Download or read book War and Empire written by Paul L. Atwood and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative study, Paul Atwood attempts to show Americans that their history is one of constant wars of aggression and imperial expansion. In his long teaching career, Atwood has found that most students know virtually nothing about America's involvement in the wars of the 20th century, let alone those prior to World War I. War and Empire aims to correct this, clearly and persuasively explaining US actions in every major war since the declaration of independence. The book shows that, far from being dragged reluctantly into foreign entanglements, America's leaders have always picked their battles in order to increase its influence and power, with little regard for those killed in the process. This book is an eye-opening introduction to the American way of life for undergraduate students of American history, politics and international relations.

Download or read book On Empire written by Eric Hobsbawm and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2008-11-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these four incisive and keenly perceptive essays, one of out most celebrated and respected historians of modern Europe looks at the world situation and some of the major political problems confronting us at the start of the third millennium. With his usual measured and brilliant historical perspective, Eric Hobsbawm traces the rise of American hegemony in the twenty-first century. He examines the state of steadily increasing world disorder in the context of rapidly growing inequalities created by rampant free-market globalization. He makes clear that there is no longer a plural power system of states whose relations are governed by common laws--including those for the conduct of war. He scrutinizes America's policies, particularly its use of the threat of terrorism as an excuse for unilateral deployment of its global power. Finally, he discusses the ways in which the current American hegemony differs from the defunct British Empire in its inception, its ideology, and its effects on nations and individuals. Hobsbawm is particularly astute in assessing the United States' assertion of world hegemony, its denunciation of formerly accepted international conventions, and its launching of wars of aggression when it sees fit. Aside from the naivete and failure that have surrounded most of these imperial campaigns, Hobsbawm points out that foreign values and institutions--including those associated with a democratic government--can rarely be imposed on countries such as Iraq by outside forces unless the conditions exist that make them acceptable and readily adaptable. Timely and accessible, On Empire is a commanding work of history that should be read by anyone who wants some understanding of the turbulent times in which we live.

Download or read book Army of Empire written by George Morton-Jack and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on untapped new sources, the first global history of the Indian Expeditionary Forces in World War I While their story is almost always overlooked, the 1.5 million Indian soldiers who served the British Empire in World War I played a crucial role in the eventual Allied victory. Despite their sacrifices, Indian troops received mixed reactions from their allies and their enemies alike-some were treated as liberating heroes, some as mercenaries and conquerors themselves, and all as racial inferiors and a threat to white supremacy. Yet even as they fought as imperial troops under the British flag, their broadened horizons fired in them new hopes of racial equality and freedom on the path to Indian independence. Drawing on freshly uncovered interviews with members of the Indian Army in Iraq and elsewhere, historian George Morton-Jack paints a deeply human story of courage, colonization, and racism, and finally gives these men their rightful place in history.

Download or read book Empire Lost written by Andrew Stewart and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-11-18 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using government records, private letters and diaries and contemporary media sources, this book examines the key themes affecting the relationship between Britain and the Dominions during the Second World War, the Empire's last great conflict. It asks why this political and military coalition was ultimately successful in overcoming the challenge of the Axis powers but, in the process, proved unable to preserve itself. Although these changes were inevitable the manner of the evolution was sometimes painful, as Britain's wartime economic decline left its political position exposed in a changing post-war international system.

Download or read book Over There written by Maria Hohn and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays explore the social impact of Americas global network of military bases by examining interactions between U.S. soldiers and members of host communities in South Korea, Japan/Okinawa, and West Germany.

Download or read book War at the Edge of the World written by Ian James Ross and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Roman centurion sent to the empire’s distant northern edge encounters treachery beyond Hadrian’s Wall in this historical epic series debut. Roman Britain, Fourth Century AD. Once a soldier in an elite legion from the Danube, newly promoted centurion Aurelius Castus now finds himself stuck in the provincial backwater of Britannia. Just beyond Hadrian’s Wall are a savage people allied with Rome known as the Picts. When their king dies under mysterious circumstances, an envoy must be sent to negotiate with their new leader. And Castus is selected to command the envoy’s bodyguard. What starts as a simple diplomatic mission ends in bloody tragedy. As Castus and his men fight for their lives, the legionnaire discovers that nothing about his doomed mission was ever what it seemed. The first book in Ian James Ross’s Twilight of Empire series, War at the Edge of the World is an exciting debut from an author as gifted at telling a story as he is at bringing the Late Roman Empire to life.

Download or read book The War That Made the Roman Empire written by Barry Strauss and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “splendid” (The Wall Street Journal) account of one of history’s most important and yet little-known wars, the campaign culminating in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, whose outcome determined the future of the Roman Empire. Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium. Octavian prevailed over Antony and Cleopatra, who subsequently killed themselves. The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt. In this “superbly recounted” (The National Review) history, Barry Strauss, ancient history authority, describes this consequential battle with the drama and expertise that it deserves. The War That Made the Roman Empire is essential history that features three of the greatest figures of the ancient world.

Download or read book Wars of Empire written by Douglas Porch and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2002-03-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the great African land rush to British expansion and American imperialism, this is the gripping story of western colonialism: the rise to power, resistance it encountered, and financial stresses it caused. "Exciting saga, written by a gifted writer with the capacity to explain military tactics and strategies in laypersons' terms...filled with a fascinating array of characters ...lush illustrations... outstanding... will delight both scholars and well informed general readers who appreciate a great story well told."--"Booklist. "

Download or read book Forgotten Armies written by Christopher Alan Bayly and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early stages of the Second World War, the vast crescent of British-ruled territories stretching from India to Singapore appeared as a massive Allied asset. It provided scores of soldiers and great quantities of raw materials and helped present a seemingly impregnable global defense against the Axis. Yet, within a few weeks in 1941-42, a Japanese invasion had destroyed all this, sweeping suddenly and decisively through south and southeast Asia to the Indian frontier, and provoking the extraordinary revolutionary struggles which would mark the beginning of the end of British dominion in the East and the rise of today's Asian world. More than a military history, this gripping account of groundbreaking battles and guerrilla campaigns creates a panoramic view of British Asia as it was ravaged by warfare, nationalist insurgency, disease, and famine. It breathes life into the armies of soldiers, civilians, laborers, businessmen, comfort women, doctors, and nurses who confronted the daily brutalities of a combat zone which extended from metropolitan cities to remote jungles, from tropical plantations to the Himalayas. Drawing upon a vast range of Indian, Burmese, Chinese, and Malay as well as British, American, and Japanese voices, the authors make vivid one of the central dramas of the twentieth century: the birth of modern south and southeast Asia and the death of British rule.

Download or read book Embers of War written by Fredrik Logevall and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2012 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the four decades leading up to the Vietnam War offers insights into how the U.S. became involved, identifying commonalities between the campaigns of French and American forces while discussing relevant political factors.

Download or read book Hero of the Empire written by Candice Millard and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic, this thrilling biographical account of the life and legacy of Wintson Churchill is a "nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one" (The New York Times). At the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England. He arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels and jumpstart his political career. But just two weeks later, Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape—traversing hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him. Bestselling author Candice Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters—including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi—with whom Churchill would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an extraordinary adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect twentieth century history.

Download or read book Empires at War written by Robert Gerwarth and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-07-03 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empires at War, 1911-1923 offers a new perspective on the history of the Great War. It expands the story of the war both in time and space to include the violent conflicts that preceded and followed the First World War, from the 1911 Italian invasion of Libya to the massive violence that followed the collapse of the Ottoman, Russian, and Austrian empires until 1923. It also presents the war as a global war of empires rather than a a European war between nation-states. This volume tells the story of the millions of imperial subjects called upon to defend their imperial governments' interest, the theatres of war that lay far beyond Europe, and the wartime roles and experiences of innumerable peoples from outside the European continent. Empires at War covers the broad, global mobilizations that saw African solders and Chinese labourers in the trenches of the Western Front, Indian troops in Jerusalem, and the Japanese military occupying Chinese territory. Finally, the volume shows how the war set the stage for the collapse not only of specific empires, but of the imperial world order writ large.

Download or read book War Empire and Slavery 1770 1830 written by R. Bessel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-09-08 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The imperial warfare of the period 1770-1830, including the American wars of independence and the Napoleonic wars, affected every continent. Covering southern India, the Caribbean, North and South America, and southern Africa, this volume explores the impact of revolutionary wars and how people's identities were shaped by their experiences.

Download or read book When the War Came Home written by Yiğit Akın and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ottoman Empire was unprepared for the massive conflict of World War I. Lacking the infrastructure and resources necessary to wage a modern war, the empire's statesmen reached beyond the battlefield to sustain their war effort. They placed unprecedented hardships onto the shoulders of the Ottoman people: mass conscription, a state-controlled economy, widespread food shortages, and ethnic cleansing. By war's end, few aspects of Ottoman daily life remained untouched. When the War Came Home reveals the catastrophic impact of this global conflict on ordinary Ottomans. Drawing on a wide range of sources—from petitions, diaries, and newspapers to folk songs and religious texts—Yiğit Akın examines how Ottoman men and women experienced war on the home front as government authorities intervened ever more ruthlessly in their lives. The horrors of war brought home, paired with the empire's growing demands on its people, fundamentally reshaped interactions between Ottoman civilians, the military, and the state writ broadly. Ultimately, Akın argues that even as the empire lost the war on the battlefield, it was the destructiveness of the Ottoman state's wartime policies on the home front that led to the empire's disintegration.

Download or read book The Indian Empire At War written by George Morton-Jack and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Essential to a proper understanding of the war and of our world of today' Michael Morpurgo 1.5 million Indians fought with the British in the First World War - from Flanders to the African bush and the deserts of the Islamic world, they saved the Allies from defeat in 1914 and were vital to global victory in 1918. Using previously unpublished veteran interviews, this is their story, told as never before.

Download or read book War and Empire written by Bruce Collins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years 1790 to 1830 saw Britain engage in an extensive period of war-waging and empire-building which transformed its position as an imperial state, established its reputation as a distinctive military power and secured naval preeminence. Despite this apparent success, Britain did not become a world super power in the conventional sense. Instead, as Professor Collins demonstrates, it operated as an enclave power, influencing or dominating many regions of the world without ever asserting global hegemony. Even in the 1820s, Britain still had to fight to maintain influence, and sometimes struggled to assert dominance on the borderlands of the empire. By locating naval and military power at the heart of Britain's relationship with the wider world, Bruce Collins offers an insightful reinterpretation of the interaction between military and naval war-making, the expansion of the empire, and the nature of the British regime. Using examples of conflicts ranging from continental Europe and Ireland to North America, Africa and India, he argues that the state’s effectiveness in war was crucial to its imperial expansion and gives new significance to British military conduct in an age of revolution and war.

Download or read book Empire by Default written by Ivan Musicant and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 1998-02-15 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive version of the Spanish-American War as well as a dramatic account of America's emergence as a global power.