lives—an average of twenty-seven thousand a day. For thirty-five years, Max Hastings has researched and written about different aspects of the war. Now, for the first time, he gives us a magnificent, single-volume history of the entire war. Through his strikingly detailed stories of everyday people—of soldiers, sailors and airmen; British housewives and Indian peasants; SS killers and the citizens of Leningrad, some of whom resorted to cannibalism during the two-year siege; Japanese suicide pilots and American carrier crews—Hastings provides a singularly intimate portrait of the world at war. He simultaneously traces the major developments—Hitler’s refusal to retreat from the Soviet Union until it was too late; Stalin’s ruthlessness in using his greater population to wear down the German army; Churchill’s leadership in the dark days of 1940 and 1941; Roosevelt’s steady hand before and after the United States entered the war—and puts them in real human context.Hastings also illuminates some of the darker and less explored regions under the war’s penumbra, including the conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland, during which the Finns fiercely and surprisingly resisted Stalin’s invading Red Army; and the Bengal famine in 1943 and 1944, when at least one million people died in what turned out to be, in Nehru’s words, “the final epitaph of British rule” in India. Remarkably informed and wide-ranging, Inferno is both elegantly written and cogently argued. Above all, it is a new and essential understanding of one of the greatest and bloodiest events of the twentieth century.