Making Sense of War
Making Sense of War

Author: Alan Stephens

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-11-13

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9781139459419

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Making Sense of War provides a comprehensive and clear analysis of the complex business of waging war. It gives readers a thorough understanding of the key concepts in strategic thought, concepts that have endured since the Athenian general Thucydides and the Chinese philosopher/warrior Sun Tzu first wrote about strategy some 2500 years ago. It also examines the influence on strategic choice and military strategy of political, legal and technological change. This book discusses strategy at every level of competition, employing a thematic approach and using historical examples from 500 BCE to the present. It discusses the contraints and opportunities facing military commanders in the 21st century, and demonstrates that the formulation of military strategy will continue to be perhaps the single most important responsibility for senior security officials. Making Sense of War offers original insights into the imperatives of military success in the era of asymmetric warfare.

Making Sense of War
Making Sense of War

Author: Amir Weiner

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2002-04-14

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0691095434

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Reconceptualizes the historical experience of the Soviet Union from a different perspective, that of World War II. Breaking with the conventional interpretation that views World War II as a post-revolutionary addendum, this work situates this event at the crux of the development of the Soviet - not just the Stalinist - system." - publisher.

Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars
Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars

Author: Mark Philip Bradley

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-04-30

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0199924163

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Making sense of the wars for Vietnam has had a long history. The question "why Vietnam?" dominated American and Vietnamese political life for much of the length of the wars and has continued to be asked in the decades since they ended. This volume brings together the work of eleven scholars to examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that have marked the contested terrain of Vietnam War scholarship. Editors Marilyn Young and Mark Bradley's superb group of renowned contributors spans the generations--including those who were active during wartime, along with scholars conducting research in Vietnamese sources and uncovering new sources in the United States, former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern and Western Europe. Ranging in format from top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon, to microhistories of the war that explore its meanings from the bottom up, these essays comprise the most up-to-date collection of scholarship on the controversial historiography of the Vietnam Wars.

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

Author: Chris Hedges

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2014-04-08

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1610395107

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General George S. Patton famously said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!" Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close -- in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America -- and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.

Making Sense of Dictatorship
Making Sense of Dictatorship

Author: Celia Donert

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2022-03-22

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9633864283

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How did political power function in the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe after 1945? Making Sense of Dictatorship addresses this question with a particular focus on the acquiescent behavior of the majority of the population until, at the end of the 1980s, their rejection of state socialism and its authoritarian world. The authors refer to the concept of Sinnwelt, the way in which groups and individuals made sense of the world around them. The essays focus on the dynamics of everyday life and the extent to which the relationship between citizens and the state was collaborative or antagonistic. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of life in this period, including modernization, consumption and leisure, and the everyday experiences of “ordinary people,” single mothers, or those adopting alternative lifestyles. Empirically rich and conceptually original, the essays in this volume suggest new ways to understand how people make sense of everyday life under dictatorial regimes.

Nimo's War, Emma's War
Nimo's War, Emma's War

Author: Cynthia H. Enloe

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 0520260775

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"Nimo's War, Emma's War is unique in examining the gendered dimension of the Iraq war, particularly its impact on ordinary Iraqi and American women, thereby revealing an important long-term cost of the conflict. Cynthia Enloe's approach and analysis are extremely original and innovative."--Nadje Al-Ali, author of What Kind of Liberation?: Women and the Occupation of Iraq "Nimo's War, Emma's War is Cynthia Enloe's darkest and most strikingly conceived text to date. War is not 'in' Iraq and Afghanistan, where foreign militaries confront local people, rather it is everywhere, most particularly in 'peacetime' domestic spaces, 'civilian' employment, marital bedrooms and high schools."--Terrell Carver, author of Politics, Language and Metaphor "Cynthia Enloe has pioneered the subject of women, militarism, and war in a series of revelatory books, including Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War, and Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives. Nimo's War, Emma's War is her best one yet."--Chalmers Johnson, author of The Blowback Trilogy "Brilliantly researched, vividly written, Cynthia Enloe has gifted us with a new and different story of modern warfare. Entirely gripping and profoundly humane, every page raises new issues. To factor in Nimo and Emma--all the women and families touched by the carnage and agony of war, is to see the bitter range of tragedy community by community. To read this book is to ask: What are we doing to our children--all our children, combatants and civilians? How do women cope with post-war wounds and violence--agony, wreckage, displacement? Cynthia Enloe's book is essential reading for all students and journalists, public citizens and peace activists, who seek women's dignity, healthy societies, humane alternatives to the insanity of careless military destruction."--Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of The Declassified Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt (vols I & II, III forthcoming)

Making Sense of Normandy
Making Sense of Normandy

Author: E. Carver Mcgriff

Publisher:

Published: 2022-09-22

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781088035948

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We should have begun to face the sobering probability that we were heading for the hell of battle, but we were kids. We'd heard of war in far-off places, places like Italy and Africa, and the faraway Pacific, but we were in England. We thought life would go on like this with excitement, new places to see, friends we'd never otherwise have met, a sense of manhood new to most of us . . . how little we knew. Barely more than children, soon to suffer the death of innocence. Carver McGriff was 19 years old when he left Indiana and his innocence behind to join in the battle for freedom on one of the most important and bloodiest battlefields of World War II. In Making Sense of Normandy: A Young Man's Journey of War and Faith, McGriff gives a rare veteran first-hand account of the harsh realities of WWII combat - not only the struggle for physical survival but for emotional and spiritual survival as well. It is a timeless story for all generations, a rare treasure that will touch the hearts and minds of all the Greatest Generations - yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's.

Making Sense of the Molly Maguires
Making Sense of the Molly Maguires

Author: Kevin Kenny

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9780195116311

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A group of 20 Irish immigrants, suspected of comprising a secret terrorist organization called the "Molly Maguires", were executed in Pennsylvania in the 1870s for the murder of 16 men. This work offers a new interpretation of their dramatic story, tracing the origins of the Molly Maguires to Ireland and explaining the growth of a particular structure of meaning.

War: How Conflict Shaped Us
War: How Conflict Shaped Us

Author: Margaret MacMillan

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1984856146

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Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.

Making Sense of World History
Making Sense of World History

Author: Rick Szostak

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-22

Total Pages: 1672

ISBN-13: 1000201678

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Making Sense of World History is a comprehensive and accessible textbook that helps students understand the key themes of world history within a chronological framework stretching from ancient times to the present day. To lend coherence to its narrative, the book employs a set of organizing devices that connect times, places, and/or themes. This narrative is supported by: Flowcharts that show how phenomena within diverse broad themes interact in generating key processes and events in world history. A discussion of the common challenges faced by different types of agent, including rulers, merchants, farmers, and parents, and a comparison of how these challenges were addressed in different times and places. An exhaustive and balanced treatment of themes such as culture, politics, and economy, with an emphasis on interaction. Explicit attention to skill acquisition in organizing information, cultural sensitivity, comparison, visual literacy, integration, interrogating primary sources, and critical thinking. A focus on historical “episodes” that are carefully related to each other. Through the use of such devices, the book shows the cumulative effect of thematic interactions through time, communicates the many ways in which societies have influenced each other through history, and allows us to compare and contrast how they have reacted to similar challenges. They also allow the reader to transcend historical controversies and can be used to stimulate class discussions and guide student assignments. With a unified authorial voice and offering a narrative from the ancient to the present, this is the go-to textbook for World History courses and students. The Open Access version of this book has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.