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Author: Tim Cook
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735235279
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.
Author: Tim Cook
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735235279
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452
Get Book Here
Book Description
There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.
Author: Linda Robinson
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786738154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
Special Forces soldiers are daring, seasoned troops from America's heartland, selected in a tough competition and trained in an extraordinary range of skills. They know foreign languages and cultures and unconventional warfare better than any U.S. fighters, and while they prefer to stay out of the limelight, veteran war correspondent Linda Robinson gained access to their closed world. She traveled with them on the frontlines, interviewed them at length on their home bases, and studied their doctrine, methods and history. In Masters of Chaos she tells their story through a select group of senior sergeants and field-grade officers, a band of unforgettable characters like Rawhide, Killer, Michael T, and Alan -- led by the unflappable Lt. Col. Chris Conner and Col. Charlie Cleveland, a brilliant but self-effacing West Pointer who led the largest unconventional war campaign since Vietnam in northern Iraq. Robinson follows the Special Forces from their first post-Vietnam combat in Panama, El Salvador, Desert Storm, Somalia, and the Balkans to their recent trials and triumphs in Afghanistan and Iraq. She witnessed their secret sleuthing and unsung successes in southern Iraq, and recounts here for the first time the dramatic firefights of the western desert. Her blow-by-blow story of the attack on Ansar al-Islam's international terrorist training camp has never been told before. The most comprehensive account ever of the modern-day Special Forces in action, Masters of Chaos is filled with riveting, intimate detail in the words of a close-knit band of soldiers who have done it all.
Author: Philip Gerard
Publisher: Dutton Books
ISBN: 9780525946649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
"Secret Solders" reveals how an extraordinary group of American artists, designers, and engineering wizards became America's unsung heroes of the Second World War. Photo inserts.
Author: Keely Hutton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN: 0374309043
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
A 2020 Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year A 2020 Children's Book Council Notable Social Studies Book for Young People Over a quarter million underage British boys fought on the Allied front lines of the Great War, but not all of them fought on the battlefield—some fought beneath it, as revealed in this middle-grade historical adventure about a deadly underground mission. Secret Soldiers follows the journey of Thomas, a thirteen-year-old coal miner, who lies about his age to join the Claykickers, a specialized crew of soldiers known as “tunnelers,” in hopes of finding his missing older brother. Thomas works in the tunnels of the Western Front alongside three other soldier boys whose constant bickering and inexperience in mining may prove more lethal than the enemy digging toward them. But as they burrow deeper beneath the battlefield, the boys discover the men they hope to become and forge a bond of brotherhood. Secret Soldiers is another stunning story of strength, perseverance, and love from Keely Hutton. This title has common core connections.
Author: Matthew M. Aid
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608194817
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Traces the monumental growth of the American intelligence community after the September 11 attacks, citing the billions that have been spent on intelligence efforts while explaining why its sophisticated systems are still being eluded by ragtag enemies. By the author of The Secret Sentry.
Author: Craig Whitlock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982159014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
Author: Leslie A. Chapman
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1452067708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
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Book Description
The book starts out picturing a young man who foolishly wants to go to war where he in visions himself receiving all these high class medals for heroism but never once taking into account what it is going to take physically and mentally to get those medals. Hes constantly playing a head game within himself and those that surround him. He like so many other young men of past eras are trying to be something that theyre not and that small initial lie grows into a tremendous reputation that he has to live with and soon regrets that hes known by such. Come walk with the author and his brothers of the sword through the dark, humid, unforgiving jungles of Vietnam and experience the death, destruction, and mental sacrificial anguish they had to endure. Come see why you fear being alone in the denseness of a jungle or a forest that you have never entered before. Feel the heat of the Asian jungle floor intermixed with the leaches, ants, mosquitoes, snakes and humans searching you out only to destroy you at any cost. You see our author starts out innocently enough but soon finds out that war is not only a physical hardship demanding its pounds of flesh, but also is a horrendous mental agonizing hazard from which there is only one means of escape and/or retreat. That means to an end is death. Yes the author and his brothers of the sword will take their heroic missions and sacrificial allegiances to the grave with them. But, the real tragedy of it all is no one really cares about them in the first place. For they were and still are the Secret Soldiers of the Second Army willing to go anywhere, any time, to do the impossible for the ungrateful.
Author: Brandon M. Schechter
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501739816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503
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Book Description
The Stuff of Soldiers uses everyday objects to tell the story of the Great Patriotic War as never before. Brandon M. Schechter attends to a diverse array of things—from spoons to tanks—to show how a wide array of citizens became soldiers, and how the provisioning of material goods separated soldiers from civilians. Through a fascinating examination of leaflets, proclamations, newspapers, manuals, letters to and from the front, diaries, and interviews, The Stuff of Soldiers reveals how the use of everyday items made it possible to wage war. The dazzling range of documents showcases ethnic diversity, women's particular problems at the front, and vivid descriptions of violence and looting. Each chapter features a series of related objects: weapons, uniforms, rations, and even the knick-knacks in a soldier's rucksack. These objects narrate the experience of people at war, illuminating the changes taking place in Soviet society over the course of the most destructive conflict in recorded history. Schechter argues that spoons, shovels, belts, and watches held as much meaning to the waging of war as guns and tanks. In The Stuff of Soldiers, he describes the transformative potential of material things to create a modern culture, citizen, and soldier during World War II.
Author: Steve Sheinkin
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
ISBN: 159643953X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War is New York Times bestselling author Steve Sheinkin's award-winning nonfiction account of an ordinary man who wielded the most dangerous weapon: the truth. “Easily the best study of the Vietnam War available for teen readers.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award winner A National Book Award finalist A Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon book A Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature finalist Selected for the Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People List In 1964, Daniel Ellsberg was a U.S. government analyst, helping to plan a war in Vietnam. It was the height of the Cold War, and the government would do anything to stop the spread of communism—with or without the consent of the American people. As the fighting in Vietnam escalated, Ellsberg turned against the war. He had access a top-secret government report known as the Pentagon Papers, and he knew it could blow the lid off of years of government lies. But did he have the right to expose decades of presidential secrets? And what would happen to him if he did it? A lively book that interrogates the meanings of patriotism, freedom, and integrity, the National Book Award finalist Most Dangerous further establishes Steve Sheinkin—author of Newbery Honor book Bomb as a leader in children's nonfiction. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum. “Gripping.”—New York Times Book Review “A master of fast-paced histories...[this] is Sheinkin’s most compelling one yet. ”—Washington Post Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America
Author: David Crist
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014312367X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 658
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Book Description
"An important and timely book that should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States and Iran went from close allies to enduring enemies." -The Washington Post "Deserves a spot on the short list of must-read books on United States-Iran relations." -The New York Times The dramatic secret history of the undeclared, ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran. The United States and Iran have been engaged in an unacknowledged secret war since the 1970s. This conflict has frustrated multiple American presidents, divided administrations, and repeatedly threatened to bring the two nations to the brink of open warfare. Drawing upon unparalleled access to senior officials and key documents of several U.S. administrations, David Crist, a senior historian in the federal government, breaks new ground on virtually every page of The Twilight War. From the Iranian Revolution to secret negotiations between Iran and the United States after 9/11, from Iran’s nuclear program to the secretive and deadly role of Qasem Soleimani, Crist brings vital new depth to our understanding of “the Iran problem”—and what the future of this tense relationship may bring.
