Fighting for the Empire
Fighting for the Empire

Author: David Worsfold

Publisher:

Published: 2016-09-30

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781781220061

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Fighting for the Empire is the story of a remarkable Irishman, a staunch Catholic from Galway who served the British Crown and its Empire for almost fifty years. His extraordinary military career took in countless conflicts including two World Wars, Imperial adventures, acts of heroism and encounters with royalty. It also included a period of Irish history that split families and communities in two. Joining the Indian Medical Service in 1896 Thomas Kelly was posted to the turbulent North West Frontier almost as soon as he arrived in India. He was one of the first Westerners to set foot in the mysterious mountain city of Lhasa, winning a commendation along the way for an act for bravery that was illustrated on the front page of London newspapers. Kelly's many adventures brought him face to face with both hardships and glamour. His duties included entertaining Swedish Explorer Sven Hedin, King George V and later the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) who he despised, describing him as a drunkard and a womanizer. The First World War saw Kelly serving with the Indian Medical Service in Aden, Egypt and Mesopotamia (covering present-day Iraq, Syria, Iran and parts of Turkey), collecting the Distinguished Service Order as well as being commended in dispatches four times, including for his role in the aftermath of the infamous siege of Kut. The end of the First World War saw no letup as he was pitched into the brief and bloody 3rd Afghan War that raged across the notorious North West Frontier in 1919. Bitterly disappointed at being turned down by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War (he was now 69) Kelly became ships surgeon in the Merchant Navy taking part in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Bordeaux as France fell to the German invaders. Going with the 8th Army to Egypt and serving on Atlantic convoys his service finally came to an end in late 1944 after serving on ships transporting troops for the invasion of Europe. His age (74) caught up with him and he was sent home still protesting that he was more than fit enough to remain at sea. Containing many photographs from Kelly's personal albums and private collections Fighting for the Empire is a fascinating look not just at an individual's bravery and hardships but at the closing years of the British Empire.

The Changing Face of Empire
The Changing Face of Empire

Author: Nick Turse

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2012-10-30

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1608463117

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Following the failures of the Iraq and Afghan wars, as well as “military lite” methods and counterinsurgency, the Pentagon is pioneering a new brand of global warfare predicated on special ops, drones, spy games, civilian soldiers, and cyberwarfare. It may sound like a safer, saner war-fighting. In reality, it will prove anything but, as Turse's pathbreaking reportage makes clear.

Battle for Empire
Battle for Empire

Author: Tom Pocock

Publisher:

Published: 2013-06-07

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9781909609549

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The first world war was notthat which began in 1914, but the co-called Seven Years War which, in 1756, brought into being global conflict. The new factor which dramatically altered the course of history was British sea power. With the support of the navy, a few thousand men dispossessed the French of their fledgling North American empire and saw them, and the Dutch, utterly vanquished in India. Attacks on Cuba and the Philippines crippled the Spanish Empire. Through feats of extraordinary courage and endurance, fighting merchant adventurers such as Robert Clive laid the foundations of an Indian empire. In North America, soldiers such as the Virginia militia officer, George Washington, the future first President of the United States, and James Wolfe, who died in the battle for Quebec, determined that Canada would be British - not French. In this vivid account of this first 'modern' war, Tom Pocock uses the testimony of eye-eitnesses to dramatic effect. Nigel Nicolson, The Spectator "Pocock's book makes enthralling reading... his prose is excellent." Admiral Sir Jock Slater, First Sea Lord, in The Times "Tom Pocock has written another stirring popular history... Pocock vividly brings his work to life. The lessons of history are brought to life by Tom Pocock and his latest book is a thoroughly good read." Lawrence James, Evening Standard "Tom Pocock has caught the flavour of this age. He is a first-rate story-teller, writing with an appropriate gusto about his robust heroes."

War at the Edge of the World
War at the Edge of the World

Author: Ian James Ross

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2016-06-07

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1468312278

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A Roman centurion sent to the empire’s distant northern edge encounters treachery beyond Hadrian’s Wall in this historical epic series debut. Roman Britain, Fourth Century AD. Once a soldier in an elite legion from the Danube, newly promoted centurion Aurelius Castus now finds himself stuck in the provincial backwater of Britannia. Just beyond Hadrian’s Wall are a savage people allied with Rome known as the Picts. When their king dies under mysterious circumstances, an envoy must be sent to negotiate with their new leader. And Castus is selected to command the envoy’s bodyguard. What starts as a simple diplomatic mission ends in bloody tragedy. As Castus and his men fight for their lives, the legionnaire discovers that nothing about his doomed mission was ever what it seemed. The first book in Ian James Ross’s Twilight of Empire series, War at the Edge of the World is an exciting debut from an author as gifted at telling a story as he is at bringing the Late Roman Empire to life.

Empires of the Sea
Empires of the Sea

Author: Roger Crowley

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2008-07-01

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 1588367339

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In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world. In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date–a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, “The King of Evil,” the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria. This struggle’s brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepanto–one of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away “because of the countless corpses floating in the sea.” Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today. Roger Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its best–a story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.

The War That Made the Roman Empire
The War That Made the Roman Empire

Author: Barry Strauss

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-03-22

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1982116692

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A “splendid” (The Wall Street Journal) account of one of history’s most important and yet little-known wars, the campaign culminating in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, whose outcome determined the future of the Roman Empire. Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium. Octavian prevailed over Antony and Cleopatra, who subsequently killed themselves. The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt. In this “superbly recounted” (The National Review) history, Barry Strauss, ancient history authority, describes this consequential battle with the drama and expertise that it deserves. The War That Made the Roman Empire is essential history that features three of the greatest figures of the ancient world.

Soldiers of Empire
Soldiers of Empire

Author: Tarak Barkawi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-06-08

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1107169585

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Barkawi re-imagines the study of war with imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia in the Second World War.

Soldiering through Empire
Soldiering through Empire

Author: Simeon Man

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2018-01-26

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0520959256

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In the decades after World War II, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilian contractors across Asia and the Pacific found work through the U.S. military. Recently liberated from colonial rule, these workers were drawn to the opportunities the military offered and became active participants of the U.S. empire, most centrally during the U.S. war in Vietnam. Simeon Man uncovers the little-known histories of Filipinos, South Koreans, and Asian Americans who fought in Vietnam, revealing how U.S. empire was sustained through overlapping projects of colonialism and race making. Through their military deployments, Man argues, these soldiers took part in the making of a new Pacific world—a decolonizing Pacific—in which the imperatives of U.S. empire collided with insurgent calls for decolonization, producing often surprising political alliances, imperial tactics of suppression, and new visions of radical democracy.

The Void War
The Void War

Author: D. j. Holmes

Publisher:

Published: 2016-12-20

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 9781520190525

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It's the year 2465, two hundred years since the stars were opened to humanity by the invention of the shift drive. So began the First Interstellar Expansion Era, catapulting humanity into a deadly race for the limited resources of navigable space. Now tensions between the human nations are threatening to boil over into open hostility. Into this maelstrom steps the exiled Commander James Somerville of the Royal Space Navy. Banished from London to the survey ship HMS Drake he is about to make a discovery that may change his fortunes and throw Britain into a deadly war with its closest rival. The Void War is a military science fiction novel and first book by new author D. J. Holmes