Download or read book An Unpopular War written by JH Thompson and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2011-05-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of young men were called up for military service, most of them going through extreme physical training and many being sent to fight the war in northern Namibia and Angola. This book is a collection of reflections and memories of that time, collected by JH Thompson, who interviewed numerous former National Servicemen. Contributors include ordinary soldiers and Special Forces members, chefs, medics and helicopter pilots. They provide varying perspectives on klaaring in, training, inspection, gyppoing, Border patrols, covert operations and open combat, and readjusting to life in civvy street. This book is a compelling read that captures the spirit and atmosphere, the daily routine, the boredom, fear, camaraderie and other intense experiences of an SADF soldier. For everyone who did military service, as well as their family and friends, this book is a must.
Download or read book The War That Never Ends written by David L. Anderson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than three decades after the final withdrawal of American troops from Southeast Asia, the legacy of the Vietnam War continues to influence political, military, and cultural discourse. Journalists, politicians, scholars, pundits, and others have used the conflict to analyze each of America's subsequent military engagements. Many Americans have observed that Vietnam-era terms such as "cut and run," "quagmire," and "hearts and minds" are ubiquitous once again as comparisons between U.S. involvement in Iraq and in Vietnam seem increasingly appropriate. Because of its persistent significance, the Vietnam War era continues to inspire vibrant historical inquiry. The eminent scholars featured in The War That Never Ends offer fresh and insightful perspectives on the continuing relevance of the Vietnam War, from the homefront to "humping in the boonies," and from the great halls of political authority to the gritty hotbeds of oppositional activism. The contributors assert that the Vietnam War is central to understanding the politics of the Cold War, the social movements of the late twentieth century, the lasting effects of colonialism, the current direction of American foreign policy, and the ongoing economic development in Southeast Asia. The seventeen essays break new ground on questions relating to gender, religion, ideology, strategy, and public opinion, and the book gives equal emphasis to Vietnamese and American perspectives on the grueling conflict. The contributors examine such phenomena as the role of women in revolutionary organizations, the peace movements inspired by Buddhism, and Ho Chi Minh's successful adaptation of Marxism to local cultures. The War That Never Ends explores both the antiwar movement and the experiences of infantrymen on the front lines of battle, as well as the media's controversial coverage of America's involvement in the war. The War That Never Ends sheds new light on the evolving historical meanings of the Vietnam War, its enduring influence, and its potential to influence future political and military decision-making, in times of peace as well as war.
Download or read book A Rift in the Earth written by James Reston and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Distinguished and Bestselling Historian and Army Veteran Revisits the Culture War that Raged around the Selection of Maya Lin's Design for the Vietnam Memorial A Rift in the Earth tells the remarkable story of the ferocious “art war” that raged between 1979 and 1984 over what kind of memorial should be built to honor the men and women who died in the Vietnam War. The story intertwines art, politics, historical memory, patriotism, racism, and a fascinating set of characters, from those who fought in the conflict and those who resisted it to politicians at the highest level. At its center are two enduring figures: Maya Lin, a young, Asian-American architecture student at Yale whose abstract design won the international competition but triggered a fierce backlash among powerful figures; and Frederick Hart, an innovative sculptor of humble origins on the cusp of stardom. James Reston, Jr., a veteran who lost a close friend in the war and has written incisively about the conflict's bitter aftermath, explores how the debate reignited passions around Vietnam long after the war’s end and raised questions about how best to honor those who fought and sacrificed in an ill-advised war. Richly illustrated with photographs from the era and design entries from the memorial competition, A Rift in the Earth is timed to appear alongside Ken Burns's eagerly anticipated PBS documentary, The Vietnam War. “The memorial appears as a rift in the earth, a long polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth."—Maya Lin "I see the wall as a kind of ocean, a sea of sacrifice. . . . I place these figures upon the shore of that sea." —Frederick Hart
Download or read book Hanoi s War written by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-07-15 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam. Hanoi's War renders transparent the internal workings of America's most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.
Download or read book This Unpopular War written by John Reed and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unpopular Sovereignty written by Brent M. Rogers and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2016-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newly created territories in antebellum America were designed to be extensions of national sovereignty and jurisdiction. Utah Territory, however, was a deeply contested space in which a cohesive settler group the Mormons sought to establish their own popular sovereignty, raising the question of who possessed and could exercise governing, legal, social, and even cultural power in a newly acquired territory. In "Unpopular Sovereignty," Brent M. Rogers invokes the case of popular sovereignty in Utah as an important contrast to the better-known slavery question in Kansas. Rogers examines the complex relationship between sovereignty and territory along three main lines of inquiry: the implementation of a republican form of government, the administration of Indian policy and Native American affairs, and gender and familial relations all of which played an important role in the national perception of the Mormons ability to self-govern. Utah s status as a federal territory drew it into larger conversations about popular sovereignty and the expansion of federal power in the West. Ultimately, Rogers argues, managing sovereignty in Utah proved to have explosive and far-reaching consequences for the nation as a whole as it teetered on the brink of disunion and civil war. "
Download or read book A Soldier s View Of The Vietnam War written by Clorinda Schwark and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: U.S. military and civic action programs in weakly institutionalized societies, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan, have been central to U.S. foreign policy over the past half-century. These have been among the most costly expenditures in the U.S. federal budget and may have important national security consequences. Yet rigorous evidence about how different expenditures influence security, governance, civic engagement, and economic outcomes -- in the short and long run -- remains limited. The reader is given a glimpse into the lives and careers of two Marines whose friendship is cemented by the bonds of combat. Rich Risner and Dick Petterson knew each other at the start of both their careers. By chance, they were reunited in Vietnam in 1967, and together they began to mold the Civic Action Team that the author later joined in early 1968. The Civic Action program involved working with the surrounding villages and their leaders in a pacification effort. The idea was that if the Marines could win the hearts and minds of the people, they would deny sanctuary to the enemy. Using trial and error and the vision of Risner, the reputation and accomplishments of the Team made them very popular with the local populace and high on the target list of the enemy. Hays gives the reader a ringside seat at the ambush attempt on Risner and Petterson. In a heroic response to a totally unexpected attack by Viet Cong Tiger Guerillas, the author explains how their actions merited awarding of medals for Valor as well as the Purple Heart. With only two weeks left to finish on his tour of duty, while leading a mission into a suspected hostile village that was occupied by the enemy at night, Major Risner experiences the ultimate terror of combat. He gives the reader a front-row seat as he tells of Risner's harrowing ordeal calling upon his determination, bravery, and cunning leading to a surprising ending. This book is the story of how in the midst of an unpopular war, considered unjust by many, there were many good Americans trying to bring freedom and peace to a nation that enjoyed neither.
Download or read book The End of War written by John Horgan and published by McSweeney's. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That's how the argument goes. But longtime Scientific American writer John Horgan disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It’s our choice whether to unmake it or not. In this compact, methodical treatise, Horgan examines dozens of examples and counterexamples—discussing chimpanzees and bonobos, warring and peaceful indigenous people, the World War I and Vietnam, Margaret Mead and General Sherman—as he finds his way to war’s complicated origins. Horgan argues for a far-reaching paradigm shift with profound implications for policy students, ethicists, military men and women, teachers, philosophers, or really, any engaged citizen.
Download or read book The War of 1812 written by Donald R Hickey and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface to the First Edition -- Preface to the Bicentennial Edition -- Introduction -- 1. The Road to War, 1801-1812 -- 2. The Declaration of War -- 3. The Baltimore Riots -- 4. The Campaign of 1812 -- 5. Raising Men and Money -- 6. The Campaign of 1813 -- 7. The Last Embargo -- 8. The British Counteroffensive -- 9. The Crisis of 1814 -- 10. The Hartford Convention -- 11. The Treaty of Ghent -- Conclusion -- A Note on Sources -- Notes -- Index -- back cover.
Download or read book My Grandfather s War written by Glyn Harper and published by EK Books. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning team of Glyn Harper and Jenny Cooper share this poignant story about a Vietnam veteran and his relationship with his granddaughter. While the relationship is a positive one, the young girl senses her grandfather’s pain and is curious to find out the cause of it. As she innocently seeks answers, she unknowingly opens old wounds and discovers her grandfather’s sadness is a legacy of the Vietnam War and his experiences there. This is a sensitive exploration of the lingering cost of war and of the PTSD so many returned servicemen experience. Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Khe Sanh (the Vietnam War’s longest battle), My Grandfather's War also sheds light on a war that is not always remembered in the same way that the world wars and other conflicts are. Many who served experience a sense of betrayal at the treatment they received on their return, as the conflict came to be regarded as the ‘unpopular’ war, and this is covered in a child-friendly way in a note at the back of the book.
Download or read book Kill Anything That Moves written by Nick Turse and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on classified documents and interviews, argues that American acts of violence against millions of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War were a pervasive and systematic part of the war.
Download or read book Popular Culture unpopular War written by Andrew Martin and published by . This book was released on 1990* with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book What So Proudly We Hailed written by Pietro S. Nivola and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With distrust between the political parties running deep and Congress divided, the government of the United States goes to war. The war is waged without adequately preparing the means to finance it or readying suitable contingency plans to contend with its unanticipated complications. The executive branch suffers from managerial confusion and in-fighting. The military invades a foreign country, expecting to be greeted as liberators, but encounters stiff, unwelcome resistance. The conflict drags on longer than predicted. It ends rather inconclusively—or so it seems in its aftermath. Sound familiar? This all happened two hundred years ago. What So Proudly We Hailed looks at the War of 1812 in part through the lens of today's America. On the bicentennial of that formative yet largely forgotten period in U.S. history, this provocative book asks: What did Americans learn—and not learn—from the experience? What instructive parallels and distinctions can be drawn with more recent events? How did it shape the nation? Exploring issues ranging from party politics to sectional schisms, distant naval battles to the burning of Washington, and citizens' civil liberties to the fate of Native Americans caught in the struggle, these essays speak to the complexity and unpredictability of a war that many assumed would be brief and straightforward. What emerges is a revealing perspective on a problematic "war of choice"—the nation's first, but one with intriguing implications for others, including at least one in the present century. Although the War of 1812 may have faded from modern memory, the conflict left important legacies, both in its immediate wake and in later years. In its own time, the war was transformative. To this day, however, some of the fundamental challenges that confronted U.S. policymakers two centuries ago still resonate. How much should a free society regularly invest in national defense? Should the expense be defrayed throu
Download or read book Writing the Great War written by Christoph Cornelissen and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Treaty of Versailles to the 2018 centenary and beyond, the history of the First World War has been continually written and rewritten, studied and contested, producing a rich historiography shaped by the social and cultural circumstances of its creation. Writing the Great War provides a groundbreaking survey of this vast body of work, assembling contributions on a variety of national and regional historiographies from some of the most prominent scholars in the field. By analyzing perceptions of the war in contexts ranging from Nazi Germany to India’s struggle for independence, this is an illuminating collective study of the complex interplay of memory and history.
Download or read book The New Rules of War written by Sean McFate and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu." -Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO An Economist Book of the Year 2019 Some of the principles of warfare are ancient, others are new, but all described in The New Rules of War will permanently shape war now and in the future. By following them Sean McFate argues, we can prevail. But if we do not, terrorists, rogue states, and others who do not fight conventionally will succeed—and rule the world. The New Rules of War is an urgent, fascinating exploration of war—past, present and future—and what we must do if we want to win today from an 82nd Airborne veteran, former private military contractor, and professor of war studies at the National Defense University. War is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in the age of Durable Disorder—a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts and has studied and taught the history and practice of war. He’s seen firsthand the horrors of battle and understands the depth and complexity of the current global military situation. This devastating turmoil has given rise to difficult questions. What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less. With examples from the Roman conquest, World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan and others, he tackles the differences between conventional and future war, the danger in believing that technology will save us, the genuine leverage of psychological and ‘shadow’ warfare, and much more. McFate’s new rules distill the essence of war today, describing what it is in the real world, not what we believe or wish it to be.
Download or read book The Civil War written by Robert Paul Jordan and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unpopular War written by Bernadette Goodson and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you concerned about the loss of war? Touching stories about intimacy and friendship during the war? Please read this book. With the backdrop of the Vietnam conflict, this book is a powerful memoir about trauma, courage, devotion, and love at a time when American society was tearing itself apart and blaming a military that was more victim than a perpetrator of the violent forces wracking the nation. Indeed, Vietnam changed us all -- especially Linda Patterson. A story 52 years in the making, this book is set in San Mateo, California, in 1968. The author, then 26 years old, receives a letter from her 18-year-old brother Joe -- a cry for help from a paratrooper caught in the middle of an unpopular war. News of the antiwar protests has been plummeting the morale of Joe's combat company of 130 paratroopers. In desperation, he turns to Linda to find a way to let these young, courageous soldiers know that they've not been rejected by the country they love.
