The Pursuit of Victory
The Pursuit of Victory

Author: Roger Knight

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2006-06-29

Total Pages: 1227

ISBN-13: 0141937882

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The starting point of Roger Knight's magnificent new biography is to explain how Nelson achieved such extraordinary success. Knight places him firmly in the context of the Royal Navy at the time. He analyses Nelson's more obvious qualities, his leadership strengths and his coolness and certainty in battle, and also explores his strategic grasp, the condition of his ships, the skill of his seamen and his relationships with the officers around him - including those who could hardly be called friendly. This biography takes a cool look at Nelson's status as a hero and demolishes many of the myths that were so carefully established by the early authors, and repeated by their modern successors. Nelson was a shrewd political operator who charmed and impressed political leaders and whose advancement was helped by the relatively weak generation of admirals above him. He was a difficult subordinate, only happy when completely in command, and capable of great ruthlessness. He was flawed, but brilliant - and not to be crossed.

The Pursuit of Victory
The Pursuit of Victory

Author: Brian Bond

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780198207351

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In Western Europe and North America the idea that war can deliberately be used as an `instrument of policy' has become unfashionable, not least because of the carnage of two World Wars and the Americans' humiliating experience in Vietnam. But wars are still fought. Those who start wars clearly believe they are worthwhile. Why? In this original and provocative study, Brian Bond discusses the successes and failures of military and political leaders in their pursuit of victory over the last two centuries. Professor Bond argues that in order to be counted victorious, a leader has to progress beyond military triumph to preserve the political control needed to secure an advantageous and enduring peace settlement. Napoleon was a brilliant general, but failed as a statesman. Bismarck, on the other hand, was a success in skilfully exploiting Moltke's victories on the battlefield to create a unified Germany. In the First World War, Germany and her allies were defeated but at such great cost that confidence in the idea that war could be controlled, and the pursuit of victory made rational, received a terrible shock. Germany and Japan exploited their military opportunites between 1939 and 1942, but lack of political control and moderation brought them catastrophic defeat. After 1945, nuclear weapons and the increased complexity of international relations blurred the identity of `victors' and `losers' and seemed to make the idea of a `decisive' victory almost unthinkable. But this study warns against the assumption that war as an instrument of policy has now been completely discarded. The Falklands and Gulf conflicts show that aggressors are still prepared to risk war for tangible goals, and that their opponents are quite capable of responding successfully to such challenges.

Motor Racing
Motor Racing

Author: Anthony Carter

Publisher: Veloce Publishing

Published: 2011-10-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781845842796

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This book opens up the past, revealing unpublished stunning photographs from motor racing history, and examines the many facets of Grand Prix racing before the dominance of television. Here are stories of derring-do and racing that constantly pushed the boundaries of technology, beginning in the 1930s when the German Auto Unions and Mercedes were heavily subsidized by the Nazi regime to strengthen their engineering might. This produced the most powerful racing cars ever (at least until the turbocharged cars of the 1980s), and was followed by the postwar era that saw the BRM V16 bring prestige to Great Britain. A beautiful look at a fascinating time in motor racing.

Zero-Sum Victory
Zero-Sum Victory

Author: Christopher D. Kolenda

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0813152836

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Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in the United States' favor, significant capacity-building efforts, and repeated tactical victories by what many observers call the world's best military, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why military operations to overthrow two developing-world regimes failed to successfully achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no organized way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize and modify or abandon losing strategies; in both cases, US officials believe their strategies are working, even as the situation deteriorates. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.

The Pursuit of Holiness
The Pursuit of Holiness

Author: Jerry Bridges

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1631466399

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This new edition replaces both The Pursuit of Holiness (ISBN 9781576839324) and the study guide (ISBN 9781576839881) by combining both resources into one volume "Be holy, for I am holy," commands God. But holiness is something that is often missed in the Christian's daily life. According to Navigator author Jerry Bridges, that's because we're not exactly sure what our part in holiness is. In The Pursuit of Holiness, he helps us see clearly just what we should rely on God to do--and what we should take responsibility for ourselves. As you deepen your relationship with God, learn more about His character, and understand the Holy Spirit's role in holiness, your spiritual growth will mature. The included study guide contains 12 lessons.

Tasting Victory
Tasting Victory

Author: Gerard Basset

Publisher: Unbound Publishing

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1783528613

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This the memoir of Gerard Basset, OBE, the greatest wine professional of his generation. A school dropout, Gerard had to come to England to discover his passion. He threw himself into learning everything he could about wine, immersing himself in the world of Michelin star restaurants and beginning the steep climb to the top of the career ladder. Tasting Victory charts his business successes: co-founding and selling the innovative Hotel du Vin chain and founding, with his wife Nina, the much-loved Hotel TerraVina. It recounts in detail just how he managed to earn his unprecedented sequence of qualifications; Gerard is the first and only individual to hold the famously difficult Master of Wine qualification simultaneously with that of Master Sommelier and MBA in Wine Business. But it is his pursuit of the most important award of all that forms the core of this book – how, at his seventh attempt, and after a training regime that would shame most Olympic athletes, the fifty-three-year-old Gerard Basset was finally crowned the Best Sommelier of the World, and acknowledged as the greatest sommelier of his generation. Gerard's memoir is not only the story of how a champion is made, but also a record of how fine dining and hospitality changed in England, going from stale and unexciting to the world-leading sector it is today. Above all, it’s a book about succeeding against great odds: in typical fashion it was when he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus that Gerard responded by deciding to write Tasting Victory, which he completed shortly before his death in January 2019.

Britain Against Napoleon
Britain Against Napoleon

Author: Roger Knight

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2013-10-24

Total Pages: 757

ISBN-13: 0141977027

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From Roger Knight, established by his multi-award winning book The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat. For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe, and the British population lived in fear of French invasion. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? This book looks beyond the familiar exploits of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, as the demands of the war remorselessly grew, the whole British population had to play its part. The intelligence war was also central. Yet no participants were more important, Roger Knight argues, than the bankers and traders of the City of London, without whose financing the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole. Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late 18th-century British state.

Nelson
Nelson

Author: Andrew Lambert

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2010-12-09

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 0571265707

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'Fascinating . . . Shot through with fresh insights . . . No previous biography has attempted anything so comprehensive.' ObserverNelson is a thrilling new appraisal of Horatio Nelson, the greatest practitioner of naval command the world has ever seen. It explores the professional, personal, intellectual and practical origins of one man's genius, to understand how the greatest warrior that Britain has ever produced transformed the art of conflict, and enabled his country to survive the challenge of total war and international isolation. In Nelson, Andrew Lambert - described by David Cannadine as 'the outstanding British naval historian of his generation' - is able to offer new insights into the individual quality which led Byron rightly to celebrate Nelson's genius as 'Britannia's God of War'. He demonstrates how Admiral Nelson elevated the business of naval warfare to the level of the sublime. Nelson's unique gift was to take that which other commanders found complex, and reduce it to simplicity. Where his predecessors and opponents saw a particular battle as an end in itself, Nelson was always a step ahead - even in the midst of terrifying, close-quarters action, with officers and men struck down all around him. 'Excellent . . . Worthy of the stirring events [it celebrates].' Independent

Normandy to Victory
Normandy to Victory

Author: William C. Sylvan

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2008-09-26

Total Pages: 571

ISBN-13: 0813138663

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This annotated edition of General Hodges’s WWII diary offers a unique firsthand account of the First US Army from D-Day to V-E Day: “a fascinating book” (Bowling Green Daily News). During World War II, General Courtney Hicks Hodges commanded the First US Army, taking part in the Allied invasion of France, the liberation of Paris, and the ultimate Allied victory in 1945. Maintained by two of Hodges's aides, Major William C. Sylvan and Captain Francis G. Smith Jr., this military journal offers a unique firsthand account of the actions, decisions, and daily activities of General Hodges and the First Army throughout the war. The diary opens on June 2, 1944, as Hodges and the First Army prepare for the Allied invasion of France. In the weeks and months that follow, the diary highlights the crucial role that Hodges's command played in the Allied operations in northwest Europe. The diary recounts the First Army's involvement in the fight for France, the Siegfried Line campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, the drive to the Roer River, and the crossing of the Rhine, following Hodges and his men through savage European combat until the German surrender in May 1945. This historically significant text has previously been available only to military historians and researchers. Retired US Army historian John T. Greenwood has now edited the text in its entirety and added a biography of General Hodges as well as extensive contextual notes. A Choice Outstanding Academic Title Winner of the 2009 Distinguished Writing Award from the Army Historical Foundation

Horatio Nelson
Horatio Nelson

Author: Tom Pocock

Publisher: Thistle Publishing

Published: 2013-06-07

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 9781909609594

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This biography of Horatio Nelson juxtaposes details of his daily life, loves, friendships and opinions with the great events which make him one of the most memorable figures in British history. This is the story of the man who saved Britain from invasion and gave it maritime supremacy. The book was runner-up for the Whitbread Biography Award. N.A.M. Rodqer, The Times Literary Supplement "Tom Pocock presents a complete and completely believable Nelson... It is unlikely that another could have handled Nelson with the confidence and fluency, the combination of detachment and intimacy/which make this book so attractive and distinguished." Andrew Wheatcroft, Evening Standard "Tom Pocock understands the Admiral. He is not frightened to say what Nelson thought, or felt. In consequence he has written a remarkably fine biography.... In Pocock's hands, Nelson re-emerges as a whole character. At last we can see why people loved him." J.W.M. Thompson, The Literary Review "A moving and absorbing story, here told with distinction." Ronald Blythe, Country Life "So here we find the real man....a great read."