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Author: Benjamin Ginsberg
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616149515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Although war is terrible and brutal, history shows that it has been a great driver of human progress. So argues political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg in this incisive, well-researched study of the benefits to civilization derived from armed conflict. Ginsberg makes a convincing case that war selects for and promotes certain features of societies that are generally held to represent progress. These include rationality, technological and economic development, and liberal forms of government. Contrary to common perceptions that war is the height of irrationality, Ginsberg persuasively demonstrates that in fact it is the ultimate test of rationality. He points out that those societies best able to assess threats from enemies rationally and objectively are usually the survivors of warfare. History also clearly reveals the technological benefits that result from war—ranging from the sundial to nuclear power. And in regard to economics, preparation for war often spurs on economic development; by the same token, nations with economic clout in peacetime usually have a huge advantage in times of war. Finally, war and the threat of war have encouraged governments to become more congenial to the needs and wants of their citizens because of the increasing reliance of governments on their citizens’ full cooperation in times of war. However deplorable the realities of war are, the many fascinating examples and astute analysis in this thought-provoking book will make readers reconsider the unmistakable connection between war and progress.
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616149515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Get Book Here
Book Description
Although war is terrible and brutal, history shows that it has been a great driver of human progress. So argues political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg in this incisive, well-researched study of the benefits to civilization derived from armed conflict. Ginsberg makes a convincing case that war selects for and promotes certain features of societies that are generally held to represent progress. These include rationality, technological and economic development, and liberal forms of government. Contrary to common perceptions that war is the height of irrationality, Ginsberg persuasively demonstrates that in fact it is the ultimate test of rationality. He points out that those societies best able to assess threats from enemies rationally and objectively are usually the survivors of warfare. History also clearly reveals the technological benefits that result from war—ranging from the sundial to nuclear power. And in regard to economics, preparation for war often spurs on economic development; by the same token, nations with economic clout in peacetime usually have a huge advantage in times of war. Finally, war and the threat of war have encouraged governments to become more congenial to the needs and wants of their citizens because of the increasing reliance of governments on their citizens’ full cooperation in times of war. However deplorable the realities of war are, the many fascinating examples and astute analysis in this thought-provoking book will make readers reconsider the unmistakable connection between war and progress.
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 1616149507
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
The author presents a researched case that argues that war has a role in the technological, economic and liberal progress of civilization, explaining how societies and governments have been best able to assess threats from the perspectives of war survivors.
Author: Stephen D. Engle
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813055342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
This volume of original essays, featuring an all-star lineup of Civil War and Lincoln scholars, is aimed at general readers and students eager to learn more about the most current interpretations of the period and the man at the center of its history. The contributors examine how Lincoln actively and consciously managed the war—diplomatically, militarily, and in the realm of what we might now call public relations—and in doing so, reshaped and redefined the fundamental role of the president.
Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400041937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
A masterly look at the value and limitations of intelligence in the conduct of war from the premier military historian of our time, John Keegan. Intelligence gathering is an immensely complicated and vulnerable endeavor. And it often fails. Until the invention of the telegraph and radio, information often traveled no faster than a horse could ride, yet intelligence helped defeat Napoleon. In the twentieth century, photo analysts didn’t recognize Germany’s V-2 rockets for what they were; on the other hand, intelligence helped lead to victory over the Japanese at Midway. In Intelligence in War, John Keegan illustrates that only when paired with force has military intelligence been an effective tool, as it may one day be in besting al-Qaeda.
Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
Author: James Risen
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544341414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
War corrupts. Endless war corrupts absolutely. Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses -- and until this book, it has worked very hard to cover them up. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. FDR authorized the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans. Presidents Bush and Obama now must face their own reckoning. Power corrupts, but it is endless war that corrupts absolutely.
Author: Rory Fanning
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608464377
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
“Fanning combines memoir, travelogue, political tract, and history lesson in this engaging account of his 3,000-mile solo walk from Virginia to California” (Publishers Weekly). Just days after the US military covered up the death by friendly fire of Pat Tillman, Rory Fanning—who served in the same unit as Tillman—left the Army Rangers as a conscientious objector. Disquieted by his tours in Afghanistan, Fanning sets out to honor Tillman’s legacy by crossing the United States on foot. The generous, colorful people he meets and the history he discovers help him learn to live again. “Fanning’s descriptions of the hardships and highlights of the trip comprise the bulk of the book, and he infuses his left-wing politics into a narrative peppered with historical tidbits, most of which describe less-than-honorable moments in American history, such as the terrorist actions of the Ku Klux Klan and the nation’s Indian removal policies. What stands out most, though, is the selflessness and generosity―which come in the form of stories, hospitality, and donations for the foundation―of the people Fanning encountered during his journey.” ―Publishers Weekly “Rory Fanning’s odyssey is more than a walk across America. It is a gripping story of one young man’s intellectual journey from eager soldier to skeptical radical, a look at not only the physical immenseness of the country, its small towns, and highways, but into the enormity of its past, the hidden sins and unredeemed failings of the United States. The reader is there along with Rory, walking every step, as challenging and rewarding experience for us as it was for him.” —Chicago Sun-Times
Author: Jon Latimer
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1590209362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395
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Book Description
From the Trojan Horse to Gulf War subterfuge, this far-reaching military history examines the importance and ingenuity of wartime deception campaigns. The art of military deception is as old as the art of war. This fascinating account of the practice draws on conflicts from around the world and across millennia. The examples stretch from the very beginnings of recorded military history—Pharaoh Ramses II's campaign against the Hittites in 1294 B.C.—to modern times, when technology has placed a stunning array of devices into the arsenals of military commanders. Military historians often underestimate the importance of deception in warfare. This book is the first to fully describe its value. Jon Latimer demonstrates how simple tricks have been devastatingly effective. He also explores how technology has increased the range and subtlety of what is possible—including bogus radio traffic, virtual images, even false smells. Deception in War includes examples from land, sea, and air to show how great commanders have always had, as Winston Churchill put it, that indispensable “element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.”
Author: David Shields
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1576879496
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 121
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Book Description
Bestselling author David Shields analyzed over a decade's worth of front-page war photographs fromTheNew York Timesand came to a shocking conclusion: the photo-editing process ofthe "paper of record,"by way of pretty, heroic, and lavishly aesthetic image selection, pullsthe woolover the eyes of its readers; Shields forces us to face not only the the media's complicity in dubious and catastrophic military campaigns but our own as well.This powerful media mouthpiece, the mightyTimes, far from being a check on governmental power, is in reality a massive amplifier for its dark forces by virtue of the way it aestheticizeswarfare. Anyone baffled by the willful American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan can't help but see in this book how eagerly and invariably theTimesled the way in making the case for these wars through the manipulation of its visuals. Shields forces the reader to weigh the consequences of our own passivity in the face of these images' opiatic numbing. The photographs gathered inWar Is Beautiful, often beautiful and always artful, are filters of reality rather than the documentary journalism they purport to be.
Author: Karl Marlantes
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802195148
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
“A precisely crafted and bracingly honest” memoir of war and its aftershocks from the New York Times–bestselling author of Matterhorn (The Atlantic). In 1968, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. In his thirteen-month tour he saw intense combat, killing the enemy and watching friends die. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his experiences. In What It Is Like to Go to War, Marlantes takes a candid look at these experiences and critically examines how we might better prepare young soldiers for war. In the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion, and literature—which also helped bring them home. While contemplating ancient works from Homer to the Mahabharata, Marlantes writes of the daily contradictions modern warriors are subject to, of being haunted by the face of a young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters, and of how he finally found a way to make peace with his past. Through it all, he demonstrates just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of the journey. In this memoir, the New York Times–bestselling author of Matterhorn offers “a well-crafted and forcefully argued work that contains fresh and important insights into what it’s like to be in a war and what it does to the human psyche” (The Washington Post).
