Military History

Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into bloody holocaust. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. This book tells her story.

How these divisions from the North of England and Scotland helped turn the war - first in North Africa then in Europe after D-Day

At its height the Roman Empire stretched across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, maintained by an army of modest size but great diversity. This title investigates how Roman Army units in the Western provinces were equipped, exploring the local influences and traditions that caused the variations in attire.

SOE, the Special Operations Executive, was a small, tough British secret service, a dirty tricks department established in July 1940 and encouraged by Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze'. Their job - as saboteurs, informers, partisans, couriers or secret agents - was to support and stimulate resistance behind enemy lines;

The Commandos were created by Winston Churchill in 1940 as a 'butcher and bolt' raiding unit to destroy vital targets in German occupied Europe. Recruits for this 'special service' were all volunteers, drawn from the British Army, and later from the Royal Marines and other Allied armies. Commando training was extremely demanding - men had to be physically fit and show initiative, mental toughness and adaptability. The training courses were designed to cultivate these qualities and to simulate real battle experiences, which included the use of live ammunition. Commandos learned a diverse range of skills at dedicated training centres in the remote Scottish Highlands. This pocket-book draws on authentic training manuals, lecture notes, course literature and other material from the commando schools to give a real insight into this highly specialised fighting unit - demonstrating how commandos were taught to live, fight and move on offensive operations, initially as raiding parties, and later as skilled assault infantry. Sections of the book cover survival and fieldcraft skills; night operations; assaulting obstacles; use of equipment - such as the COPPS canoe for beach reconnaissance and sabotage; and weapons training, including the Thompson submachine gun, the Bren gun, and the famous emblem of the commandos - the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife.

Over the past fifty years, many thousands of conflict simulations have been published that bring the dynamics of past and possible future wars to life. In this book, Philip Sabin explores the theory and practice of conflict simulation as a topic in its own right, based on his thirty years of experience in designing wargames and using them in teaching. Simulating War sets conflict simulation in its proper context alongside more familiar techniques such as game theory and operational analysis. It explains in detail the analytical and modelling techniques involved, and it teaches you how to design your own simulations of conflicts of your choice. The book provides eight simple illustrative simulations of specific historical conflicts, complete with rules, maps and counters. Simulating War is essential reading for all recreational or professional simulation gamers, and for anyone who is interested in modelling war, from teachers and students to military officers.

In the 5th century B.C., Greece was a patchwork country of small, independent city-states whose tendency to fight each other was offset only by strong ties to common cultural elements such as language and a unique style of warfare. While surviving myths emphasize heroics and honor, the reality of ancient Greek warfare was that of regular men dealing with everyday problems. Relying heavily on primary sources such as Herodotus, Thucydides and Plutarch, this volume provides the first-ever tactical level survey of all 173 Greek land engagements which occurred during the 5th century B.C., a seminal period in the history of western warfare. Using carefully researched logical probabilities to extend surviving records, the author places each battle within its historical context and analyzes it with a view to documenting significant overall patterns of action. The result is not only a detailed study of each battle complete with maps and battlefield diagrams, but also an overview of general trends in 5th century Greek warfare.

A catalogue of history's greatest military leaders - from the Classical Age to the Napoleonic Era - and what drove them to victory.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this "ambitious and challenging" (The New York Review of Books) work, the bestselling author of Monsoon and Balkan Ghosts offers a revelatory prism through which to view global upheavals and to understand what lies ahead for continents and countries around the world.In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe's pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland.Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Remarkably, the future can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties: China, able to feed only 23 percent of its people from land that is only 7 percent arable, has sought energy, minerals, and metals from such brutal regimes as Burma, Iran, and Zimbabwe, putting it in moral conflict with the United States. Afghanistan's porous borders will keep it the principal invasion route into India, and a vital rear base for Pakistan, India's main enemy. Iran will exploit the advantage of being the only country that straddles both energy-producing areas of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Finally, Kaplan posits that the United States might rue engaging in far-flung conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than tending to its direct neighbor Mexico, which is on the verge of becoming a semifailed state due to drug cartel carnage.A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this indispensable work shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century's looming cataclysms.

From the hell of Gallipoli to the deserts of the Holy Land, torpedoed in the Mediterranean before finally posted to the mud and trenches of the Western Front, the experiences of the Royal Bucks Hussars were as fascinating and bloody as any during the First World War.

Rubel's account illustrates how potentially disastrous gaps came to exist between national military policies and the detailed design and development of major intercontinental ballistic missile systems-important lessons to be learned in this time of rogue nations and nuclear proliferation.

A remarkable memoir of strength and bravery from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler's list.

When the First Emperor of China died 2,000 years ago, he was buried in a giant tomb. In 1974, this tomb was discovered along with an army of over 6,000 terracotta warriors. Discover the army for yourself and the reason they were buried with the Emperor.

From best-selling author of Tail-End Charlie and Tornado Down comes this powerful and deeply moving account of Bomber Command's 1944 Nuremberg Raid - the RAF's bloodiest night of the Second World War

Josef Sepp Allerberger was the second most successful sniper of the German Wehrmacht and one of the few private soldiers to be honored with the award of the Knights Cross.

The fast-paced history of the little-known war between Germany and Denmark which shaped a century, told for the first time - soon to be a BBC drama.

Remarkable memoir of one of the last people to leave Hitler's Bunker Includes profiles of prominent members of Hitler's inner circle

* The only comprehensive guide of crash sites throughout the UK * Features details of a host of major aircraft wrecks, the sites of which can all be visited with the aid of this guide.

Wanted: Volunteers for Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal. A body bag. Or both. When the author issued this call to arms in Vietnam in 1965, he revolutionized American armed combat. This title tells the story of what would eventually come to be known as Delta Force.

Arrian's account of Alexander's life and campaigns, published as the Anabasis and its companion piece the Indica, is our prime source for the history of Alexander, told with great narrative skill. This edition features a new translation of both texts, introduction, notes, guide to military systems and terminology, maps and a full index.

Provides Bolt Action players with the information they need to field the military forces of the Soviet Union. From the bitter urban warfare of Stalingrad, through the Winter War against Finland and the final drive to Berlin, this title provides army lists that allow players to construct Soviet armies for any theatre and any year of the war.

The Webley .455in service revolver is among the most powerful top-break revolvers ever produced. First adopted in 1887, in various marques it was the standard-issue service pistol for British and Commonwealth armed forces for nearly fifty years. This title presents the story of the Webley revolver.

The decade that followed James Stockdale's seven and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison saw his life take a number of different turns, from a stay in a navy hospital to president of a civilian college to his appointment as a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In these essays he offers his thoughts on his imprisonment.

The siege of Leningrad is one of the great stories of extraordinary and heroic endurance in World War II

This new, large format book contains over 1,000 images of Germany's Legion Condor during the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939. Coverage of all branches of the Legion Condor, with a special emphasis on aviation, includes detailed operational and unit histories, technical aspects of aircraft flown, biographies of noted personalities, and a look at uniforms, insignia and equipment. Superbly rendered full-color aircraft profiles show the variety of fighter, bomber, recon, and transport aircraft used. Covered too are the panzer, flak and naval units of the Legion Condor. A collection of hundreds of extremely rare Legion Condor artifacts in full-color rounds out this comprehensive look at the infamous pre-World War II German military.

A superb illustrated history of Britain's greatest night bomber of World War II, with more than 275 photographs.

China's decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution shook the politics of China and the world between 1966 and 1976. Even as we approach the Cultural Revolution's fiftieth anniversary, the movement remains so contentious that the Chinese Communist Party still will not allow open discussion of its origins, development, and conclusion. In this book, Richard Curt Kraus helps the non-specialist reader make some sense out of a complex, often obscure, and still controversial movement.

This rarely presented topic is shown in its uses as personnel, assault and equipment transport.

The extraordinary story of British junior officers in the First World War, who led their men out of the trenches and faced a life expectancy of six weeks.