Download or read book What Every Person Should Know About War written by Chris Hedges and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed New York Times journalist and author Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of combat to speak for itself. Hedges poses dozens of questions that young soldiers might ask about combat, and then answers them by quoting from medical and psychological studies. • What are my chances of being wounded or killed if we go to war? • What does it feel like to get shot? • What do artillery shells do to you? • What is the most painful way to get wounded? • Will I be afraid? • What could happen to me in a nuclear attack? • What does it feel like to kill someone? • Can I withstand torture? • What are the long-term consequences of combat stress? • What will happen to my body after I die? This profound and devastating portrayal of the horrors to which we subject our armed forces stands as a ringing indictment of the glorification of war and the concealment of its barbarity.

Download or read book Officers and Enlisted Men of the United States Navy who Lost Their Lives During the World War From April 6 1917 to November 11 1918 written by United States Bureau of Naval Person and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book The Great Influenza written by John M. Barry and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-10-04 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Download or read book Death s Men written by Denis Winter and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death's Men is the classic bestselling story of the First World War as told by the soldiers themselves - reissued for the 2014 Centenary. Millions of British men were involved in the Great War of 1914-1918. But, both during and after the war, the individual voices of the soldiers were lost in the collective picture. Men drew arrows on maps and talked of battles and campaigns, but what it felt like to be in the front line or in a base hospital they did not know. Civilians did not ask and soldiers did not write. Death's Men portrays the humble men who were called on to face the appalling fears and discomforts of the fighting zone. It shows the reality of the First World War through the voices of the men who fought. 'A raw, haunting read that puts you directly into the shoes of the men who rushed to volunteer at the start of the war' Guardian 'An engrossing view of what it was like to live in the trenches, go on leave, get wounded, et cetera, and features voice after voice from the ranks' Telegraph Denis Winter was born in 1940 and read history at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Death's Men was first published in 1978, to critical and popular acclaim. This was followed by his book The First of the Few: Fighter Pilots of the First World War.

Download or read book Secret Casualties of World War Two written by Simon Webb and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of friendly fire on civilians during the London Blitz and the attack on Pearl harbor exposes the unknown horror behind these iconic WWII events. The London Blitz and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have ascended to the level of myth for Britain and America. Yet both of these artfully constructed narratives of heroic resistance to aerial bombardment conceal the massacre of citizens by the very militaries charged with protecting them. In Britain, thousands of civilians were killed when the army shelled London and other cities to prevent residents from fleeing the German bombs. At Pearl Harbor, American warships fired their heavy guns at the city of Honolulu with devastating results. Simon Webb begins this volume with an overview of bombing and anti-aircraft guns from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 through to the First World War. He then reveals the casualties which friendly fire from heavy artillery inflicted upon British and American civilians during World War Two. In the case of the British, these deaths were a deliberate part of a shockingly cynical policy. There were times during the German bombing of London when more people were being killed by British shells than by enemy bombs.

Download or read book The Deaths of Others written by John Tirman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans are greatly concerned about the number of our troops killed in battle--33,000 in the Korean War; 58,000 in Vietnam; 4,500 in Iraq--and rightly so. But why are we so indifferent, often oblivious, to the far greater number of casualties suffered by those we fight and those we fight for? This is the compelling, largely unasked question John Tirman answers in The Deaths of Others. Between six and seven million people died in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq alone, the majority of them civilians. And yet Americans devote little attention to these deaths. Other countries, however, do pay attention, and Tirman argues that if we want to understand why there is so much anti-Americanism around the world, the first place to look is how we conduct war. We understandably strive to protect our own troops, but our rules of engagement with the enemy are another matter. From atomic weapons and carpet bombing in World War II to napalm and daisy cutters in Vietnam and beyond, our weapons have killed large numbers of civilians and enemy soldiers. Americans, however, are mostly ignorant of these methods, believing that American wars are essentially just, necessary, and "good." Trenchant and passionate, The Deaths of Others forces readers to consider the tragic consequences of American military action not just for Americans, but especially for those we fight against.

Download or read book American War and Military Operations Casualties written by Anne Leland and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides tables indicating the number of casualties among Amer. military personnel serving in principal wars and combat actions. Wars covered include the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-Amer. War, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, and the Persian Gulf War. Military operations covered include the Iranian Hostage Rescue Mission, Lebanon Peacekeeping, Urgent Fury in Grenada, Just Cause in Panama, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Restore Hope in Somalia, Uphold Democracy in Haiti, and the ongoing Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Starting with the Korean War, more detailed info. on types of casualties and demographics have been included. Illus.

Download or read book Soldier Dead written by Michael Sledge and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-11 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens to members of the United States Armed Forces after they die? Why do soldiers endanger their lives to recover the remains of their comrades? Why does the military spend enormous resources and risk further fatalities to recover the bodies of the fallen, even decades after the cessation of hostilities? Soldier Dead is the first book to fully address the complicated physical, social, religious, economic, and political issues concerning the remains of men and women who die while serving their country. In doing so, Michael Sledge reveals the meanings of the war dead for families, soldiers, and the nation as a whole. Why does recovering the remains of servicepeople matter? Soldier Dead examines this question and provides a thorough analysis of the processes of recovery, identification, return, burial, and remembrance of the dead. Sledge traces the ways in which the handling of our Soldier Dead has evolved over time and how these changes have reflected not only advances in technology and capabilities but also the shifting attitudes of the public, government, and military. He also considers the emotional stress experienced by those who handle the dead; the continuing efforts to retrieve bodies from Korea and elsewhere; and how unresolved issues regarding the treatment of enemy dead continue to affect U.S. foreign relations. Skillfully incorporating excerpts from interviews, personal correspondence and diaries, military records, and journalistic accounts-as well as never-before-published photographs and his own reflections-Michael Sledge presents a clear, concise, and compassionate story about what the dead mean to the living. Throughout Soldier Dead, the voices of the fallen are heard, as are those of family members and military personnel responsible for the dead before final disposition. At times disturbing and at other times encouraging, they are always powerful as they speak of danger, duty, courage, commitment, and care.

Download or read book World War I Military Deaths written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fallen Soldiers written by George L. Mosse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-12-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outbreak of the First World War, an entire generation of young men charged into battle for what they believed was a glorious cause. Over the next four years, that cause claimed the lives of some 13 million soldiers--more than twice the number killed in all the major wars from 1790 to 1914. But despite this devastating toll, the memory of the war was not, predominantly, of the grim reality of its trench warfare and battlefield carnage. What was most remembered by the war's participants was its sacredness and the martyrdom of those who had died for the greater glory of the fatherland. War, and the sanctification of it, is the subject of this pioneering work by well-known European historian George L. Mosse. Fallen Soldiers offers a profound analysis of what he calls the Myth of the War Experience--a vision of war that masks its horror, consecrates its memory, and ultimately justifies its purpose. Beginning with the Napoleonic wars, Mosse traces the origins of this myth and its symbols, and examines the role of war volunteers in creating and perpetuating it. But it was not until World War I, when Europeans confronted mass death on an unprecedented scale, that the myth gained its widest currency. Indeed, as Mosse makes clear, the need to find a higher meaning in the war became a national obsession. Focusing on Germany, with examples from England, France, and Italy, Mosse demonstrates how these nations--through memorials, monuments, and military cemeteries honoring the dead as martyrs--glorified the war and fostered a popular acceptance of it. He shows how the war was further promoted through a process of trivialization in which war toys and souvenirs, as well as postcards like those picturing the Easter Bunny on the Western Front, softened the war's image in the public mind. The Great War ended in 1918, but the Myth of the War Experience continued, achieving its most ruthless political effect in Germany in the interwar years. There the glorified notion of war played into the militant politics of the Nazi party, fueling the belligerent nationalism that led to World War II. But that cataclysm would ultimately shatter the myth, and in exploring the postwar years, Mosse reveals the extent to which the view of death in war, and war in general, was finally changed. In so doing, he completes what is likely to become one of the classic studies of modern war and the complex, often disturbing nature of human perception and memory.

Download or read book The Marne 15 July 6 August 1918 written by Stephen C. McGeorge and Mason W. Watson and published by . This book was released on with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book To End All Wars written by Adam Hochschild and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this riveting and suspenseful New York Times best-selling book, Adam Hochschild brings WWI to life as never before... World War I was supposed to be the “war to end all wars.” Over four long years, nations around the globe were sucked into the tempest, and millions of men died on the battlefields. To this day, the war stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. To End All Wars focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Many of these dissenters were thrown in jail for their opposition to the war, from a future Nobel Prize winner to an editor behind bars who distributed a clandestine newspaper on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britain’s most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other. Hochschild forces us to confront the big questions: Why did so many nations get so swept up in the violence? Why couldn’t cooler heads prevail? And can we ever avoid repeating history?

Download or read book Marked for Death written by James Hamilton-Paterson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air. Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. Nearly forgotten in the war's massive overall death toll, some 50,000 aircrew would die in the combatant nations' fledgling air forces. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air 'aces' who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Marked for Death debunks popular myth to explore the brutal truths of wartime aviation: of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots; of burning nineteen-year-olds falling screaming to their deaths; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers. James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever.

Download or read book The Economics of World War I written by Stephen Broadberry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-29 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique volume offers a definitive new history of European economies at war from 1914 to 1918. It studies how European economies mobilised for war, how existing economic institutions stood up under the strain, how economic development influenced outcomes and how wartime experience influenced post-war economic growth. Leading international experts provide the first systematic comparison of economies at war between 1914 and 1918 based on the best available data for Britain, Germany, France, Russia, the USA, Italy, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and the Netherlands. The editors' overview draws some stark lessons about the role of economic development, the importance of markets and the damage done by nationalism and protectionism. A companion volume to the acclaimed The Economics of World War II, this is a major contribution to our understanding of total war.

Download or read book North Carolina s Military Deaths in World War I 1917 1919 written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914 1920 written by and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-22 with total page 946 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1922 in a very limited edition, this mammoth work is the most comprehensive, single-volume record of the nation's commitment in the first total war in British history. Until August 1914, wars, as far as Great Britain was concerned, had been the business of the regular armed forces, supplemented by eager volunteers, motivated by patriotism and a sense of adventure. They had marched away behind the bands, with the Colours flying and the enthusiastic cheers of onlookers ringing in their ears. Apart from the families of the men doing the fighting, however, war had little effect on the wider population. In August 1914 most people expected the war to follow this previous pattern: the surge of patriotism, the Mafeking-style jingoism, the rush of volunteers eager to get to the fighting before it was all over. But within a couple of months, when the casualty lists of then First Battle of Ypres began to appear, the mood began to change, as people perceived the true nature of modern war. The record of this response is made clear in the monthly and annual statistical returns displayed in this volume. The scope of 'Statistics' is hugely impressive. It is divided into thirty-two parts, each dealing with a different aspect of the war effort - personnel, animals and materiel - under separate section headings, with the detail presented in clear, tabular form, frequently accompanied by a narrative of events or commentary. The wealth of detail displayed is formidable. For example, the 200-page part dealing with Strength of the Forces has tables showing monthly recruiting figures, strength returns by theatres, returns of Labour and Native personnel serving abroad, growth of individual Arms of the Service (infantry, artillery, cavalry etc.) and tables of consolidated figures. Casualty lists include those incurred in hospital ships, with individual ship details, and there are also figures for major offensives, such as the Somme, Arras, Passchendaele, Cambrai etc. Other parts deal with discipline - courts martial, crime and punishment statistics; consolidated list of honours and awards; texts of armistices; munitions production and expenditure, including the cost of certain bombardments during major battles. There is a fifty-page outline diary of the main events in the various Theatres of War and, under a separate heading, a diary of the air raids over the UK and coastal bombardments with resulting casualties.

Download or read book Slaughterhouse Five written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Dial Press Trade Paperback. This book was released on 1999-01-12 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.” An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.