Military History

An intimate look at Elie Wiesel, author of the seminal Holocaust memoir Night and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary

The Vietnam War ended nearly fifty years ago but the central paradox of the struggle endures: how did the world's strongest nation fail to secure freedom for the Republic of Vietnam? Michael F. Morris addresses this vexing question by focusing on the senior Marine headquarters in the conflict's most dangerous region. Known as I Corps, the northern five provinces of South Vietnam witnessed the bloodiest fighting of the entire war. I Corps also contained the Viet Cong's strongest infrastructure, key portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the important political and economic prizes of Hue and Da Nang. For Americans, it was the site of the first major military operation (Operation STARLITE); the Battles of Hue City and Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive; and a military innovation known as the Combined Action Platoon (CAP), a counterinsurgency technique designed to secure the region's villages. The Marine zone served as Saigon's "canary in the coal mine"--if the war was to be won, allied action must succeed in its most contested region. With such deep significance, I Corps holds many answers to the lasting questions of the Vietnam War.Following the Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF)--the primary US tactical command in I Corps from 1965 to 1970--Corps Competency? provides the first composite analysis of the critical role of the senior Marine headquarters and offers a coherence missing in piecemeal accounts. Despite the critical importance of I Corps, relatively little is known about its overall impact on the war due to disconnected and patchy historical study of the region.In this comprehensive and newly insightful study of the Vietnam War, Michael Morris tells a story that illustrates what can happen when a corps headquarters is not ready for the conflict it encounters and then fights the war it wants to rather than the one it must.

Those who witnessed it never forgot it:  the great armada of Allied ships that filled the English Channel on D-Day, June 6, 1944. From battleships, cruisers, and destroyers down to the much smaller landing ships and landing craft, these nearly 7,000 vessels bombarded the Normandy coast, ferried men, tanks, and equipment across the channel, and landed 150,000 troops—under withering German fire—on Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches in a single day. In numbers and scope, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history.Meanwhile, some 12,000 aircraft flew above the sea, a dizzying assortment of fighters and bombers, transports, recon craft, and gliders. Taking off from air fields in England, they dropped thousands of paratroopers and even vehicles, bombed roads and German positions miles inland, provided vital intelligence, and attacked any German planes that were able to take to the skies. It was the largest single-day aerial operation in history.And yet these important—and impressive—aspects of D-Day haven’t received the coverage they deserve, having been overshadowed by the fighting on the beaches. Veronico assembles photos of both the air and sea components of the D-Day invasion, giving the sailors and airmen their due and giving modern readers a vivid sense of what this monumental day was like in the air and at sea.

A gripping tale of determination, betrayal, and the struggle for dignity amid societal and personal chaos.In The Strange and Tragic Wounds of George Cole's America, historian Michael deGruccio offers a gripping tale of ambition, self-making, and tragedy set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and its aftermath. George Cole was a once-hopeful Union soldier whose dreams of heroism and societal recognition unraveled in the chaos of war and personal betrayal at home. Haunted by the war's brutalities, Cole struggled to reclaim his dignity in a post-war nation that, in his mind, had forsaken the most deserving.When he returned home to upstate New York after the war, Cole discovered that his wife had been seduced-or had been raped-by their family attorney. At first glance, Cole's story is straightforward: he murders their attorney, is tried (twice), and is acquitted. But in deGruccio's telling, the murder, like a flash of lightning, illuminates a vast landscape in striking detail. By mining court transcripts, newspapers, private letters and wills, memoirs, and military records, deGruccio pieces together a noir tale of American life in the nineteenth century, one given to desperate self-improvement. This meticulously researched microhistory of a pained veteran explores how increasing rights for women, the end of slavery, expanding access to market goods, burgeoning towns and cities, the madness of war, and the congealing corruption in government and business brought a new birth of fraught freedom.

How medieval and Renaissance technology shaped Mediterranean and European society across a millennium.Coming soon! Technology in Mediterranean and European Lands, 600-1600, by Pamela O. Long.

This is the first book to explore this pivotal year in the modern history of the Middle East in its global, regional, and local contexts and from a wide range of linguistic, geographic, and academic specialties

Though the Holocaust has been documented in depth, historians and the public know very little about the experience of Eastern European Jews during the preceding world war. A Nation of Refugees tells the story of how ordinary Jewish people in the Russian Empire survived World War I as refugees and civilians. It focuses on the resilience and organized campaigns of humanitarian war relief that countered violence and victimization. Above all, it captures the voices and experiences of refugees at a time of upheaval and war through first-hand accounts.

This highly illustrated new study tells the full story of the German light Panzers in World War II.

The incredible story of Nazi German exchange students in the United States during WWII.In the 1930s, international exchange students in the United States celebrated their Christmas breaks in Florida, enthusiastically engaged in college-aged antics, rowdy parties, and the defiance of authorities. In between such mayhem, they admired the beauty of America; quietly discussed their impressions of their host country; and agonized over their future, which would now be reshaped by their study-abroad experiences. These were not typical international college students, however. These students were Nazis.In Nazis in the New World, Aaron Gillette presents vivid narratives and personal accounts to reveal the unknown history of Nazi German exchange students sent to America in the 1930s. After receiving the Gestapo's stamp of approval, they were instructed to use their charm and charisma to promote the Third Reich. Some also served Hitler as covert operatives against the United States. In many cases, the Nazi government came to regret sending its students across the ocean.Gillette argues that Nazism was an abject failure in the United States, that antisemitism was on the decline, that German espionage in America was a disaster for the Reich, and that FDR and J. Edgar Hoover brilliantly manipulated Nazi blunders to propel America into the war against Hitler and empower the FBI. Meanwhile, numerous German exchange students in the United States were transformed from Nazis into fiercely patriotic Americans.

How languages served as archives of local knowledge and a crucial resource for both the human and natural history of the Americas in the Spanish empire.In the sixteenth century, the conquest of the Americas exposed Spanish writers to previously unknown peoples and their many languages. The linguistic multiplicity of the new transatlantic empire presented enormous challenges both in terms of governance and religious conversion. Yet it also became a crucial resource for learning about the new territories' history, both natural and human. In The Cradle of Words, Valeria Lopez Fadul reveals that Spanish scholars, missionaries, and administrators treated the empire's multiple tongues-both at home and abroad-as rich archives of local knowledge. These linguistic resources were exploited alongside the Americas' vast mineral and natural wealth and Indigenous labor. In the process, Spanish scholars made language itself into an object of historical inquiry. Using a wide variety of sources, Lopez Fadul recreates the intellectual networks that crisscrossed Spain's overseas possessions and informed the imperial court's scholars. As linguistic information circulated among different kinds of scholars and local experts in Spain and in Spanish America, the history of language came to serve historical, political, and even legal arguments that were not originally linguistic in nature. By relying on varied methods like the collection of words, etymology, and the elaboration of linguistic genealogies, Spanish writers used the history of language to reconstruct the past, gain knowledge of nature, and explain the profound social transformations of their newly broadened world.

Pham explores North Vietnam's unique challenges and perspectives to provide a holistic understanding of the Vietnam War. Examining the emotional, philosophical and cultural dimensions of Northern Vietnamese experiences, this book transcends military strategy to illuminate how these elements shaped their identity, beliefs and self-conception.

Special Operations Success establishes a new benchmark in military theory in this deeply analytic and innovative work.

A comprehensive overview of the innovative camouflage smocks worn by the infantrymen of the 6th Armoured Division.Camouflaged Fist delivers a comprehensive overview of the innovative, and until now previously un-researched, camouflage smocks worn by the infantrymen of the 6th Armoured Division. Following meticulous archival research of previously un-accessed war diaries the narrative uses a fully evidenced based approach supplemented by accounts from those who wore them and recently digitized photographs and documents to set out the who, what, why, where and when of their use.In telling the story, Camouflage Fist also provides insight into the wider use of uniform by infantrymen in Italy and previously unpublished material concerning the 6th Armoured Division. It will be of interest and assistance to historians, military collectors, reenactors and scale modelers alike."Gareth Scanlon has put together a detailed study of the 6th Armoured Division. He presents a comprehensive analysis of the uniforms, the innovative use of camouflage clothing and the adaptation of the Guards and Rifle regiments of the Division to the climate, terrain and vegetation of central Italy during the summer of 1944. The result of many years of detailed research and painstaking acquisition of the uniforms and other accoutrements worn by the guardsmen and riflemen Camouflaged Fist provides a deep analysis of their origins, sources and modifications. This book makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the war in Italy from a barely tapped but fruitful direction for what is often portrayed as a dull, unimaginative and colorless campaign." - Dr Nigel Warwick, Corps Historian Royal Air Force Regiment

This book shows the contribution that empathy can and should make to the proper conduct of war. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, psychology, and military studies generally.

This book offers the first analysis of the brutalisation paradigm in counter-insurgency warfare.

This book connects the work of US private foundations, the United States government, and Brazilian intellectuals to explore how they worked collaboratively to address racial disparities in Brazil during the Cold War.

For more than a century, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 has remained an object of historical scrutiny. As an attempt to consolidate peace in the wake of World War I and to prevent future conflict, it was instrumental in shaping political and social dynamics both nationally and internationally. Yet, in spite of its implications for global conflict, little consideration has been given to the way the Paris Peace Conference constructed a new global order. In this illuminating and geographically wide-ranging reassessment, The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 reconsiders how this watershed event, its diplomatic negotiations and the peace treaties themselves gave rise to new dynamics of global power and politics. In doing so it highlights the way in which the forces of nationality and imperiality interacted with, and were reshaped by, the peace.

From a celebrated military historian, a highly engaging and thought-provoking explanation for America’s many misfortunes in wars and military campaigns since the mid-1960s.