Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats


Matthew Yglesias - 2008
    He knows a lot about politics, a lot about foreign policy, and, crucially, is unusually shrewd in understanding how they interact. Here's hoping that his new book will introduce him to an even wider audience. Once you discover him, you'll be hooked.""--E. J. Dionne, author of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right and Why Americans Hate Politics""Matthew Yglesias is one of a handful of bloggers that I make a point of reading every day. Heads in the Sand is a smart, vital book that urges Democrats to stop evading the foreign-policy debate and to embrace the old principles of international liberalism--to be right and also to win.""--Fred Kaplan, author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power""Reading foreign policy tomes is seldom included among life's pleasures, but Yglesias has concocted a startling exception. Heads in the Sand is not just a razor-sharp analysis cum narrative of the politics of national security in general and the Iraq war in particular, it's also an enthralling and often very funny piece of writing. Though he administers strong antidotes to the haplessness of his fellow Democrats and liberals, there's more than a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.""--Hendrik Hertzberg, Senior Editor, The New Yorker, and author of Politics: Observations and ArgumentsFast-rising political commentator Matthew Yglesias reveals the wrong-headed foreign policy stance of conservatives, neocons, and the Republican Party for what it is--aggressive nationalism. Writing with wit, passion, and keen insight, Yglesias reminds us of the rich tradition of liberal internationalism that, developed by Democrats, was used with great success by both Democratic and Republican administrations for more than fifty years. He provides a starting point for politicians, policymakers, pundits, and citizens alike to return America to its role as leader of a peace-loving and cooperative international community.

The Amazing SAS: The Inside Story of Australia's Special Forces


Ian McPhedran - 2007
    For the soldiers and officers of Australia's Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment, this is not just their professional motto, but a creed that shapes their lives. the SAS is among the world's most respected special forces units, a crack team of men from the Australian Defence Force who can be relied upon to handle the most difficult, strategically sensitive and dangerous of military tasks. Now The Amazing SAS provides a thrilling insight into the way this country's SAS soldiers are selected and trained, and reveals fascinating details about recent SAS deployments: East Timor, the 2000 Olympic games, the Tampa, the Afghanistan campaign and the regiment's action-packed mission in Iraq. The Amazing SAS draws on interviews with General Peter Cosgrove, Prime Minister John Howard, Chief of Army Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, former SAS commanding officers Gus Gilmore and tim McOwan, and many SAS soldiers and officers.

Charlie Rangers


Don Ericson - 1988
    For eighteen months, John L. Rotundo and Don Ericson braved the test of war at its most bloody and most raw, specializing in ambushing the enemy and fighting jungle guerillas using their own tactics. From the undiluted high of a "contact" with the enemy to the anguished mourning of a fallen comrade, they experienced nearly every emotion known to man--most of all, the power and the pride of being the finest on America's front lines.From the Paperback edition.

The Fighting First: The Untold Story Of The Big Red One on D-Day


Flint Whitlock - 2004
    Using primary sources, official records, interviews, and unpublished memoirs by the veterans themselves, Flint Whitlock has crafted a riveting, gut-wrenching, personal story of courage under fire. Operation Overlord—the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944—was the most important battle of World War II, and Omaha Beach was the hottest spot in the entire operation. Leading the amphibious assault on the “Easy Red” and “Fox Green” sectors of Omaha Beach was the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division—“The Big Red One”—a tough, swaggering outfit with a fine battle record. The saga of the Big Red One, however, did not end with the storming of the beachhead, but continued across France, Belgium, and into Germany itself, where the division fought in the battles for Aachen, the Huertgen Forest, and the Battle of the Bulge. The Fighting First is an inspiring, graphic, and often heart-breaking story of young American soldiers performing their missions with spirit, humor, and determination.

Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Political Issues


George McKenna - 1978
    Presents clashing views on political issues which are provided in a debate-style format designed to develop critical thinking skills in a student.

On Full Automatic: Surviving 13 Months in Vietnam


William V. Taylor Jr. - 2021
    Taylor Jr. and his brother Marines are assembled into a new reaction force that is immediately tested in the fire of a bloody conflict known as Operation Beaver Cage. After a traumatic first fight, they push through back-to-back operations with little time to rest or reflect. Those who survive will return home ensnared by everlasting memories of a real, but entirely surreal nightmare. Now after more than fifty years of holding everything in, Taylor shares his experience in explicit and often horrific detail and with a reverent honor for those Marines who did not live to tell the tale.Taylor reveals what it truly means to walk the path of a warrior, to sacrifice, and to live a lifetime with the memories of a war—seeking answers to the question, “Was it worth it?"

A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945


Russell Spurr - 1981
    Chosen as a Main Selection of the Military Book Club.

World War 2: Waffen SS Soldiers - Testimonies of German SS Soldiers


Oliver Mayer - 2015
    These six soldiers all had different roles to play, and all look back at their experiences, sharing them to make amends for the cruel times that they lived in. Learn about what it was like to be in a concentration camp, and how a soldier managed when they were at the front. You will discover: - • The experience of a young Aryan soldier • A soldiers in Treblinka • Testimonies from the liberation • The female SS soldier • The Gas Trucks of WWII • All about the Gas Chambers • The meaning of Special Action The experiences that you will discover are bound to leave you with a range of emotions. You may have feelings of anger, remorse, shame or even mercy. At the end of this book, you will have connected with these SS soldiers as well as the plight of those under their power. Learn about the life of an Ayran soldier, and those at Treblinka. Also discover the female SS soldiers and a driver of the gas truck. The gas chambers are explained as well as the ominous special action Read this book for FREE on Kindle Unlimited - Download NOW! In addition to these rich testimonies, you will alo read about what it was like to have a foreign soldier fighting for Germany, and what medical tests were being carried out at the camp. These medical examinations take this book even deeper into the truth about World War II} Just scroll to the top of the page and select the Buy Button. Download Your Copy TODAY!

The Fires of Babylon: Eagle Troop and the Battle of 73 Easting


Mike Guardia - 2015
    But once the Cold War between the superpowers waned, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein provided that chance with his invasion of Kuwait. Finally the new US M1A1 tank would see how it fared against the vaunted Soviet-built T-72.On the morning of August 2, 1990, Iraqi armored divisions invaded the tiny emirate of Kuwait. The Iraqi Army, after its long war with Iran, had more combat experience than the U.S. Army. Who knew if America’s untested forces could be shipped across the world and thence contest the battle-hardened Iraqis on their home ground? The Kuwaitis had collapsed easily enough, but the invasion drew fierce condemnation from the UN, which demanded Saddam’s withdrawal. Undeterred by the rhetoric, the Iraqi dictator massed his forces along the Saudi Arabian border and dared the world to stop him. In response, the U.S. led the world community in a coalition of 34 nations in what became known as Operation Desert Storm – a violent air and ground campaign to eject the Iraqis from Kuwait. Leading this charge into Iraq were the men of Eagle Troop in the US Army’s 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment.Commanded by then-Captain HR McMaster, Eagle Troop was the lead element of the US VII Corps’ advance into Iraq. On February 26, 1991, Eagle Troop encountered the Tawakalna Brigade of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard. By any calculation, the 12 American tanks didn’t stand a chance. Yet within a mere 23 minutes, the M1A1 tanks of Eagle Troop destroyed more than 50 enemy vehicles and plowed a hole through the Iraqi front. History would call it the Battle of 73 Easting.Based on hours of interviews and archival research by renowned author Mike Guardia, this minute-by-minute account of the U.S. breakthrough reveals an intimate, no-holds-barred account of modern warfare.

Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields


Wendy Lower - 2013
    Then they became the Trümmerfrauen, or Rubble Women, as they cleared and tidied their ruined country to get it back on its feet. They were Germany's heroines. The few women tried and convicted after the war were simply the evil aberrations - the camp guards, the female Nazi elite - that proved this rule.However, Wendy Lower's research into the very ordinary women who went out to the Nazi Eastern Front reveals an altogether different story. For ambitious young women, the emerging Nazi empire represented a kind of Wild East of career and matrimonial opportunity. Over half a million of them set off for these new lands, where most of the worst crimes of the Reich would occur.Through the interwoven biographies of thirteen women, the reader follows the transformation of young nurses, teachers, secretaries and wives who start out in Weimar and Nazi Germany as ambitious idealists and end up as witnesses, accomplices and perpetrators of the genocide in Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. Hitler's Furies presents overwhelming evidence that the women in these territories actively participated in the mass murder - and some became killers. In the case of women like Erna Petri, who brought her family to her husband's impressive Polish SS estate, we find brutality as chilling as any in history.Hitler's Furies is indelible proof that we have not known what we need to know about the role of women in the Nazi killing fields - or about how it could have been hidden for seventy years. It shows that genocide is women's business as well as men's and that, in ignoring women's culpability, we have ignored the reality of the Holocaust.

Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy


Max Van Manen - 1990
    Rather than relying on abstract generalizations and theories, van Manen offers an alternative that taps the unique nature of each human situation.The book offers detailed methodological explications and practical examples of hermeneutic-phenomenological inquiry. It shows how to orient oneself to human experience in education and how to construct a textual question which evokes a fundamental sense of wonder, and it provides a broad and systematic set of approaches for gaining experiential material that forms the basis for textual reflections.Van Manen also discusses the part played by language in educational research, and the importance of pursuing human science research critically as a semiotic writing practice. He focuses on the methodological function of anecdotal narrative in human science research, and offers methods for structuring the research text in relation to the particular kinds of questions being studied. Finally, van Manen argues that the choice of research method is itself a pedagogic commitment and that it shows how one stands in life as an educator.

Sniper: American Single-Shot Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan


Gina Cavallaro - 2010
    Few military feats stir the imagination like the image of a pair of riflemen waiting quietly in a building, a bomb crater, or a mountain pass for a Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter to walk into their crosshairs.Sniper presents real-life tales from the military's frontline snipers—their hits and their misses, the anguish of loss, and the anxiety of the first kill. Authors Gina Cavallaro and Matt Larsen provide riveting accounts of American soldiers and marines on the battlefield, and take a rare look at how Rangers and Special Forces snipers train and operate, and how the war on terror has changed the role of military snipers.

The Holocaust: History in an Hour


Jemma J. Saunders - 2013
    Approximately 6 million Jews and 5 million others including Roma people, Poles, Russian prisoners of war, political prisoners, homosexuals, people of colour, Jehovah's Witnesses, and various other minorities were first persecuted and then murdered.How, both morally and logistically, had this came to happen? From received sentiments of anti-Semitism at the beginning of the 20th century, through the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and finally Second World War, the victimisation of these minorities intensified beyond precedent. With the complicity of a nation hatred became policy. Under the control of sadists, bureaucrats and even ordinary soldiers, irrational acts were then enacted on an industrial scale, and with the use of concentration camps, Western Europe witnessed its most shocking treatment of humanity in modern history.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…

Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences


J. Robert Lilly - 1989
    Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences, Fourth Edition shows the real-world relevance of theory by illuminating how ideas about crime play a prominent role in shaping crime-control policies and compelling students to apply theories to the contemporary milieu.

Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age


Peter Paret - 1943
    The diversity of its themes and the broad perspectives applied to them make the book a work of general history as much as a history of the theory and practice of war from the Renaissance to the present. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age takes the first part of its title from an earlier collection of essays, published by Princeton University Press in 1943, which became a classic of historical scholarship. Three essays are repinted from the earlier book; four others have been extensively revised. The rest--twenty-two essays--are new.The subjects addressed range from major theorists and political and military leaders to impersonal forces. Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and Marx and Engels are discussed, as are Napoleon, Churchill, and Mao. Other essays trace the interaction of theory and experience over generations--the evolution of American strategy, for instance, or the emergence of revolutionary war in the modern world. Still others analyze the strategy of particular conflicts--the First and Second World Wars--or the relationship between technology, policy, and war in the nuclear age. Whatever its theme, each essay places the specifics of military thought and action in their political, social, and economic environment. Together the contributors have produced a book that reinterprets and illuminates war, one of the most powerful forces in history and one that cannot be controlled in the future without an understanding of its past.