They kept up their intrigues and opium smuggling while helping to rescue 18,000 Jews from Hitler's Europe, and though they soon faced the tsunami that was communism, their legacy remains today.

    But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols’ “Great Taboo”—Genghis Khan’s homeland and forbidden burial site—tracks the astonishing story of Genghis Khan and his descendants, and their conquest and transformation of the world. Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order. But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived. The Mongols introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. They took local foods and products like lemons, carrots, noodles, tea, rugs, playing cards, and pants and turned them into staples of life around the world. The Mongols were the architects of a new way of life at a pivotal time in history. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford resurrects the true history of Genghis Khan, from the story of his relentless rise through Mongol tribal culture to the waging of his devastatingly successful wars and the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed. This dazzling work of revisionist history doesn’t just paint an unprecedented portrait of a great leader and his legacy, but challenges us to reconsider how the modern world was made.From the Hardcover edition.

    In the turmoil of the Russian insurrection of 1905 and civil war of 1917, the anarchists attempted to carry out their program of “direct action”—workers’ control of production, the creation of free rural and urban communes, and partisan warfare against the enemies of a free society.Avrich consulted published material in five languages and anarchist archives worldwide to present a picture of the philosophers, bomb throwers, peasants, and soldiers who fought and died for the freedom of “Mother Russia.” Including the influence and ideas of Bakunin and Kropotkin, the armed uprisings of Makhno, the activities of Volin, Maximoff, and the attempted aid of Berkman and Emma Goldman.Paul Avrich is a retired professor of history at Queens College.

    With a chapter organization mirroring that of The Search for Modern China, this collection is the perfect supplement, providing a first-hand look at the modern Chinese society.

    But by the early 1800s, China had fallen so far behind the West in gunpowder warfare that it was easily defeated by Britain in the Opium War of 1839–42. What happened? In The Gunpowder Age, Tonio Andrade offers a compelling new answer, opening a fresh perspective on a key question of world history: why did the countries of western Europe surge to global importance starting in the 1500s while China slipped behind?Historians have long argued that gunpowder weapons helped Europeans establish global hegemony. Yet the inhabitants of what is today China not only invented guns and bombs but also, Andrade shows, continued to innovate in gunpowder technology through the early 1700s—much longer than previously thought. Why, then, did China become so vulnerable? Andrade argues that one significant reason is that it was out of practice fighting wars, having enjoyed nearly a century of relative peace, since 1760. Indeed, he demonstrates that China—like Europe—was a powerful military innovator, particularly during times of great warfare, such as the violent century starting after the Opium War, when the Chinese once again quickly modernized their forces. Today, China is simply returning to its old position as one of the world’s great military powers.By showing that China’s military dynamism was deeper, longer lasting, and more quickly recovered than previously understood, The Gunpowder Age challenges long-standing explanations of the so-called Great Divergence between the West and Asia.

    Tucker covers Stalin’s life from his first revolutionary years until the end of the 1920s. This important period of his life is the key to understanding how a dictator is formed and how his cruel totalitarian regime was born. With an in-depth analysis of Stalin’s personality and beliefs – set against a historical examination of Soviet society – this captivating book helps us to understand how and why Stalinism occurred. Examining the events that led up to one of the 20th century’s most devastating spectacles, Stalin as Revolutionary is an intelligent and informative take on this terrifying political figure. Praise for Stalin as Revolutionary “Tucker has achieved a real breakthrough… his analysis throws a flood of light into previously obscure corners… Tucker with his analysis of Stalin’s personality structure has opened up an enormously promising vein of research.” Robert M. Slusser, American Historical Review “This towering figure of the twentieth century has hitherto lacked a successful and full-scale biography… Robert Tucker marks the beginning of the end of this situation.” Robert H. McNeal, Russian Review “An absorbing narrative and interpretation of Stalin’s early years and his development as a Bolshevik leader up to 1929 when he arrived at the summit of power… A superb work comparable to Isaac Deutscher’s multi-volume history of Trotsky.” George Charney, Library Journal “Years of research and reflection have made this biography of Stalin’s early years a real historical and literary achievement.” Foreign Affairs “[The book] looks like it’s transforming the field of Stalin studies... Tucker best brings the political and economic issues back to life, and the contenders with them.” Michael Ratcliffe, The Times “I am not enamoured of most ‘psychoanalytic history.’ Yet Tucker’s thesis is convincing, because he understands the Bolshevik story, knows that Stalin’s seizure of power was due to more than his machine politics and Machiavellian cunning, important though they were to him.” - Dillon O’Leary, The Ottawa Journal “Having read Robert Tucker’s book, we now understand better, in my view, the causes of the events that we had to live through in the years of Stalinism.” - Mikhail Koriakov, Novoye Russkoye Slovo “In this book, an utterly extraordinary one in my opinion, the riddle of Stalin is at last resolved.” - Dimitry Bezrukikh, Russkaya Mysl Robert C. Tucker (1918 - 2010) was a distinguished Sovietologist at Princeton University whose Stalin biographies commanded wide attention. He was called ‘one of the greatest students of Stalin and Stalinism’ by diplomat and Russian scholar, George F. Kennan. His books are used in college classrooms across the world today.

    Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of official orders to "kill anything that moves."Drawing on more than a decade of research into secret Pentagon archives and extensive interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse reveals for the first time the workings of a military machine that resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded-what one soldier called "a My Lai a month." Devastating and definitive, Kill Anything That Moves finally brings us face-to-face with the truth of a war that haunts America to this day.

    The inspired and detailed presentation of Professor Andrew R. Wilson of the U.S. Naval War College is vivid cultural history at its most compelling and insightful.

    Still a basic and indespensible account of the Palestinian question, updated to include the most recent developments in the Middle East- from the intifada to the Gulf war to the historic peace conference in Madrid.

    This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of humanity" (The New York Times).

     Founded in 1831 to fight France’s colonial wars without spilling French blood, this mysterious army is today a world-class fighting force. Training is so tough that five recruits out of six are rejected, never to wear the coveted white kepi. This is a world where fact exceeds the wildest fiction: men fighting literally to the last bullet at Camarón in Mexico in 1863; cooks and clerks with no parachute training volunteering to be dropped into beleaguered Dien Bien Phu in 1954 with the intention of dying beside their comrades; the paras who mutinied in Algeria to bring down the government of France; the heroes who dropped on Kolwezi to rescue thousands of European hostages. Praise for Douglas Boyd 'A tight and fascinating history of the nearly two centuries of the Legion's activities.' - Brig Anthony Hunter-Choat, the UK's senior ex-legionnaire Perhaps the greatest praise of the book is the fact that legionnaires liked this history of their incredible army so much that they elected author Douglas Boyd an honorary ex-legionnaire. RAF Russian linguist, international businessman, music impresario, BBC Television Producer/Director, Douglas Boyd has been writing full-time since setting up home in a medieval farmhouse in south-west France thirty-five years ago. His published fiction and non-fiction, translated into many languages, includes three novels set against a Legion background: The Eagle and the Snake, The Truth and the Lies, The Honour and the Glory.

    The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties are being strengthened and mutual cooperation established.This prescient contemporary history provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. Following the Silk Roads eastwards from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of continual shifts in the centre of power – all too often absent from headlines in the west.The New Silk Roads asks us to re-examine who we are and where we stand in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.The Silk Roads, a major reassessment of world history, has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

    This latest addition to The New Press’s People’s History series offers an incisive account of the war America lost, from the perspective of those who opposed it on both sides of the battlefront as well as on the homefront.The protagonists in Neale’s history of the “American War” (as the Vietnamese refer to it) are common people struggling to shape the outcome of events unfolding on an international stage—American foot soldiers who increasingly opposed American military policy on the ground in Vietnam, local Vietnamese activists and guerrillas fighting to build a just society, and the American civilians who mobilized to bring the war to a halt.His narrative includes vivid, first-person commentary from the ordinary men and women whose collective actions resulted in the defeat of the world’s most powerful military machine.

    It brings vividly to life the implacable Robespierre, the frightened Marie Antoinette and the iconic image of the guillotine. But it also demonstrates the key role the Revolution played in the development of European politics.

    Carr's skills as historian and storyteller come to the fore in this thrilling account of the kind of adventurer the world no longer sees. Photographs.