Download or read book The Weary Titan written by Aaron L. Friedberg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do statesmen become aware of unfavorable shifts in relative power, and how do they seek to respond to them? These are puzzles of considerable importance to theorists of international relations. As national decline has become an increasingly prominent theme in American political debate, these questions have also taken on an immediate, pressing significance. The Weary Titan is a penetrating study of a similar controversy in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, Aaron Friedberg explains how England's rulers failed to understand and respond to the initial evidence of erosion in their country's industrial, financial, naval, and military power. The British example suggests that statesmen may be slow to recognize shifts in international position, in part because they rely heavily on simple but often distorting indicators of relative capabilities. In a new afterword, Friedberg examines current debates about whether America is in decline, arguing that American power will remain robust for some time to come.

Download or read book The Weary Titan written by Aaron L. Friedberg and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Westminster Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1880 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Fear of Invasion written by David G. Morgan-Owen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new study of the lead-up to the Great War, David G. Morgan-Owen deals with an aspect of the war seldom discussed for the simple reason that it never actually came to pass: a German invasion of the United Kingdom. Morgan-Owen makes the case that this fear of invasion played a central role in the formation of British strategy.

Download or read book Titanshade written by Dan Stout and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This noir fantasy thriller from a debut author introduces the gritty town of Titanshade, where danger lurks around every corner. "Take a little Mickey Spillane, some Dashiell Hammet, a bit of Raymond Chandler, and mix it with Phillip K. Dick's Blade Runner; add a taste of CJ Box, and Craig Johnson, and you've got a masterpiece of a first novel." —W. Michael Gear, New York Times bestselling author Carter's a homicide cop in Titanshade, an oil boomtown where 8-tracks are state of the art, disco rules the radio, and all the best sorcerers wear designer labels. It's also a metropolis teetering on the edge of disaster. As its oil reserves run dry, the city's future hangs on a possible investment from the reclusive amphibians known as Squibs. But now negotiations have been derailed by the horrific murder of a Squib diplomat. The pressure's never been higher to make a quick arrest, even as Carter's investigation leads him into conflict with the city's elite. Undermined by corrupt coworkers and falsified evidence, and with a suspect list that includes power-hungry politicians, oil magnates, and mad scientists, Carter must find the killer before the investigation turns into a witch-hunt and those closest to him pay the ultimate price on the filthy streets of Titanshade.

Download or read book In the Shadow of the Garrison State written by Aaron L. Friedberg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-06 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War--or the threat of war--usually strengthens states as governments tax, draft soldiers, exert control over industrial production, and dampen internal dissent in order to build military might. The United States, however, was founded on the suspicion of state power, a suspicion that continued to gird its institutional architecture and inform the sentiments of many of its politicians and citizens through the twentieth century. In this comprehensive rethinking of postwar political history, Aaron Friedberg convincingly argues that such anti-statist inclinations prevented Cold War anxieties from transforming the United States into the garrison state it might have become in their absence. Drawing on an array of primary and secondary sources, including newly available archival materials, Friedberg concludes that the "weakness" of the American state served as a profound source of national strength that allowed the United States to outperform and outlast its supremely centralized and statist rival: the Soviet Union. Friedberg's analysis of the U. S. government's approach to taxation, conscription, industrial planning, scientific research and development, and armaments manufacturing reveals that the American state did expand during the early Cold War period. But domestic constraints on its expansion--including those stemming from mean self-interest as well as those guided by a principled belief in the virtues of limiting federal power--protected economic vitality, technological superiority, and public support for Cold War activities. The strategic synthesis that emerged by the early 1960s was functional as well as stable, enabling the United States to deter, contain, and ultimately outlive the Soviet Union precisely because the American state did not limit unduly the political, personal, and economic freedom of its citizens. Political scientists, historians, and general readers interested in Cold War history will value this thoroughly researched volume. Friedberg's insightful scholarship will also inspire future policy by contributing to our understanding of how liberal democracy's inherent qualities nurture its survival and spread.

Download or read book The Age of Decadence written by Simon Heffer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly detailed history of Britain at its imperial zenith, revealing the simmering tensions and explosive rivalries beneath the opulent surface of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The popular memory of Britain in the years before the Great War is of a powerful, contented, orderly, and thriving country. Britain commanded a vast empire: she bestrode international commerce. Her citizens were living longer, profiting from civil liberties their grandparents only dreamed of and enjoying an expanding range of comforts and pastimes. The mood of pride and self-confidence can be seen in Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches, newsreels of George V’s coronation, and London’s great Edwardian palaces. Yet beneath the surface things were very different In The Age of Decadence, Simon Heffer exposes the contradictions of late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. He explains how, despite the nation’s massive power, a mismanaged war against the Boers in South Africa created profound doubts about her imperial destiny. He shows how attempts to secure vital social reforms prompted the twentieth century’s gravest constitutional crisis—and coincided with the worst industrial unrest in British history. He describes how politicians who conceded the vote to millions more men disregarded women so utterly that female suffragists’ public protest bordered on terrorism. He depicts a ruling class that fell prey to degeneracy and scandal. He analyses a national psyche that embraced the motor-car, the sensationalist press, and the science fiction of H. G. Wells, but also the nostalgia of A. E. Housman.

Download or read book Boundless written by Jack Campbell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary may have saved the Alliance only to destroy it, in this thrilling and eagerly awaited continuation of the New York Times bestselling series. Geary believed in the Alliance. Even when he uncovered overwhelming evidence that the highest echelons of the government and fleet command were involved in secret programs and prison camps, he believed it was worth saving. And that his duty was to see that justice was served even though some factions feared that revealing the truth would cause the Alliance to crumble. But after narrowly surviving two assassination attempts when he brings evidence of the misdeeds to the capital star system, Geary realizes that some have decided the easiest way to make the Alliance's problems go away is to get rid of him. He finds himself ordered to undertake a perilous new mission outside of the reaches of human-occupied space while the Senate clashes over the evidence. Geary's warships must escort a diplomatic and scientific mission across the dangerous, disintegrating remnants of the Syndicate Worlds empire. But even if he can make it to Midway Star System, the gateway to alien-controlled space, Geary will face former Syndicate officials who have rebelled and regard the Alliance with deep suspicion. And that will be the easy part. . . .

Download or read book Twilight of the Titans written by Paul K. MacDonald and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Twilight of the Titans, Paul K. MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent examine great power transitions since 1870 to determine how declining powers choose to behave, identifying the strong incentives to moderate their behavior when the hierarchy of great powers is shifting. Challenging the conventional wisdom that such transitions push declining great powers to extreme measures, this book argues that intimidation, provocation, and preventive war are not the only alternatives to the loss of relative power and prestige. Using numerous case studies, MacDonald and Parent show how declining states tend to behave, the policy options they have, how rising states respond to those in decline, and what conditions reward particular strategic choices.

Download or read book Titan written by Ron Chernow and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 774 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are worse men than John D Rockefeller,' Arena magazine observed at the turn of the century. 'There is probably not one, however, who in the public mind so typifies the grave and startling menace to social order.' The son of a flamboyant bigamist and pedlar of patent medicine, Rockefeller was by then America's richest man, the mastermind and creator of the country's first and most powerful monopoly: the Standard Oil Company. Reaching into every household across America, Standard Oil controlled 90% of all oil refined in the US, as well as its production, transportation, marketing and distribution. The story of Rockefeller is the story of a pivotal moment in modern history: the shift, after the American Civil War, from small-scale business to economy of scale, and the development of the first modern corporation. In Ron Chernow's magisterial work we see this transition in all of its nuances - accompanied by the rise in labour militancy, the tabloid press and large-scale philanthropy. TITAN is a business epic that, by illuminating the past, teaches us much about where we are today.

Download or read book The Quest for Security written by Jesse Tumblin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colonial hierarchy and race fueled rapid militarization in the British Empire that shaped the violent course of the twentieth century. This innovative study reveals the colonial backstory of a century that witnessed total war, resulting in new political norms that enthrone 'national security' as the dominating feature of contemporary politics.

Download or read book Defence and Diplomacy written by Christopher John Bartlett and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Scuttle Your Ships Before Advancing written by Richard A. Luecke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1942, Japan's Admiral Yamamoto devised an ingenious strategy to attack Midway Island and deliver the knockout punch of the war in the Pacific. His elegant operational plan--which involved elaborate traps and diversions and required clockwork coordination--was founded on complete faith that he could predict the Americans' every move. But the perfect plan went wrong, and Japan's elite Strike Force was crushed, losing four carriers, over three hundred aircraft, and 2,500 men.What can today's business managers learn from Yamamoto's stunning defeat at the Battle of Midway? A great deal, according to Richard Luecke, and in Scuttle Your Ships Before Advancing, he illuminates lessons to be learned from Yamamoto and other leaders who have faced memorable crises. We find, for instance, the epitome of decisiveness and entrepreneurialism in Hernan Cortes, as he and a small band of 16th-century adverturers risked everything in a bold gamble for the Aztec empire (the book's title, Scuttle Your Ships, refers to Cortes' strategy that kept his men moving forward). Underdogs who would challenge the status quo can look to France's Louis XI, the "Spider King," and learn how he undermined entrenched rivals through patience and cunning. The Emperor Hadrian, in his consolidation of the sprawling Roman Empire, provides a brilliant model for managing today's multinational corporation. And attitudes toward technology and innovation are vividly illustrated by the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt, in which the stubborn refusal of the French to adopt their English enemy's weapon--the longbow--led to their massacre. From these and other historical episodes, Luecke shows how leadership, daring, and artful administration meant the difference between success and failure. He draws explicit lessons for managers from these long-ago events, and he also reveals parallels in the recent experiences of major corporations from GM to Shearson Lehman. And along the way, he evokes portraits of Martin Luther, W. Edwards Deming, and other visionaries as they struggled with the timeless challenges of authority, change, and human conflict.Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Skillfully narrated, inspiring yet down-to-earth, Scuttle Your Ships Before Advancing serves up powerful historical lessons for all who would manage and lead in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Asteroid Made of Dragons written by G. Derek Adams and published by Inkshares. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the hilarious and uproarious world of Asteroid Made of Dragons, a lone goblin researcher has stumbled across an artifact of mysterious import that delivers a terrifying message: the world is ending. Soon. And the apocalypse will hail from the skies in the form of an asteroid made of dragons. When it falls, the planet will be plunged into nuclear winter — and there will also be many angry dragons wandering around nursing concussions. Asteroid Made of Dragons is not your average apocalypse tale. Too bad Our Heroes don't even know it's coming.

Download or read book Japan s Rush to the Pacific War written by Lionel P. Fatton and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the phenomenon of overbalancing through an analysis of Japan’s foreign policy during the interbellum. In the mid-1930s, Japan withdrew from a naval arms control framework that had restrained military buildup on both sides of the Pacific Ocean since the early 1920s. By doing so, Japan not only triggered a naval arms race with the United States that exhausted its economy, it also destroyed the last institutionalized structure regulating the relationship between the two Pacific powers. Japan and the United States became caught in a spiral of tensions that culminated with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Puzzling is the fact that the international environment in the Asia-Pacific was relatively stable in the mid-1930s, while Washington was pursuing a policy of accommodation toward Tokyo. By rejecting arms control and engaging in unfettered naval expansion, Japan overbalanced against the United States and began its rush to the Pacific War. The book explains Japan’s overbalancing with a neoclassical realist model that combines the literatures on threat perception and civil-military relations. Amid the Manchurian crisis of 1931-1933, as the Japanese government collaborated with the military institution to address the situation in China, military influence on the formulation of foreign policy surged. The perceptual and policy biases of the military, which include the tendency to distrust other countries’ intentions, to adopt worst-case analyses of international dynamics and to strive to maximize military power, gradually penetrated the decision-making process. Dysfunctions in the preexisting structure of Japanese civil-military relations, engendered by an over-depoliticization of the military institution, allowed the navy to convince policymakers that the United States was inherently hostile to Japan, hence the necessity to prepare for war. The government was brainstormed, adopting the biased military perspective on international affairs. Japan overbalanced in a myopic but conscious way.

Download or read book Oliver Cromwell the Man and His Mission written by James Allanson Picton and published by . This book was released on 1883 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Thucydides on Strategy written by Athanassios Platias and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masterfully crafted and surprisingly modern, "History of the Peloponnesian War" has long been celebrated as an insightful, eloquent, and exhaustively detailed work of classical Greek history. The text is also remarkable for its deep political and military dimensions, and scholars have begun to place the work alongside Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Clausewitz's On War as one of the great treatises on strategy. The perfect companion to Thucydides' impressive History, this volume details the specific strategic concepts at work within the History of the Peloponnesian War and demonstrates, through case studies of recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the continuing relevance of Thucydidean thought to an analysis and planning of strategic operations. Some have even credited Thucydides with founding the discipline of international relations. Written by two scholars with extensive experience in this and related fields, Thucydides on Strategy situates the classical historian solidly in the modern world of war.