The War of the End of the World
The War of the End of the World

Author: Mario Vargas Llosa

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2011-03-04

Total Pages: 993

ISBN-13: 1429921986

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The Nobel Prize–winning author’s classic novel of civil war in nineteenth-century Brazil: “A modern tragedy on the grand scale . . . As dark as spilled blood” (Salman Rushdie, The New Republic). Deep within the remote backlands of Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, beggars, and every kind of outcast. It is a place where history and civilization have been wiped away. There is no money, no taxation, no marriage, no census. Canudos is a cauldron for the revolutionary spirit in its purest form, a state with all the potential for a true, libertarian paradise—and one the Brazilian government is determined to crush at any cost. In perhaps his most ambitious and tragic novel, Mario Vargas Llosa offers his fictionalized vision of the story of Canudos, inhabiting characters on both sides of the massive, cataclysmic battle between the society and government troops. The resulting novel is a fable of Latin American revolutionary history, an unforgettable story of passion, violence, and the devastation that follows from fanaticism.

War at the End of the World
War at the End of the World

Author: James P. Duffy

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2023-12-05

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0593471725

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A harrowing account of an epic, yet nearly forgotten, battle of World War II—General Douglas MacArthur's four-year assault on the Pacific War's most hostile battleground: the mountainous, jungle-cloaked island of New Guinea. “A meaty, engrossing narrative history… This will likely stand as the definitive account of the New Guinea campaign.”—The Christian Science Monitor One American soldier called it “a green hell on earth.” Monsoon-soaked wilderness, debilitating heat, impassable mountains, torrential rivers, and disease-infested swamps—New Guinea was a battleground far more deadly than the most fanatical of enemy troops. Japanese forces numbering some 600,000 men began landing in January 1942, determined to seize the island as a cornerstone of the Empire’s strategy to knock Australia out of the war. Allied Commander-in-Chief General Douglas MacArthur committed 340,000 Americans, as well as tens of thousands of Australian, Dutch, and New Guinea troops, to retake New Guinea at all costs. What followed was a four-year campaign that involved some of the most horrific warfare in history. At first emboldened by easy victories throughout the Pacific, the Japanese soon encountered in New Guinea a roadblock akin to the Germans’ disastrous attempt to take Moscow, a catastrophic setback to their war machine. For the Americans, victory in New Guinea was the first essential step in the long march towards the Japanese home islands and the ultimate destruction of Hirohito’s empire. Winning the war in New Guinea was of critical importance to MacArthur. His avowed “I shall return” to the Philippines could only be accomplished after taking the island. In this gripping narrative, historian James P. Duffy chronicles the most ruthless combat of the Pacific War, a fight complicated by rampant tropical disease, violent rainstorms, and unforgiving terrain that punished both Axis and Allied forces alike. Drawing on primary sources, War at the End of the World fills in a crucial gap in the history of World War II while offering readers a narrative of the first rank.

The First World War
The First World War

Author: Geoffrey Jukes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-06-20

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1472804236

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Published to coincide with the anniversary of the First World War, this edition, superbly illustrated with contemporary photographs and colour maps, gives readers an insight into all aspects of the First World War, from the trenches to the Eastern Front, as well as the Mediterranean conflict. Raging for over four years across the tortured landscapes of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the First World War changed the face of warfare forever. Characterised by slow, costly advances and fierce attrition, the great battles of the Somme, Verdun and Ypres incurred human loss on a scale never previously imagined. This book, with a foreword by Professor Hew Strachan, covers the fighting on all fronts, from Flanders to Tannenberg and from Italy to Palestine. A series of moving extracts from personal letters, diaries and journals bring to life the experiences of soldiers and civilians caught up in the war.

The War to End All Wars
The War to End All Wars

Author: Russell Freedman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2015-02-24

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 0547487371

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Nonfiction master Russell Freedman illuminates for young readers the complex and rarely discussed subject of World War I. The tangled relationships and alliances of many nations, the introduction of modern weaponry, and top-level military decisions that resulted in thousands upon thousands of casualties all contributed to the "great war," which people hoped and believed would be the only conflict of its kind. In this clear and authoritative account, the Newbery Medal-winning author shows the ways in which the seeds of a second world war were sown in the first. Numerous archival photographs give the often disturbing subject matter a moving visual counterpart. Includes source notes, a bibliography, and an index.

Five Days That Shocked the World
Five Days That Shocked the World

Author: Nicholas Best

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2012-01-17

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1429941359

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In the momentous days from April 28 to May 2, 1945, the world witnessed the death of two Fascist dictators and the fall of Berlin. Mussolini's capture and execution by Italian partisans, the suicide of Adolf Hitler, and the fall of the German capital signaled the end of the four-year war in the European Theater. In Five Days That Shocked the World, Nicholas Best thrills readers with the first-person accounts of those who lived through this dramatic time. In this valuable work of history, the author's special achievement is weaving together the reports of famous and soon-to-be-famous individuals who experienced the war up close. We follow a young Walter Cronkite as he parachutes into Holland with a Canadian troop; photographer Lee Miller capturing the evidence of Nazi atrocities; the future Pope Benedict returning home and hoping not to get caught and shot after deserting his infantry unit; Audrey Hepburn no longer having to fear conscription into a Wehrmacht brothel; and even an SS doctor's descriptions of a decadent sex orgy in Hitler's bunker. In skillfully synthesizing these personal narratives, Best creates a compelling chronicle of the five earth-shaking days when Fascism lost it death grip on Europe. With this vivid and fast-paced narrative, the author reaffirms his reputation as an expert on the final days of great wars.

The Long End of the First World War
The Long End of the First World War

Author: Katrin Bromber

Publisher: Campus Verlag

Published: 2018-10-04

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 3593438771

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Eigene und Fremde Welten Herausgegeben von Jörg Baberowski, Stefan Rinke und Michael Wildt Mit dem Gedenken an den Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkriegs hat sich die Art der Erinnerung an dieses welthistorische Ereignis verändert. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes zielen darauf ab, Verknüpfungen zwischen individuellen Kriegserfahrungen, Geschichtsschreibung und Erinnerung herzustellen und so den Begriff eines statischen, klar definierten "Endes" des Ersten Weltkrieges zu hinterfragen, eines Konstrukts, das hauptsächlich auf europäischen Entwicklungen beruht.

Apocalypse as Holy War
Apocalypse as Holy War

Author: Emma Wasserman

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-01-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0300204027

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A reassessment of early Christian apocalypticism arguing that the texts are not so much myths about good versus evil as about divine politics and heroic submission Prevailing theories of apocalypticism assert that in a world that rebels against God, a cataclysmic battle between good and evil is needed to reassert God's dominion. Emma Wasserman, a rising scholar of early Christian history, challenges this interpretation and reframes these apocalyptic texts as myths about divine politics and heroic submission. A major scholarly contribution that ranges across Mediterranean and West Asian religious thought, this volume rethinks Paul's Christ-myth as well as his most distinctive ethical teachings.

The End of War
The End of War

Author: John Horgan

Publisher: McSweeney's

Published: 2012-01-17

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1938073045

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War is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That's how the argument goes. But longtime Scientific American writer John Horgan disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It’s our choice whether to unmake it or not. In this compact, methodical treatise, Horgan examines dozens of examples and counterexamples—discussing chimpanzees and bonobos, warring and peaceful indigenous people, the World War I and Vietnam, Margaret Mead and General Sherman—as he finds his way to war’s complicated origins. Horgan argues for a far-reaching paradigm shift with profound implications for policy students, ethicists, military men and women, teachers, philosophers, or really, any engaged citizen.

How the End Begins
How the End Begins

Author: Ron Rosenbaum

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-02-21

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1416594221

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An alarming, deeply reported analysis of how close--and how often--the world has come to nuclear annihilation, and why we are once again on the brink.

War and Punishment
War and Punishment

Author: H. E. Goemans

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-01-06

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1400823951

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What makes wars drag on and why do they end when they do? Here H. E. Goemans brings theoretical rigor and empirical depth to a long-standing question of securities studies. He explores how various government leaders assess the cost of war in terms of domestic politics and their own postwar fates. Goemans first develops the argument that two sides will wage war until both gain sufficient knowledge of the other's strengths and weaknesses so as to agree on the probable outcome of continued war. Yet the incentives that motivate leaders to then terminate war, Goemans maintains, can vary greatly depending on the type of government they represent. The author looks at democracies, dictatorships, and mixed regimes and compares the willingness among leaders to back out of wars or risk the costs of continued warfare. Democracies, according to Goemans, will prefer to withdraw quickly from a war they are not winning in order to appease the populace. Autocracies will do likewise so as not to be overthrown by their internal enemies. Mixed regimes, which are made up of several competing groups and which exclude a substantial proportion of the people from access to power, will likely see little risk in continuing a losing war in the hope of turning the tide. Goemans explores the conditions and the reasoning behind this "gamble for resurrection" as well as other strategies, using rational choice theory, statistical analysis, and detailed case studies of Germany, Britain, France, and Russia during World War I. In so doing, he offers a new perspective of the Great War that integrates domestic politics, international politics, and battlefield developments.