The Stupidity of War

The Stupidity of War PDF Author: John Mueller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108843832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
This innovative argument shows the consequences of increased aversion to international war for foreign and military policy.

The Stupidity of War

The Stupidity of War PDF Author: John Mueller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108843832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
This innovative argument shows the consequences of increased aversion to international war for foreign and military policy.

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning PDF Author: Chris Hedges
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.” Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies—corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

Stupidity

Stupidity PDF Author: Avital Ronell
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252071270
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
"Avital Ronell's work studies the fading empire of cognition, modulating stupidity into idiocy, puerility, and the figure of the ridiculous philosopher instituted by Kant. Investigating ignorance, dumbfoundedness, and the limits of reason, Stupidity probes the pervasive practice of theory-bashing and related forms of paranoid aggression. A section on prolonged and debilitating illness pushes the text to an edge of a corporeal hermeneutics, "at the limits of what the body knows and tells.""--BOOK JACKET.

The Face of War

The Face of War PDF Author: Martha Gellhorn
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802191169
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
A collection of “first-rate frontline journalism” from the Spanish Civil War to US actions in Central America “by a woman singularly unafraid of guns” (Vanity Fair). For nearly sixty years, Martha Gellhorn’s fearless war correspondence made her a leading journalistic voice of her generation. From the Spanish Civil War in 1937 through the Central American wars of the mid-eighties, Gellhorn’s candid reporting reflected her deep empathy for people regardless of their political ideology. Collecting the best of Gellhorn’s writing on foreign conflicts, and now with a new introduction by Lauren Elkin, The Face of War is a classic of frontline journalism by “the premier war correspondent of the twentieth century” (Ward Just, The New York Times Magazine). Whether in Java, Finland, the Middle East, or Vietnam, she used the same vigorous approach. “I wrote very fast, as I had to,” she says, “afraid that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures, which were special to this moment and this place.” As Merle Rubin noted in his review of this volume for The Christian ScienceMonitor, “Martha Gellhorn’s courageous, independent-minded reportage breaks through geopolitical abstractions and ideological propaganda to take the reader straight to the scene of the event.”

The Stupidity of War

The Stupidity of War PDF Author: John E. Mueller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781108826723
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
It could be said that American foreign policy since 1945 has been one long miscue; most international threats - including during the Cold War - have been substantially exaggerated. The result has been agony and bloviation, unnecessary and costly military interventions that have mostly failed. A policy of complacency and appeasement likely would have worked better. In this highly readable book, John Mueller argues with wisdom and wit rather than ideology and hyperbole that aversion to international war has had considerable consequences. There has seldom been significant danger of major war. Nuclear weapons, international institutions, and America's super power role have been substantially irrelevant; post-Cold War policy has been animated more by vast proclamation and half-vast execution than by the appeals of liberal hegemony; and post-9/11 concerns about international terrorism and nuclear proliferation have been overwrought and often destructive. Meanwhile, threats from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, or from cyber technology are limited and manageable. Unlikely to charm Washington, Mueller explains how, when international war is in decline, complacency and appeasement beco.

Imperial Hubris

Imperial Hubris PDF Author: Michael Scheuer
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597973084
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one anonymous member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger. According to the author, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believe-at the urging of U.S. leaders-that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetor.

We Who Dared to Say No to War

We Who Dared to Say No to War PDF Author: Murray Polner
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 1568583850
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
A compelling collection of speeches, articles, poetry, book excerpts, political cartoons, and more from the American antiwar tradition beginning with the War of 1812 offers the full range of the subject's richness and variety, with contributions from Daniel Webster, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Patrick Buchanan, and many others. Original.

Military Misdemeanours

Military Misdemeanours PDF Author: Terry Crowdy
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 9781846031489
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Bungled cover-ups, acts of blinding incompetence, miscarriages of justice, sexual escapades and downright stupidity - the scandals which have helped to make the world's armed forces the much loved (and sometimes ridiculed) institutions they are today. Take an irreverent look at the public outcries that both governments and soldiers would rather we forget, from Julius Caesar's sex life and the frolics of Charles d'Eon, the fearless dragoon and noted transvestite to the sinking of the Kursk as Terry Crowdy delves into the darkest reaches of military sin and slip-up. Packed with more than 60 military mishaps from ancient times to the present day, Military Misdemeanors shows that no military organization is safe from exposure. Learn the truth about Nelson and Lady Hamilton, the drafting of Heavyweight Champ Muhammad Ali, the sinking of Rainbow Warrior and satanism in the Royal Navy as we step back through the pages of history and see how corruption, bigotry, lust, vanity, incompetence and the occasional bout of insanity have colored conduct throughout time. Contents include: THE PROLOGUE "INIQUITY IN ANTIQUITY" He came. He saw. He was conquered! The sexual escapades of Julius Caesar ACT I "OUR INGLORIOUS PAST" The Infamous Lieutenant Bird A murderer in King George army - The Transvestite Knight The dragoon war hero, who preferred ladies' clothes to his uniform - The One about the Cat The man who ate a live cat to get out of the army ACT II "MANIFEST INFAMY" The Fairfax Raid The abduction of a drunk general by Mosby and his Rangers - The New York Draft Riots Caused by an unfair Civil War draft law - Surviving Custer The scandalous behaviour of Major Reno ACT III ''NOT SUCH A GREAT WAR" The Mexican Connection Germany's attempt to keep the US out of WWI by getting Mexico to invade - With 'Snow' on their Boots Cocaine abuse introduced to Britain by Canadian soldiers during WWI - The Midway Leak The US newspaper's revelation that the US Navy was intercepting Japanese signals ACT IV ''COLD WAR FALLOUT" Un-American Activities McCarthyism in the US Air Force - The U2 Scandal Gary Powers shot down by the Soviets - Drafting Ali Muhammad Ali and the Vietnam draft ACT V "EVEN IN OUR ENLIGHTENED TIMES?" Iran Air Flight 655 The passenger jet shot down by US missile during the Iran-Iraq War - The Flying Cow The untrue story of the cow that sank a Japanese boat - The Sultan of Spin The infamous Iraqi (mis)Information Minister

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Odd Arne Westad
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465093132
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
The definitive history of the Cold War and its impact around the world We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions around the world. In The Cold War, Westad offers a new perspective on a century when great power rivalry and ideological battle transformed every corner of our globe. From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of the world. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe, but it had its deepest reverberations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where nearly every community had to choose sides. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world. Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. Its ideologies influence China, Russia, and the United States; Iraq and Afghanistan have been destroyed by the faith in purely military solutions that emerged from the Cold War. Stunning in its breadth and revelatory in its perspective, this book expands our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically, and offers an engaging new history of how today's world was created.

Presidents of War

Presidents of War PDF Author: Michael Beschloss
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307409619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 754

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From a preeminent presidential historian comes a “superb and important” (The New York Times Book Review) saga of America’s wartime chief executives “Fascinating and heartbreaking . . . timely . . . Beschloss’s broad scope lets you draw important crosscutting lessons about presidential leadership.”—Bill Gates Widely acclaimed and ten years in the making, Michael Beschloss’s Presidents of War is an intimate and irresistibly readable chronicle of the Chief Executives who took the United States into conflict and mobilized it for victory. From the War of 1812 to Vietnam, we see these leaders considering the difficult decision to send hundreds of thousands of Americans to their deaths; struggling with Congress, the courts, the press, and antiwar protesters; seeking comfort from their spouses and friends; and dropping to their knees in prayer. Through Beschloss’s interviews with surviving participants and findings in original letters and once-classified national security documents, we come to understand how these Presidents were able to withstand the pressures of war—or were broken by them. Presidents of War combines this sense of immediacy with the overarching context of two centuries of American history, traveling from the time of our Founders, who tried to constrain presidential power, to our modern day, when a single leader has the potential to launch nuclear weapons that can destroy much of the human race. Praise for Presidents of War "A marvelous narrative. . . . As Beschloss explains, the greatest wartime presidents successfully leaven military action with moral concerns. . . . Beschloss’s writing is clean and concise, and he admirably draws upon new documents. Some of the more titillating tidbits in the book are in the footnotes. . . . There are fascinating nuggets on virtually every page of Presidents of War. It is a superb and important book, superbly rendered.”—Jay Winik, The New York Times Book Review "Sparkle and bite. . . . Valuable and engrossing study of how our chief executives have discharged the most significant of all their duties. . . . Excellent. . . . A fluent narrative that covers two centuries of national conflict.” —Richard Snow, The Wall Street Journal