Books - History, General

50 Weapons That Changed Warfare. Weir, William. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005. "In mankind's constant search for better, faster, and more efficient ways to kill, it has created dozens of innovative weapons that have revolutionized military combat, tactics, and strategy in all of the following categories: individual weapons - from spears to submachine guns; crew-served weapons - from battering rams to 'Big Bertha'; unmanned weapons - from punji sticks to 'Bouncing Betty' landmines. [This] book describes the effects of these weapons, and how and why they changed warfare."
American Railroads. Stover, John F. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997. "...the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States...from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to today's revitalized industry. Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s. [Two new chapters in this second edition] recount the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history [that] by 1995 renewed railroad freight traffic [to] nearly twice its former peak in 1944."
The Coming Of The Third Reich. Evans, Richard J. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004. "A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur." Exposition goes back to Bismarck's unification of the German states in the mid-1800s. This is the first volume of a promised trilogy and covers events up to the beginning of Hitler's Chancellorship in early 1933. See "The Third Reich In Power", below, for the second volume.
Dreadnought: Britian, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War. Massie, Robert K. New York: Ballantine, 1991. "...a richly textured adn gripping chronicleof the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race. [Massie] brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow; Britian's greatest twentieth-century foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British navy and brought forth the first true battleship, the H.M.S. Dreadnought. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with mistunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy..."
Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean. Freeman, Charles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. "Beginning with the emergence of the earliest Egyptian civilization around 3200 BC, Charles Freeman follows the history of the Mediterranean over a span of four millennia to AD 600, beyond the fall of the Roman empire in the west to the emergence of the Byzantine empire in the east. In addition to the three great civilizations, the peoples of the Ancient Near East and other lesser-known cultures such as the Etruscans, Celts, Persians, and Phoenicians are explored. The author examines the art, architecture, philosophy, literature and religious practices of each culture, set against is social, political, and economic background."
Europe Of The Dictators 1919-1945. Wiskemann, Elizabeth; Plumb, J. H., Ed. New York, Harper & Rowe, 1966. "This is the Europe that began with the high hopes of the League of Nations and ended with mindless destruction. The Europe of Briand and Stresemann becomes the Europe of Hitler and Stalin, of Laval and Mussolini. The economic recovery of the early twenties falters and fails. Mass unemployment, totalitarianism and Nazi barbarity sweep in an obliterating tide over a Europe which as accepted the inevitability of war." Here's a little bonus that I got with this book, which is a first edition.
The First World War. Strachan, Hew. New York, Viking, 2004. Instead of focusing on the Western front, Strachan provides a well-balanced presentation of the true world proportions of the conflict, with coverage of the colonial involvements of the players on both sides. This is not the book to read if one only wants a battle-by-battle intoning of the actions in western Europe and the stalemate that encompassed of that sector. While the major offensives there, successful and failed, are covered, so is the action in the Balkans, Africa, the middle east and Asia, and the relationships between the European powers and their colonies in those far-flung places.
The German Way Of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich. Citino, Robert M. Lawrence KS USA: The University Press of Kansas, 2005. "Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great "sleigh-drive" against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I."
Guerrilla: Insurgents, Patriots and Terrorists from Sun Tzu to bin Laden. Rooney, David. London: Brassey's, 2004. "Encompasses the full range of guerrilla activities, from the grand ideological struggles of Mao Zedong and Tito, through the limited unconventional warfare of Lawrence of Arabia and the Chindits, to the modern terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden. Examines the nature of guerrilla warfare over the centuries, using the chief protagonists to demonstrate that while objectives, methods and technologies might evolve and differ both geographically and chronologically, the fundamental principles of irregular warfare remain unchanged, whether practiced by Che Guevara or the Boer Commandos."
Mussolini's Italy. Bosworth, R.J.B. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. "...Richard Bosworth brings to life the period in which Italians participated in one of the twentieth-century's largest, most notorious and ultimately most ruinous political experiments - Fascism - under their dictator, Benito Mussolini, and his henchmen. The Fascists were the first totalitarians, and they provided a model for many other twentieth-century dictatorships, Hitler's first among them.... One of R.J.B Bosworth's most striking accomplishments is to show the gap that yawned between rhetoric and reality. Mussolini's Italy is lumped together with Hitler's Germany as a nightmarish totalitarian state that brutally reengineered an entire society. In fact, Bosworth argues, Fascism, though monstrous enough, had a far shallower impact on Italy beause Italy was still such a traditional, undeveloped country, organized around family, tribe and region, and because Italy's leaders were less ruthlessly ideological than the Nazis, Italians found many and ingenious ways of adapting, limiting, undermining and ridiculing Mussolini's ambitions for them. The heart of this book is its engagement with the life of these ordinary Italians, struggling through terrible times."
Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed The World. Adkins, Roy. New York: Viking, 2005. "On October 21, 1805, the fate of Europe hung in the balance. In what came to be known as the Battle of Trafalgar, Britain's Royal Navy, under the command of Lord Horatio Nelson, clashed with Napoleon's forces in an epic sea battle off the coast of Spain. ... In this breathtaking account of the Battle of Trafalgar, Roy Adkins stunningly evokes the unsurpassed violence of ninetheenth-century naval warfare. For more than five hours, sixty ships fought at close quarters as their occupants struggled under the constant barrage of cannon and musket fire, amid choking fumes and ear-splitting explosions." The author provides a wealth of detail about shipboard life in general, not limited to topics military, as well, which makes the book an even richer read.
A Short History Of Air Power. Stokesbury, James L. Scranton PA USA: Morrow, 1986. Covers the history of aerial warfare from the Wright Brothers and Italy's conquest of Libya in 1911 to the Falklands War of 1982, including the theories and beliefs of three early air power advocates, Hugh Trenchard, Guilio Douhet and Billy Mitchell.
Splintering the Wooden Wall: The British Blockade of the United States, 1812-1815. Dudley, Wade G. Annapolis MD USA: Naval Institute Press, 2003. "This work presents a useful overview of the history, theory, and practice of blockades during the age of fighting sail. It also provides an evaluation of the naval capabilities of the belligerents, a comparison of the blockade of the United States to British blockades of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and a discussion of the importance of geography in the theatre of conflict." As for 1812, he maintains that "rather than an impermeable wooden wall...the Royal Navy's blockade resembled a light picket fence that was easily splintered by aggressive American public and private navies preying on British merchantmen."
The Third Reich In Power. Evans, Richard J. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005. "...Evans tells the story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. Every area of life, from literature, culture and the arts to religion, education and science, was subordinated to the relentless drive to prepare Germany for war. His book shows how the Nazis attempted to penetrate and reorder every aspect of German society, encountering many kinds and degrees of resistance along the way, but gradually winning the acceptance of the German people in the long run." This, the second volume of a promised trilogy, covers the topic from the beginning of Hitler's Chancellorship in 1933 to the invasion of Poland in 1939. See "The Coming Of The Third Reich", above, for the first volume.
Warfare In The Classical World. Warry, John. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1998. This "detailed exploration of the art of warfare in the Graeco-Roman world traces the evolution of weapons, fortifications, and battle tactics from the Mycenean and Homeric ages (more than 1000 years B.C.) to the barbarian invasions of Rome in the fifth century A.D. In his analysis of armed conflict, the author presents the reasons behind the fighting - the social and political roots of each struggle and the long-range ambitions of the leaders - and draws a portrait of military culture and military life throughout the classical period."
Where Have All The Soldiers Gone? The Transformation Of Modern Europe. Sheehan, James J. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. "In this lively and ambitious book, James Sheehan charts what is perhaps the most radical shift in Europe's history: its transformation from war-torn battlefield to peaceful, prosperous society. For centuries, war was Europe's defining narrative, affecting every aspect of political, social, and cultural life. But after World War II, Europe began to reimagine statehood, rejecting ballooning defense budgets in favor of material well-being, social stability, and economic growth. Sheehan...reveals how and why this happened, and what it means to the rest of the world."
Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy Of Defeat. Higham, Robin and Harris, Stephen J. Lexington KY USA: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006. "...examines the complex, often deep-seated reasons for the catastrophic failures of the air forces of various nations [beginning with WWI]. Highman and Harris divide the air forces into three categories of defeat: forces that never had a chance to win, such as Poland and France; forces that started out victorious but were ultimately defeated, such as Germany and Japan; and finally, those that were defeated in their early efforts yet rose to victory, such as the air forces of Britian and the United States." Besides the nations listed in that description, the book also covers the efforts of the Arabs and Russians; Italy; the Austro-Hungarian forces of WWI; and Argentina in the Falklands War of 1982.

Book Categories

Home

Odds...