History

This book is based on a journal Jim Schreiner kept during his deployment to the Persian Gulf region for Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. Building upon that record and the recollections of other F-4G Wild Weasel aircrew, the authors show a slice of what life and war were like during that time. The pawns in the game, the ones that had to actually do the fighting and dying, were the hundreds of thousands of men and women who left their homes and families to live for seemingly endless months in the vast, trackless desert while the world stage-play unfolded. To them, the war was deeply personal. At times, the war was scary; at other times, it was funny as hell. Usually, if you survive the former, it turns into the latter.

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‘Riveting. This highly readable and entertaining book ... finally sets the record straight on the history of the Koh-i-Noor’ Tarquin Hall, Sunday Times ‘Dynamic, original and supremely readable’ Maya Jasanoff, Guardian The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world. On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light. The history of the Koh-i-Noor may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which was deemed too contentious to be used by Camilla, the Queen Consort, in King Charles’s coronation. Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.

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This handsome, unique package -- containing a stereoscopic viewer, 34 3D photographic cards, and a photo-packed paperback book -- offers a rare view of Paris, the world's most beautiful city, during an era when art, literature, poetry, and music blossomed and reigned.Paris during the Belle Époque (1880-1914) was a time when peace and prosperity allowed for towering innovation in art, fashion, architecture, and gastronomy. The city at this time was the epicenter of art and music. Fauré, Saint Saëns, Debussy, and Ravel were composing; Rodin was working on The Thinker; Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, Pissarro, and Degas painted scenes depicting everyday life; and Pablo Picasso embarked on his Blue Period. As Art Nouveau came into fashion, new buildings followed suit. Opéra Garnier, Castel Beranger, Moulin Rouge, and the Paris Metro entrances were all built during this time. Galeries Lafayette unveiled its gilded department store, which sold couture to the aspiring middle class.This burgeoning creativity and prosperity, as well as the city and the inhabitants who embraced it, are all captured here, with stunning clarity and realism. Paris in 3D's innovative and inimitable package includes a sturdy metal stereoscopic viewer, 34 rarely seen stereoscopic photographs of the city at the turn of the century, and an accompanying 128-page paperback, which provides a brief history of the stereograph craze and an overview of the city's evolution during that time.

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Fierce warriors and skilled craftsmen, the Celts were famous throughout the Ancient Mediterranean World. They were the archetypal barbarians from the north and were feared by both Greeks and Romans. For two and a half thousand years they have continued to fascinate those who have come into contact with them, yet their origins have remained a mystery and even today are the subject of heated debate among historians and archaeologists. Barry Cunliffe's classic study of the ancient Celtic world was first published in 1997. Since then huge advances have taken place in our knowledge: new finds, new ways of using DNA records to understand Celtic origins, new ideas about the proto-urban nature of early chieftains' strongholds, All these developments are part of this fully updated , and completely redesigned edition. Cunliffe explores the archaeological reality of these bold warriors and skilled craftsmen of barbarian Europe who inspired fear in both the Greeks and the Romans. He investigates the texts of the classical writers and contrasts their view of the Celts with current archaeological findings. Tracing the emergence of chiefdoms and the fifth- to third-century migrations as far as Bosnia and the Czech Republic, he assesses the disparity between the traditional story and the most recent historical and archaeological evidence on the Celts. Other aspects of Celtic identity such as the cultural diversity of the tribes, their social and religious systems, art, language and law, are also examined. From the picture that emerges, we are -- crucially -- able to distinguish between the original Celts, and those tribes which were 'Celtized', giving us an invaluable insight into the true identity of this ancient people.

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'Vital reading' STYLIST'...hooting with laughter - what a swashbuckler that Hannah Jewell is' MARINA HYDE'Because 100 Nasty Women is so easy to read and witty, I didn't expect it to be the life changing, important book that I'm discovering it to be' PHILIPPA PERRY'A fantastic addition to your feminist library and historical knowledge.' ANN SHEN, author of Bad Girls Throughout History* * * * * *100 fascinating and brilliantly written stories about history's bravest, baddest but little known 'nasty' women from across the world.These are the women who were deemed too nasty for their times, too nasty to be recognised, too nasty to be paid for their work and sometimes too nasty to be allowed to live. When you learn about women in history, they're often made out to be shining, glittering souls. But when you hear about these Bold-Yet-Morally-Irreproachable Women of History who were 100% Pure and Good™, you're probably not being told the best bits of her life. You probably missed the part where she:Slept aroundWore men's clothesCrashed planesLed a revolutionTerrorised the seven seasWrote ~sensual poetry~Punched a Nazi (metaphorically, but not always)These are the women you've probably never heard of, but should. Take these stories and tell them to your friends, because everyone should know about the nasty women from history who gave zero f*cks whatsoever. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History you need to know about.

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Castles were introduced into England by the Normans in the 11th century, with more than 1500 built throughout England and Wales over the next 400 years. Colourful photos of castles now and artworks showing what they looked like centuries ago accompany informative detail about topics such as medieval castle life, knights and chivalry, and the castle as a home as well as fortress. Also includes a list of interesting castles to visit, including some National Trust properties. A book for lovers of England and her history. Look out for more Pitkin Guides on the very best of British history, heritage and travel.

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This book discusses responses to the challenges faced by two different Iberian imperial systems in their struggle to sustain territorial integrity and economic interests in the face of international competition. During a so-called period of ‘Enlightened Despotism’, absolutist governments in Spain and Portugal sought to harness Enlightenment ideas to their policies of reform. The Iberian Enlightenment, however, did not rely exclusively on government sponsorship – it had existing foundations in sixteenth-century Spanish humanism and subsequent attempts at reform, and educated individuals in major cities frequently operated independently of government. The Enlightenment contributed greatly to the availability of potential political solutions to the urgent matter of political status, in the attempt to transform absolutist governments into constitutional systems and drawing in the process on the structures of medieval foundations, contemporary revolutions or less radical constitutional monarchies, or a combination of sources more closely aligned with Ibero-American realities.

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This volume presents a vivid record in words and pictures of a dig on the Anatolian borders of Mesopotamia that ended recently after nearly two decades. Designed in the format of a survey book, Ziyaret Tepe: Exploring the Anatolian frontier of the Assyrian Empire captures the sense of intimacy and immediacy of the project. Ziyaret Tepe, the ancient city of Tušhan, was a provincial capital of the Assyrian Empire, in its day the greatest empire the world had ever seen. The excavations captured in this innovative book uncovered the palace of the governor, the mansions of the elite and the barracks of the rank and file, charting the history of the empire from its expansion in the early 9th century BC to its fall three centuries years later. The great mound of Ziyaret Tepe, with its accumulated layers rising 22 metres above the surrounding plain, is a record of thousands of years of human occupation. In the course of 18 seasons of fieldwork, both the lower town and the mound looming up over it yielded the secrets of Tušhan, today in southeast Turkey, near the border with Syria. This has always been frontier country. Elaborate wall paintings, a hoard of luxury items burned in a cremation ritual 2,800 years ago, and a cuneiform tablet that hints at a previously unknown language are among the team’s exceptional finds. The story of the project is told by the specialists who dedicated years of their lives to it. Geophysicists, ceramicists, readers of cuneiform, experts in weaving, board games and Neo-Assyrian politics joined archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, archaeobotanists and many others. But this is no dry field book of dusty digging. Both accessible and scholarly, it is a lively, copiously illustrated record of excavations involving the whole team, a compelling demonstration of the collaboration – the science, artistry and imaginative reconstruction – that makes modern archaeology so absorbing.

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Drawing on more than a half-century of research and teaching, Dennis Showalter presents a fresh perspective on the German Army during World War I. Showalter surveys an army at the heart of a national identity, driven by – yet also defeated by – warfare in the modern age, which struggled to capitalize on its victories and ultimately forgot the lessons of its defeat. Exploring the internal dynamics of the German Army and detailing how the soldiers coped with the many new forms of warfare, Showalter shows how the army's institutions responded to, and how Germany itself was changed by war. Detailing the major campaigns on the Western and Eastern fronts and the forgotten war fought in the Middle East and Africa, this comprehensive volume, now publishing in paperback, examines the army's operational strategy, the complexities of campaigns of movement versus static trench warfare, and the effects of changes in warfare.

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Shortlisted forthe Orwell Prize 2023As seen in The Times, Sunday Times, Spectator, and on Tonight with Andrew Marr (LBC)Under President Xi Jinping, China''s global ambitions have taken a dangerous new turn. Bullying and intimidation have replaced diplomacy. Trade and investment, even big-spending tourists and students, have been weaponised. Beijing has strengthened its alliance with Vladimir Putin, supporting Russia''s aggression in Ukraine, and brooks no criticism of its own flagrant human rights violations against the Uyghur population in western China.Leaders in the West say they don''t want a cold war with China, but it''s a little late for that. Beijing is already waging a more complex, broader and more dangerous cold war than the old one with the Soviet Union. And it is intensifying.This thought-provoking and alarming book examines this new cold war''s many fronts - from Taiwan and the South China Sea to the Indian frontier, the Arctic and cyberspace. In doing so it proclaims the

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''Delivered with flamboyance, it features a sparkling cast of chancers'' KATJA HOYER, Daily Telegraph 5* review''Page-turning . . . a sizzling high-stakes tale'' JAMES HOLLAND''This book might read like the screenplay of a gripping movie, yet every word is accurate and verified'' ANDREW ROBERTS ''Giles Milton is a phenomenon'' DAN SNOW''Another rollercoaster ride from Giles Milton. Endlessly surprising'' ANTHONY HOROWITZFrom internationally bestselling historian Giles Milton comes the remarkable true story of the Allies'' secret mission to wartime Moscow. In the summer of 1941, as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin''s forces faced a catastrophic defeat which would make the Allies'' liberation of Europe virtually impossible. To avert this disaster, Britain and America mobilized an elite team of remarkable diplomats with the mission of keepin

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The US Airborne force fielded some of the toughest, best-trained and most resourceful troops of World War II – all necessary qualities in a force that was lightly armed and which would in most operational circumstances be surrounded from the moment it landed on the battlefield. The German Wehrmacht grew to rely on a series of defensive measures to combat the airborne threat, including fortifications, localized reserves, and special training to help intercept and disrupt airborne troops both in the air and on the ground. Despite such methods it was cool-headed command and control that would prove to be the real key to blunting the Airborne’s edge. Using specially commissioned artwork, this book examines the development of the American airborne forces that spearheaded the Allied effort in Sicily, Normandy and Operation Market Garden, and the German countermeasures that evolved in response to the threat of Allied airborne landings.

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In May 1940 Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe, the only European power still standing was Great Britain – and the all-conquering German armed forces stood poised to cross the Channel. Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the Channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England. Despite near-constant British fears from August to October, the invasion never took place after first being postponed to spring 1941 before finally being abandoned entirely. Robert Forcyzk, author of Where the Iron Crosses Grow, looks beyond the traditional British account of Operation Sea Lion, complete with plucky Home Guards and courageous Spitfire pilots, at the real scale of German ambition, plans and capabilities. He examines, in depth, how Operation Sea Lion fitted in with German air-sea actions around the British Isles as he shows exactly what stopped Hitler from invading Britain.

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Campaldino is one of the important battles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines - the major political factions in the city states of central and northern Italy. It heralded the rise of Florence to a dominant position over the area of Tuscany and was one of the last occassions when the Italian city militias contested a battle, with the 14th century seeing the rise of the condottiere in Italy's Wars. In this highly illustrated new study, renowned medieval historians Kelly De Vries and Niccolò Capponi have uncovered new material from the battlefield itself, as well as using all the available sources, to breathe new life into this colourful and fascinating battle.

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A gripping history of one of the United States' most controversial Cold War intelligence operations.Project Paperclip brought hundreds of German scientists and engineers, including aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, to the United States in the first decade after World War II. More than the freighters full of equipment or the documents recovered from caves and hastily abandoned warehouses, the German brains who designed and built the V-2 rocket and other "wonder weapons" for the Third Reich proved invaluable to America's emerging military-industrial complex. Whether they remained under military employment, transitioned to civilian agencies like NASA, or sought more lucrative careers with corporations flush with government contracts, German specialists recruited into the Paperclip program assumed enormously influential positions within the labyrinthine national security state. Drawing on recently declassified documents from intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the State Department, Brian E. Crim's Our Germans examines the process of integrating German scientists into a national security state dominated by the armed services and defense industries. Crim explains how the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency enticed targeted scientists, whitewashed the records of Nazis and war criminals, and deceived government agencies about the content of security investigations. Exploring the vicious bureaucratic rivalries that erupted over the wisdom, efficacy, and morality of pursuing Paperclip, Our Germans reveals how some Paperclip proponents and scientists influenced the perception of the rival Soviet threat by volunteering inflated estimates of Russian intentions and technical capabilities. As it describes the project's embattled legacy, Our Germans reflects on the myriad ways that Paperclip has been remembered in culture and national memory. As this engaging book demonstrates, whether characterized as an expedient Cold War program born from military necessity or a dishonorable episode, the project ultimately reflects American ambivalence about the military-industrial complex and the viability of an "ends justifies the means" solution to external threats.

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Why did England's one experiment in republican rule fail?

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How the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed, rejuvenated, and protected American forests and parks at the height of the Great Depression.Propelled by the unprecedented poverty of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established an array of massive public works programs designed to provide direct relief to America’s poor and unemployed. The New Deal’s most tangible legacy may be the Civilian Conservation Corps’s network of parks, national forests, scenic roadways, and picnic shelters that still mark the country’s landscape. CCC enrollees, most of them unmarried young men, lived in camps run by the Army and worked hard for wages (most of which they had to send home to their families) to preserve America’s natural treasures. In The New Deal’s Forest Army, Benjamin F. Alexander chronicles how the corps came about, the process applicants went through to get in, and what jobs they actually did. He also explains how the camps and the work sites were run, how enrollees spent their leisure time, and how World War II brought the CCC to its end. Connecting the story of the CCC with the Roosevelt administration’s larger initiatives, Alexander describes how FDR’s policies constituted a mixed blessing for African Americans who, even while singled out for harsh treatment, benefited enough from the New Deal to become an increasingly strong part of the electorate behind the Democratic Party. The CCC was the only large-scale employment program whose existence FDR foreshadowed in speeches during the 1932 campaign—and the dearest to his heart throughout the decade that it lasted. Alexander reveals how the work itself left a lasting imprint on the country’s terrain as the enrollees planted trees, fought forest fires, landscaped public parks, restored historic battlegrounds, and constructed dams and terraces to prevent floods. A uniquely detailed exploration of life in the CCC, The New Deal’s Forest Army compellingly demonstrates how one New Deal program changed America and gave birth to both contemporary forestry and the modern environmental movement.

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The Caledonian Canal records the history of one of Scotland's most massive engineering projects, from Thomas Telford's first survey in 1801 into the twenty-first century. Telford's plan, to connect Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy with each other and the sea, was a huge undertaking which brought civil engineering to the Highlands on a heroic scale. Deep in the Highlands, far from the canal network of England, engineers forged their way through the Great Glen to construct the biggest canal of its day: twenty-two miles of artificial cutting and no fewer than twenty-eight locks.A.D. (Sandy) Cameron's book has long been recognised as the authoritative work on the canal as well as a reliable and useful guide to the surrounding area. There are intriguing old plans, not discovered until 1992, and a survey of the dramatic rise in pleasure-craft traffic during the last two decades. But the highlight of the recent past was undoubtedly the Tall Ships passing through the canal in stately proces

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Cotton Claudius B.iv, an illustrated Old English Hexateuch that is among the treasures of the British Library, contains one of the first extended projects of translation of the Bible in a European vernacular. Its over four hundred images make it one of the most extensively illustrated books to survive from the early Middle Ages and preserve evidence of the creativity of the Anglo-Saxon artist and his knowledge of other important early medieval picture cycles. In addition, the manuscript contains the earliest copy of Aelfric's Preface to Genesis, a work that discusses issues of translation and interpretation.

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In this third volume of In Those Days, Harper shares stories of the rise and fall of the whaling industry in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. At the turn of the nineteenth century, whale baleen and blubber were extremely valuable commodities, and so sailors braved the treacherous Arctic waters, risking starvation, scurvy, and death, to bring home the bounty of the North. The presence of these whalemen in the North would irrevocably alter the lives of Inuit. Along with first-hand accounts from journals and dozens of rare, historical photographs, this collection includes the myth of the Octaviusâa ship that drifted for twelve years with a frozen crewâencounters between sailors and Inuit, tales of the harrowing hazing rituals suffered by first-time crewmembers, and much more.

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The reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979), marked the high-point of Iran's global interconnectedness. Never before, nor ever since, have Iranians felt the impact of global political, social, economic, and cultural forces so intimately in their national and daily lives, nor have Iranian actors played such an important global role, on battlefields, barricades, and in board rooms far beyond Iran's borders. Modern Iran is in many ways the product of the global interconnectedness that dramatically accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. From the launch of the Shah's White Revolution in 1963 to his overthrow in the popular Revolution of 1978-79, Iran experienced the longest period of sustained economic growth that the country had ever experienced. The shift in power from oil consumer to oil producers fuelled the modernisation aspirations of a generation of Iranians, in the context of competing capitalist and Marxist models of development. The history of Pahlavi Iran has traditionally been written as prologue to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. These histories largely locate the political, social and cultural origins of the revolution firmly within a national context, into which global actors intruded and Iranian actors retreated. While engaging with this national narrative, this volume is concerned with Iran's place in the global history of the 1960s and 1970s. It examines and highlights the transnational threads that connected Pahlavi Iran to the world, from global traffic in modern art and narcotics, to the embrace of American social science by Iranian technocrats and the encounter of European intellectuals with the Iranian Revolution. In doing so, this volume seeks to write Pahlavi Iran into the global history of the 1960s and 1970s, when Iran mattered far beyond its borders.

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Chronicling the 'other Norman invasion', The Normans in the South is the epic story of the House of Hauteville, and in particular Robert Guiscard, perhaps the most extraordinary European adventurer between the times of Caesar and Napoleon. In one year, 1084, he had both the Eastern and Western Emperors retreating before him and one of the most formidable of medieval Popes in his power. His brother, Roger, helped him to conquer Sicily from the Saracens, and his nephew Roger II went on to create the cosmopolitan kingdom whose remaining monuments still dazzle us today. The Normans in the South is the first of two volumes that recount an extraordinary chapter in Italian history.

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In this magnificent reference book, the powerful and evocative mythologies of the East are revealed in all their glory. An instantly accessible A to Z structure, fully cross-referenced throughout, details the pantheon of gods of the East. The book splendidly recreates the rise of many cultures. Travel through exotic realms of high adventure, thrill at the exploits of warrior-gods, and become immersed in legend and folklore that bring to life the ancient stories that influence society in much of Asia today. Drawing together the legends of many incredibly diverse cultures, in a highly readable and accessible style, it is a classic reference on the subject.

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THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER In his ground-breaking new book, Sathnam Sanghera traces the legacies of British empire around the world. Beautifully written, and not just a welcome corrective but a book for our times. This is essential reading' Peter FrankopanAn absolute masterpiece' James O'BrienDeeply poignant . . . riveting . . . brave, painful, urgent and timely' Jerry Brotton, Financial Times_____________________________________________________2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies.The empire''s influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries, to nearly 1 in 3 driving on the left side of the road, to the origins of international law. Yet Britain''s idea of its imperial history and the world''s experience of it are two very different t

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Peter Hayes has been teaching Holocaust studies for decades and Why? grows out of the questions he’s encountered from his students. Despite the outpouring of books, films, memorials, museums and courses devoted to the subject, a coherent explanation of why such carnage erupted still eludes people. Numerous myths have sprouted, many to console us that things could have gone differently if only some person or entity had acted more bravely or wisely; others cast new blame on favourite or surprising villains or even on historians. Why? dispels many legends and debunks the most prevalent ones, including the claim that the Holocaust never happened. Hayes brings scholarly wisdom to bear on popular views of the history, challenging some of the most prominent interpretations and arguing that the convergence of multiple forces at a particular moment resulted in this catastrophe.

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Throughout history, and all over the world, seemingly intelligent people have made foolish decisions based on delusions. This has affected love affairs, politics, finance, science, warfare, showbusiness and even sport. It has also wrecked marriages, bankrupted millionaires, lost battles, destroyed empires, brought down leaders and royalty, split religions, ruined reputations, changed climates, thwarted gangsters and even exposed sex pests. Donough O'Brien and Liz Cowley shine a spotlight on 150 intriguing, and often hidden, corners of such calamities... And in so doing they highlight over 650 characters who prove to be both fascinating and flawed. Dreams, Delusions & Disasters is an absorbing take on history.

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Property title deeds are perhaps the most numerous sources of historical evidence but also one of the most neglected. While the information any one deed contains can often be reduced to a few lines, it can be of critical importance for family and local historians. Nat Alcock's handbook aims to help the growing army of enthusiastic researchers to use the evidence of these documents, without burying them in legal technicalities. It also reveals how fascinating and rewarding they can be once their history, language and purpose are understood. A sequence of concise, accessible chapters explains why they are so useful, where they can be found and how the evidence they provide can be extracted and applied. Family historians will find they reveal family, social and financial relationships and local historians can discover from them so much about land ownership, field and place names, the history of buildings and the expansion of towns and cities. They also bring our ancestors into view in the fullness of life, not just at birth, marriage and death, and provide more rounded pictures of the members of a family tree.

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Early Japanese Railways 1853-1914 is a cultural and engineering history of railway building in Japan during the Meiji era.The importance of early railways in the industrialization of the United States and Europe is a fact all of us are familiar with. To witness the amazing parallel development of the railways in Japan, happening at much the same time as America was connecting its vast hinterland to the East and West coasts, is an eye-opening realization. Early Japanese Railways, tells the fascinating story of the rise of Japanese rail amidst a period of rapid modernization during Japan's Meiji era. Leaving behind centuries of stagnation and isolation, Japan would emerge into the 20th century as a leading modern industrialized state. The development of the railways was a significant factor in the cultural and technological development of Japan during this pivotal period. Free's rare photographic and historical materials concerning Japan's early railways, including a print showing the miniature steam engine brought to Japan by Admiral Perry aboard his "Black Ships" to demonstrate American superiority, combine to form a richly detailed account that will appeal to students of Japanese history and railway buffs alike. This one-of-a-kind book, Early Japanese Railways 1853-1914, illuminates for non-Japanese-speaking readers the early history of Japanese railroads and in the process the fascinating story of Japan's prewar industrial modernization. Anyone interested in train history or model trains will find this book a fascinating read.

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The #1 New York Times bestseller from “America’s historian-in-chief” (New York magazine) An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.

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The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy.January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.

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At a time when the world is searching for answers to extremism and polarization, The Centre Must Hold shows a more effective brand of politics.

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A fully revised and updated new edition of the classic history of western America “A classic for the twenty-first century, The American West stands as the best one volume treatment of the American West in a generation—a masterful overview, replete with triumph and tragedy, pain and possibility.”—Karl Jacoby, Columbia University “This new edition of The American West is, quite simply, stunning. Incorporating cutting-edge scholarship without losing the vision and clarity of the original, it weaves a cast of protagonists around a clear and gripping narrative. Comprehensive, bold, punchy, this is a textbook that reads like a novel.”—Pekka Hämäläinen, Oxford University The newly revised second edition of this concise, engaging, and unorthodox history of America’s West has been updated to incorporate new research, including recent scholarship on Native American lives and cultures. An ideal text for course work, it presents the West as both frontier and region, examining the clashing of different cultures and ethnic groups that occurred in the western territories from the first Columbian contacts between Native Americans and Europeans up to the end of the twentieth century.

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Richard Youngs examines the policy challenges and choices now facing Europe in the wake of Russia's war with Ukraine.

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Friso Wielenga’s detailed history of the Netherlands traces its political development from independence to today, incorporating significant explorations of culture, economics, international relations, colonisation and decolonisation in the process. It provides a thorough and well-balanced overview of the key moments in and vital aspects of Dutch history since 1500. Challenging incorrect assumptions concerning political consensus and religious toleration in the country, A History of the Netherlands offers a masterful analysis of domestic politics and the nation’s international involvements. This new edition includes: * Enhanced and expanded examinations of 21st century developments to the present * Greater coverage of the Dutch role in the slave trade, the Atlantic trade and the Glorious Revolution * More material on multiculturalism and integration politics and the World War Two deportation and extermination of the Dutch Jewry * Historiographical updates throughout The book is vital reading for anyone looking for a rich understanding of the Netherlands and its past.

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Death Ride of the Panzers is a unique guide to the Nazi tanks, vehicles, and crews of World War II. It features never-before-seen photographs from the US National Archives and the author's personal collection, annotated artist renderings, and detailed explanations and historical context for each collection of images. Readers will also be able to trace the combat histories of these subjects through orders of battle, maps and organizational diagrams, vehicle allocation charts, and unit biographies. The forensic approach for which Dennis Oliver is known creates a broad, comprehensive record of German soldiers and hardware from early 1944 to the end of the conflict in 1945. Death Ride of the Panzers provides the context and chronology necessary for the general reader and the primary sources and hardware specifics that appeal to the expert, making this book perfect for the readers with historical interest, modelers, and WWII buffs alike.

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A profusely illustrated history of the diplomatic embassy, from antiquity to today.

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In On Decoloniality Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh explore the hidden forces of the colonial matrix of power, its origination, transformation, and current presence, while asking the crucial questions of decoloniality's how, what, why, with whom, and what for. Interweaving theory-praxis with local histories and perspectives of struggle, they illustrate the conceptual and analytic dynamism of decolonial ways of living and thinking, as well as the creative force of resistance and re-existence. This book speaks to the urgency of these times, encourages delinkings from the colonial matrix of power and its "universals" of Western modernity and global capitalism, and engages with arguments and struggles for dignity and life against death, destruction, and civilizational despair.

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