Author: Ronald D. Asmus Publisher: Macmillan + ORM ISBN: 023010228X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
The brief war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 seemed to many like an unexpected shot out of the blue that was gone as quickly as it came. Former Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Ronald Asmus contends that it was a conflict that was prepared and planned for some time by Moscow, part of a broader strategy to send a message to the United States: that Russia is going to flex its muscle in the twenty-first century. A Little War that Changed the World is a fascinating look at the breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, the decay and decline of the Western Alliance itself, and the fate of Eastern Europe in a time of economic crisis.
Author: Nicholas Best Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1429941359 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
In the momentous days from April 28 to May 2, 1945, the world witnessed the death of two Fascist dictators and the fall of Berlin. Mussolini's capture and execution by Italian partisans, the suicide of Adolf Hitler, and the fall of the German capital signaled the end of the four-year war in the European Theater. In Five Days That Shocked the World, Nicholas Best thrills readers with the first-person accounts of those who lived through this dramatic time. In this valuable work of history, the author's special achievement is weaving together the reports of famous and soon-to-be-famous individuals who experienced the war up close. We follow a young Walter Cronkite as he parachutes into Holland with a Canadian troop; photographer Lee Miller capturing the evidence of Nazi atrocities; the future Pope Benedict returning home and hoping not to get caught and shot after deserting his infantry unit; Audrey Hepburn no longer having to fear conscription into a Wehrmacht brothel; and even an SS doctor's descriptions of a decadent sex orgy in Hitler's bunker. In skillfully synthesizing these personal narratives, Best creates a compelling chronicle of the five earth-shaking days when Fascism lost it death grip on Europe. With this vivid and fast-paced narrative, the author reaffirms his reputation as an expert on the final days of great wars.
Author: Jon Smele Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190233044 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 460
Book Description
"This volume offers a comprehensive and original analysis and reconceptualisation of the compendium of struggles that wracked the collapsing Tsarist empire and the emergent USSR, profoundly affecting the history of the twentieth century. The reverberations of those decade-long wars echo to the present day--not despite, but because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which re-opened many old wounds, from the Baltic to the Caucasus. Contemporary memorialising and 'de-memorialising' of these wars, therefore form part of the book's focus, but at its heart lie the struggles between various Russian political and military forces which sought to inherit and preserve, or even expand, the territory of the tsars, overlain with examinations of the attempts of many non-Russian national and religious groups to divide the former empire. The reasons why some of the latter were successful (Poland and Finland, for example), while others (Ukraine, Georgia and the Muslim Basmachi) were not, are as much the author's concern as are explanations as to why the chief victors of the 'Russian' Civil Wars were the Bolsheviks. Tellingly, the work begins and ends with battles in Central Asia--a theatre of the 'Russian' Civil Wars that was closer to Mumbai than it was to Moscow"--Publisher description.
Author: Alekʻsandre Daušvili Publisher: Nova Science Publishers ISBN: 9781634834001 Category : Georgia (Republic) Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The Russian-Georgian War of August 2008 stands out for its socio-political, international, diplomatic, geostrategic, economic and moral-psychological results. Despite the fact that only some years have passed since the end of the war and we all are witnesses and participants of the preparation and of the accomplishment of this dramatic event, there are still many unanswered questions. There are more mysteries in respect of the actions of the main participants of this dramatic event, which dispose historians to study those events thoroughly "hot on the trail", not to wait for a "historical distance", and fill up secret documents with logical arguments and noteworthy hypotheses. The scientific conference, held in Tbilisi in the large hall of The Georgian National Academy of Sciences in the summer of 2014, was aimed precisely to the approbation of the new scholarly ideas on different aspects regarding the preparation and proceedings of the War of August 2008. The conference was attended by representatives of the historical community of Georgia and by the mass media. The reports were made at the conference by professors and scholars from Sukhumi State University, Akhaltsikhe Educational University and Tbilisi Scientific Centre for Historical, Ethnological, Religious Study and Propaganda. A former Minister of Defense of Georgia, General Giorgi (Gia) Karkarashvili, also sent his report. The present collection of works is simply a publication of an English version of these conference materials to which a critical analysis of the sensational book in Georgia "A Little War that Shook the World", written by an eminent political-scientist and diplomat, R D Asmus, was added. In our opinion, it will help American readers to comprehend the issues more profoundly.
Author: Harry Turtledove Publisher: Del Rey ISBN: 034551565X Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 513
Book Description
A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War that Came Early: West and East.
Author: R. J. Overy Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 9780393316193 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 454
Book Description
"Overy has written a masterpiece of analytical history, posing and answering one of the great questions of the century."--Sunday Times (London)
Author: John Reed Publisher: Lulu.com ISBN: 0359345212 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
An impassioned firsthand account of the Russian Revolution An American journalist and revolutionary writer, John Reed became a close friend of Lenin and was an eyewitness to the 1917 revolution in Russia. Ten Days That Shook the World is Reeds extraordinary record of that event. 'It flashed upon me suddenly: they were going to shoot me!' This electrifying eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution, written by an American journalist in St Petersburg as the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, is an unsurpassed record of history in the making. John Reed (1887-1920) American journalist and poet-adventurer whose colorful life as a revolutionary writer ended in Russia but made him the hero of a generation of radical intellectuals. Reed became a close friend of V.I. Lenin and was an eyewitness to the 1917 October revolution. He recorded this historical event in his best-known book TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (1920). Reed is buried with other Bolshevik heroes beside the Kremlin wall.
Author: Oliver Bullough Publisher: Penguin UK ISBN: 0141956224 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 577
Book Description
Two centuries ago, the Russians pushed out of the cold north towards the Caucasus Mountains, the range that blocked their access to Georgia, Turkey, Persia and India. They were forging their colonial destiny, and the mountains were in their way. The Caucasus had to be conquered and, for the highlanders who lived there, life would never be the same again. If the Russians expected it to be an easy fight, however, they were mistaken. Their armies would go on to defeat Napoleon and Hitler, as well as lesser foes, but no one resisted them for as long as these supposed savages. To hear the stories of the conquest, I travelled far from the mountains. I wandered through the steppes of Central Asia and the cities of Turkey. I squatted outside internment camps in Poland, and drank tea beneath the gentle hills of Israel. The stories I heard amplified the outrages I saw in the mountains themselves. As I set out, in my mind was a Chechen woman I had met in a refugee camp. She lived in a ragged, khaki tent in a field of mud and stones, but she welcomed me with laughter and kindness. Like the mountains of her homeland, her spirit had soared upwards, gleaming and pure. Throughout my travels, I met the same generosity from all the Caucasus peoples. Their stories have not been told, and there fame is not great, but truly it deserves to be.
Author: Margaret MacMillan Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1984856146 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 332
Book Description
Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.
Author: Henry F. Carey Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 1498547737 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 501
Book Description
This book examines the political and legal challenges of regional governance of the 28 countries of the European Union and the 48 in the Council of Europe. The contributions, dilemmas, and moral hazards from this record of nearly seven decades of regional inter-governmental institutions has kept the peace, but produced episodes of crisis from overstretching jurisdictions, thematically and geographically. Polarization between nationalist and integrative forces has displaced the idealistic aspirations of prior decades to build the rule of law and deter violence. Academics and policy makers will learn from the various legal and political efforts to integrate supranational and inter-governmental agencies with national political systems.
Author: Ronald D. Asmus
Author: Nicholas Best
Author: Jon Smele
Author: Alekʻsandre Daušvili
Author: Harry Turtledove
Author: R. J. Overy
Author: John Reed
Author: Oliver Bullough
Author: Margaret MacMillan
Author: Henry F. Carey