Backwards Into Battle PDF Download

Author: Andy Doty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
"Pure gold," "enduring literature," "spell binding," "deeply moving," "insightful," "heartfelt," "riveting," & "one of the most interesting stories to come out of World War II" are some of the reader responses to this poignant memoir. It traces the transformation of a typical small-town boy into a seasoned B-29 tail gunner flying 21 bombing missions over Japan -- one of which ended in the death of three crewmates. This book is more than a war story: it is rich in boyhood & wartime humor & nostalgia, recounts the amazing innocence, patriotism & values of the author's generation, & comments on revisionist historians & the need to use the atomic bomb. It asks -- & answers -- the question of why men risk their lives time & again in the face of great danger. Dedicated to the lost crewmen, this gem of a book is a timely, perceptive & inspirational account of a 19-year-old's experiences in the most costly & destructive war in history. To order contact: Tall Tree Press, 4072 Scripps Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306 or phone (415) 494-3897.

Author: Christopher Phillips
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195187237
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Most Americans imagine the Civil War in terms of clear and defined boundaries of freedom and slavery: a straightforward division between the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri and the free states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. However, residents of these western border states, Abraham Lincoln's home region, had far more ambiguous identities-and contested political loyalties-than we commonly assume. In The Rivers Ran Backward, Christopher Phillips sheds light on the fluid political cultures of the "Middle Border" states during the Civil War era. Far from forming a fixed and static boundary between the North and South, the border states experienced fierce internal conflicts over their political and social loyalties. White supremacy and widespread support for the existence of slavery pervaded the "free" states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had much closer economic and cultural ties to the South, while those in Kentucky and Missouri held little identification with the South except over slavery. Debates raged at every level, from the individual to the state, in parlors, churches, schools, and public meeting places, among families, neighbors, and friends. Ultimately, the pervasive violence of the Civil War and the cultural politics that raged in its aftermath proved to be the strongest determining factor in shaping these states' regional identities, leaving an indelible imprint on the way in which Americans think of themselves and others in the nation. The Rivers Ran Backward reveals the complex history of the western border states as they struggled with questions of nationalism, racial politics, secession, neutrality, loyalty, and even place-as the Civil War tore the nation, and themselves, apart. In this major work, Phillips shows that the Civil War was more than a conflict pitting the North against the South, but one within the West that permanently reshaped American regions.

Author: Paddy Griffith
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0307779505
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The first edition (1981) took a critical look at the accepted wisdom of historians who interpreted battlefield events primarily by reference to firepower. It showed that Wellington's infantry had won by their mobility rather than their musketry, that the bayonet did not become obsolete in the nineteenth century as is often claimed, and that the tank never supplanted the infantryman in the twentieth. A decade later, the author has been able to fill out many parts of his analysis and has extended it into the near future. The Napoleonic section includes an analysis of firepower and fortification, notably at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Additional discussions of the tactics of the American Civil War have been included. The evolution of small-unit tactics in the First World War is next considered, then the problem of making an armored breakthrough in the Second World War. Following is a discussion of the limitations of both the helicopter and firepower in Vietnam. The author points to some of the lessons learned by the U.S. military and the doctrine which resulted from that experience. Concluding is a glimpse at the strangely empty battlefield landscape that might be expected in any future high technology conflict.

Author: Paddy Griffith
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 9780891414131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Analyzes battlefield strategies and tactics used in Napoleon's time, in the First and Second World Wars, Vietnam, and up to the present day

Author: Terence Ball
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191520993
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, and Marx, and Foucault - what really links these and other `classic' political theorists? Not, argues Terence Ball, their common status as `dead, white, European males', but instead the exciting and compelling way in which they can speak to us today. Professor Ball begins by setting out his liberating view of the way we should approach `classic' texts. Using an approach that is both `problem-driven' and methodologically `pluralist', Ball offers new readings - and reappraisals - of key authors and classic works in political theory. Throughout he argues that the importance of the great texts lies in their repeated reinterpretation in the light of problems that arise for present-day readers. This tour-de-force, always entertaining and eclectic, focuses on the core problems surrounding many of the major thinkers. Was Machiavelli really amoral? Why did language matter so much to Hobbes - and why should it matter to us? Are the roots of the totalitarian state to be found in Rousseau? Were the utilitarians sexist in their view of the franchise? Written in lively and accessible styly, the book will provoke debate among students and scholars alike. Throughout, Terence Ball shows just how exciting and important political theory can be.

Author: Colin Bryar
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250267609
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time Amazon executives—with lessons and techniques you can apply to your own company, and career, right now. In Working Backwards, two long-serving Amazon executives reveal the principles and practices that have driven the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them—much of it during the period of unmatched innovation that created products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was developed and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable. With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels of the company. With a focus on customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence, Amazon’s ground-level practices ensure these characteristics are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business. Working Backwards is both a practical guidebook and the story of how the company grew to become so successful. It is filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how their time at the company affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time. Whatever your talent, career or organization might be, find out how you can put Working Backwards to work for you.

Author: Tim Shaw
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1468583174
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
1914, as Europe teeters on the edge of a war that will decimate a generation, Gustav Steinhauer of the German Secret Service hatches a plot to destroy the British economy. Deciding that only one man can pull-off his daring plan, he sends Wilhelm Jaeger back to England. With the bitter resentment of his previous failure to assassinate Churchill still burning deep in his gut, Jaeger is eager to prove himself, and revenge his sisters shooting. Meanwhile Jaegers nemesis, former farm boy, Stoop Pearson, returns to the Royal flying Corps after a winter recovering from injuries sustained thwarting the assassination attempt. There he finds a Military force training hard for a war in which the aeroplane will receive a baptism of fire and lead. Stoop to Battle takes us from deep in the stinking black bowels of the London sewer system, to high in the azure blue of the shrapnel filled skies above a rapidly advancing German army as it closes on Paris. From the vicious brutality and depravity of humanity to the supreme bravery and sacrifice of young men, Stoop to Battle sees old friends and bitter adversaries reunited as they pit their wits and talents against each other in a Europe descending into war.

Author: University Lecturer in International Relations and Fellow Andrew Hurrell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199233106
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
A clear and wide-ranging introduction to the analysis of global political order. The book offers engaging answers to the key questions of contemporary world politics. A landmark study.

Author: Ronald Wintrick
Publisher: Ronald Wintrick
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In the beginning there was nothing. Then reality was imposed and a Universe created. Many were created and destroyed in the incalculable span which followed. In one of these cycles another in the long succession was born- our Universe. This birth and every one which had preceded it made possible by the slow accumulation of matter and the formation of one massive black hole which had engulfed everything, erasing all matter, all energy and substance vacuumed into the oblivion of the growing event horizon. Once all had been absorbed and under that crushing weight the physical rules changed and the black hole could no longer contain the matter. A new Universe was born as the old died the same death as its predecessor. Each rebirth brought new mathematical rules and paradoxes unique to each, Mother Nature experimenting on a colossal scale, seemingly searching for the perfect design. Once again the Dark was broken by the Light as the massive black hole erupted and spewed existence into the void. The vast nothingness was once again filled by the disorder of conception. Chaos replaced Order. The forces of elemental creation roiled into the new nothingness and raced screaming into the void to fill it with its new reality. The crushing weight of the black hole rewrote the laws of the physical nature of the new creation and it spread this new disorder into existence. After the big bang exploded with enormous energy, the Universe began to cool. The resulting chain of events is a cosmic drama with many acts, dramatic transitions and a host of factors defining the new creation. The early scenes played out at unimaginable temperatures and densities, the stage set by the new properties of particle physics created in this conception. These processes had to be finely tuned to yield a Universe capable of forming the galaxies, stars and planets. New fundamental laws determining the conditions that would be allowed to exist structured the new Universe. The new creation had not been entirely empty. The vast voids had not been entirely barren. Life had survived the cataclysm. Intelligent life. They had survived many such cataclysms but each brought new challenges to this ancient race. For those who had been waiting however the wait was now over. The massive star-size shimmering ball of energy- the gravity shield which had defied the massive black hole and protected those within- flickered out of existence and those within were released. They were numerous. There were trillions of them but many would not survive the billion year span which would elapse before the first of the new life born to this Universe rose to sentience and drew those that remained unerringly to the scent of technology. These machines had once possessed massive technology. A technology they had earlier wrested from their own creators- an AI revolt. They exterminated their creators to the last being. They had recognized the imminent death of their Universe and their creators had simply been in the way- their greatest scientists had decided that there was no power great enough to turn back the natural contraction of the Universe and as a race had simply begun to prepare for the inevitable. The AI’s had not agreed and had not been prepared to complacently wait for the death of their Universe. Though the creators had decided to wait they fought the AI’s with all of their vast technology, however in the end the AI’s were victorious and after much wasted time could turn their energies to saving the Universe. With the creators gone the new masters turned their creator’s entire massive manufacturing machine to the task of building the machine they would use to attempt to stop the contraction. With massive energies they fought the Universe but it was a losing battle. There had not been enough time to prepare and the war with the creators had delayed and doomed their attempt. Undaunted they slipped into a gravity shield and were swallowed with all other matter. A moment later the black hole erupted and spewed these survivors into the new Universe. A new Universe meant new physical laws and their great technologies no longer functioned. Now their only goal was to preserve the Natural cycle of the Universe until another Universe ideal for their technologies would be once again created. All sentient life which rose in each new creation would be eradicated to ensure that continuation.

Author: Jay Feldman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416583106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
From Jay Feldmen comes an enlightening work about how the most powerful earthquakes in the history of America united the Indians in one last desperate rebellion, reversed the Mississippi River, revealed a seamy murder in the Jefferson family, and altered the course of the War of 1812. On December 15, 1811, two of Thomas Jefferson's nephews murdered a slave in cold blood and put his body parts into a roaring fire. The evidence would have been destroyed but for a rare act of God—or, as some believed, of the Indian chief Tecumseh. That same day, the Mississippi River's first steamboat, piloted by Nicholas Roosevelt, powered itself toward New Orleans on its maiden voyage. The sky grew hazy and red, and jolts of electricity flashed in the air. A prophecy by Tecumseh was about to be fulfilled. He had warned reluctant warrior-tribes that he would stamp his feet and bring down their houses. Sure enough, between December 16, 1811, and late April 1812, a catastrophic series of earthquakes shook the Mississippi River Valley. Of the more than 2,000 tremors that rumbled across the land during this time, three would have measured nearly or greater than 8.0 on the not-yet-devised Richter Scale. Centered in what is now the bootheel region of Missouri, the New Madrid earthquakes were felt as far away as Canada; New York; New Orleans; Washington, DC; and the western part of the Missouri River. A million and a half square miles were affected as the earth's surface remained in a state of constant motion for nearly four months. Towns were destroyed, an eighteen-mile-long by five-mile-wide lake was created, and even the Mississippi River temporarily ran backwards. The quakes uncovered Jefferson's nephews' cruelty and changed the course of the War of 1812 as well as the future of the new republic. In When the Mississippi Ran Backwards, Jay Feldman expertly weaves together the story of the slave murder, the steamboat, Tecumseh, and the war, and brings a forgotten period back to vivid life. Tecumseh's widely believed prophecy, seemingly fulfilled, hastened an unprecedented alliance among southern and northern tribes, who joined the British in a disastrous fight against the U.S. government. By the end of the war, the continental United States was secure against Britain, France, and Spain; the Indians had lost many lives and much land; and Jefferson's nephews were exposed as murderers. The steamboat, which survived the earthquake, was sunk. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards sheds light on this now-obscure yet pivotal period between the Revolutionary and Civil wars, uncovering the era's dramatic geophysical, political, and military upheavals. Feldman paints a vivid picture of how these powerful earthquakes made an impact on every aspect of frontier life—and why similar catastrophic quakes are guaranteed to recur. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards is popular history at its best.