Download or read book Myths and Legends of the First World War written by James Hayward and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the First World War, a rich crop of legends sprouted from the battlefields and grew with such ferocity that many still excite controversy today. This book is the first to examine the roots of those stories and reveal the truth. Some myths remain well-known. Did an entire battalion of the Norfolk Regiment vanish without trace at Gallipoli in 1915? Did thousands of Russian troops actually pass through England with snow on their boots? In 1914, an acute spy mania gripped the British public, who imagined that the country was brimming with German spies. Xenophobia, denunciations and attacks on dachshunds were rampant. Amazingly, there was even talk of enemy aircraft dropping poisoned sweets to kill British children. Myths such as the Angel of Mons and the Comrade in White were more innocent creations. With no radio or television, rumours of disaster were rife, and the apparition of mystical guardian spirits gave hope to the civilian population at home. Other stories, such as the so-called Crucified Canadian, and the existence of a gruesome German corpse rendering factory, were more sinister. Yet in an age of new and startling technologies such as poison gas, submarine warfare and the tank, such tales appeared believable. Using a wide range of contemporary sources, James Hayward traces the story of each myth and examines the likely explanation. Supported by a selection of rare photographs and illustrations, the result is a refreshingly different perspective on the common 'mud and trenches' view of the First World War, shedding fascinating new light on many curious and unexplained wartime tales.
Download or read book The Oil Wars Myth written by Emily Meierding and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do countries fight wars for oil? Given the resource's exceptional military and economic importance, most people assume that states will do anything to obtain it. Challenging this conventional wisdom, The Oil Wars Myth reveals that countries do not launch major conflicts to acquire petroleum resources. Emily Meierding argues that the costs of foreign invasion, territorial occupation, international retaliation, and damage to oil company relations deter even the most powerful countries from initiating "classic oil wars." Examining a century of interstate violence, she demonstrates that, at most, countries have engaged in mild sparring to advance their petroleum ambitions. The Oil Wars Myth elaborates on these findings by reassessing the presumed oil motives for many of the twentieth century's most prominent international conflicts: World War II, the two American Gulf wars, the Iran–Iraq War, the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the Chaco War. These case studies show that countries have consistently refrained from fighting for oil. Meierding also explains why oil war assumptions are so common, despite the lack of supporting evidence. Since classic oil wars exist at the intersection of need and greed—two popular explanations for resource grabs—they are unusually easy to believe in. The Oil Wars Myth will engage and inform anyone interested in oil, war, and the narratives that connect them.
Download or read book Don t Give Up the Ship written by Donald R. Hickey and published by . This book was released on 2007-10 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clearing the fog from the War of 1812
Download or read book War Myths and Fairy Tales written by Sara Buttsworth and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exciting new collection examines the relationships between warfare, myths, and fairy tales, and explores the connections and contradictions between the narratives of war and magic that dominate the ways in which people live and have lived, survived, considered and described their world. Presenting original contributions and critical reflections that explore fairy tales, fantasy and wars, be they "real" or imagined, past or present, this book looks at creative works in popular culture, stories of resistance, the history and representation of global and local conflicts, the Holocaust, across multiple media. It offers a timely and important overview of the latest research in the field, including contributions from academics, story-tellers and artists, thereby transcending the traditional boundaries of the disciplines, extending the parameters of war studies beyond the battlefield.
Download or read book Myths and Legends of the Second World War written by James Hayward and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009-09-23 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War gave rise to a rich crop of legends, many of which persist in the public consciousness today. Some are well known, such as the escape of an undead Hitler to South America, Allied aircraft buzzed by 'Foo Fighters' and UFOs, German parachutists dressed as nuns, and a failed German invasion of Suffolk in 1940. Others are more subtle, such as the vaunted Dunkirk spirit, which portrayed the disaster of 1940 as a victory, and the conspiracy theories surrounding Rudolf Hess. Did he fly to Scotland to negotiate a peace treaty with members of the Royal Family? Was the aged prisoner who died in Spandau Prison a double? From tales of betrayal at Dieppe and Arnhem to Hitler's obsession with the occult and Nazi U-boat bases in Ireland, James Hayward offers a refreshing and intriguing perspective on the myths, legends and folk memories of the Second World War.
Download or read book The Good War written by Studs Terkel and published by New Press/ORIM. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 707 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: “The richest and most powerful single document of the American experience in World War II” (The Boston Globe). “The Good War” is a testament not only to the experience of war but to the extraordinary skill of Studs Terkel as an interviewer and oral historian. From a pipe fitter’s apprentice at Pearl Harbor to a crew member of the flight that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, his subjects are open and unrelenting in their analyses of themselves and their experiences, producing what People magazine has called “a splendid epic history” of WWII. With this volume Terkel expanded his scope to the global and the historical, and the result is a masterpiece of oral history. “Tremendously compelling, somehow dramatic and intimate at the same time, as if one has stumbled on private accounts in letters locked in attic trunks . . . In terms of plain human interest, Mr. Terkel may well have put together the most vivid collection of World War II sketches ever gathered between covers.” —The New York Times Book Review “I promise you will remember your war years, if you were alive then, with extraordinary vividness as you go through Studs Terkel’s book. Or, if you are too young to remember, this is the best place to get a sense of what people were feeling.” —Chicago Tribune “A powerful book, repeatedly moving and profoundly disturbing.” —People
Download or read book War Before Civilization written by Lawrence H. Keeley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-12-18 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as "the pacification of the past"). Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared even women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children (a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus). In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley is a seasoned writer and his book is packed with vivid, eye-opening details (for instance, that the homicide rate of prehistoric Illinois villagers may have exceeded that of the modern United States by some 70 times). But he also goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.
Download or read book Kosovo written by Julie Mertus and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999-08-09 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the foundations of conflict in Kosovo, charging that the international community's failure to support the Albanians in their initial passive resistance to Serbian repression led to violence.
Download or read book Myths and Mysteries of the Civil War written by Michael R. Bradley and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-04-12 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourteen Mind-Boggling Tales from America’s Deadliest Conflict—commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War • Was Ulysses S. Grant really a “perpetual drunk”? Some said he never met a bottle he didn’t like. But did his headache medication also cause intoxication-like behavior? And did much of the talk originate with those jealous of Grant? • Was Stonewall Jackson just a “sucker”? Thomas Jonathan Jackson became known not only as a brilliant strategist but also as an eccentric who obsessively sucked lemons. Was it a love of fresh fruit? Or his favorite method of dealing with heartburn? • What happened to the lost Confederate gold? Ever since the evacuation of Richmond on April 2, 1865, rumors abounded that the Confederate treasury had been loaded aboard a train and sent on its way into hiding. Can we “follow the money”? In at least one case the answer is “yes.” From the legend of the Yankee “human shield” behind Nathan Bedford Forrest’s saddle to the unexplained sinking of the Hunley, Myths and Mysteries of the Civil War makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the most fascinating and compelling stories of the war that almost tore America apart
Download or read book Counterinsurgency written by Douglas Porch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversial new history of counterinsurgency which challenges its claims as an effective strategy of waging war.
Download or read book Militia Myths written by James A. Wood and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The image of farmers and workers called to the colours endures in Canada’s social memory of the First World War. But is the ideal of being a citizen first and a soldier only by necessity as recent as our histories and memories suggest? Militia Myths brings to light a military culture that consistently employed the citizen soldier as its foremost symbol, but was otherwise in a state of profound transition. At the time of Confederation, the defence of Canada itself represented the country’s only real obligation to the British Empire, but by the early twentieth century Canadians were already fighting an imperial war in South Africa. In 1914, they began raising an army to fight on the Western Front. By the end of the First World War, the ideological transition was complete: for better or for worse, the untrained civilian who had answered the call-to-arms in 1914 replaced the long-serving volunteer militiaman of the past as the archetypical Canadian citizen soldier. Militia Myths traces the evolution of a uniquely Canadian amateur military tradition -- one that has had an enormous impact on the country’s experience of the First and Second World Wars. Published in association with the Canadian War Museum.
Download or read book Worshipping the Myths of World War II written by Edward W. Wood (Jr.) and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WWII veteran's controversial perspective
Download or read book The Myths of Tet written by Edwin Moïse and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late in 1967, American officials and military officers pushed an optimistic view of the Vietnam War. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) said that the war was being won, and that Communist strength in South Vietnam was declining. Then came the Tet Offensive of 1968. In its broadest and simplest outline, the conventional wisdom about the offensive—that it was a military defeat for the Communists but a political victory for them, because it undermined support for the war in the United States—is correct. But much that has been written about the Tet Offensive has been misleading. Edwin Moïse shows that the Communist campaign shocked the American public not because the American media exaggerated its success, but because it was a bigger campaign—larger in scale, much longer in duration, and resulting in more American casualties—than most authors have acknowledged. MACV, led by General William Westmoreland, issued regular estimates of enemy strength in South Vietnam. During 1967, intelligence officers at MACV were increasingly required to issue low estimates to show that the war was being won. Their underestimation of enemy strength was most extreme in January 1968, just before the Tet Offensive. The weak Communist force depicted in MACV estimates would not have been capable of sustaining heavy combat month after month like they did in 1968. Moïse also explores the errors of the Communists, using Vietnamese sources. The first wave of Communist attacks, at the end of January 1968, showed gross failures of coordination. Communist policy throughout 1968 and into 1969 was wildly overoptimistic, setting impossible goals for their forces. While acknowledging the journalists and historians who have correctly reported various parts of the story, Moïse points out widespread misunderstandings in regard to the strength of Communist forces in Vietnam, the disputes among American intelligence agencies over estimates of enemy strength, the actual pattern of combat in 1968, the effects of Tet on American policy, and the American media’s coverage of all these issues.
Download or read book Seven Myths of the Civil War written by Wesley Moody and published by Hackett Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Readers of this book who thought they knew a lot about the U.S. Civil War will discover that much of what they 'knew' is wrong. For readers whose previous knowledge is sketchy but whose desire to learn is strong, the separation of myth from reality is an important step toward mastering the subject. The essays will generate lively discussion and new insights." --James M. McPherson, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University
Download or read book The Soviet Myth of World War II written by Jonathan Brunstedt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a bold new interpretation of the origins and development of World War II's remembrance in the USSR.
Download or read book The Smoke and the Fire written by John Terraine and published by Pen & Sword. This book was released on 1980 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Star Wars Myths Fables written by Lucasfilm Press and published by Disney Electronic Content. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Star Wars: Batu In-World Fairytales Book
