A History of the Laws of War: Volume 1
A History of the Laws of War: Volume 1

Author: Alexander Gillespie

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-09-06

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1847318614

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This unique new work of reference traces the origins of the modern laws of warfare from the earliest times to the present day. Relying on written records from as far back as 2400 BCE, and using sources ranging from the Bible to Security Council Resolutions, the author pieces together the history of a subject which is almost as old as civilisation itself. The author shows that as long as humanity has been waging wars it has also been trying to find ways of legitimising different forms of combatants and regulating the treatment of captives. This first book on warfare deals with the broad question of whether the patterns of dealing with combatants and captives have changed over the last 5,000 years, and if so, how? In terms of context, the first part of the book is about combatants and those who can 'lawfully' take part in combat. In many regards, this part of the first volume is a series of 'less than ideal' pathways. This is because in an ideal world there would be no combatants because there would be no fighting. Yet as a species we do not live in such a place or even anywhere near it, either historically or in contemporary times. This being so, a second-best alternative has been to attempt to control the size of military forces and, therefore, the bloodshed. This is also not the case by which humanity has worked over the previous centuries. Rather, the clear assumption for thousands of years has been that authorities are allowed to build the size of their armed forces as large as they wish. The restraints that have been applied are in terms of the quality and methods by which combatants are taken. The considerations pertain to questions of biology such as age and sex, geographical considerations such as nationality, and the multiple nuances of informal or formal combatants. These questions have also overlapped with ones of compulsion and whether citizens within a country can be compelled to fight without their consent. Accordingly, for the previous 3,000 years, the question has not been whether there should be a limit on the number of soldiers, but rather who is or is not a lawful combatant. It has rarely been a question of numbers. It has been, and remains, one of type. The second part of this book is about people, typically combatants, captured in battle. It is about what happens to their status as prisoners, about the possibilities of torture, assistance if they are wounded and what happens to their remains should they be killed and their bodies fall into enemy hands. The theme that ties all of these considerations together is that all of the acts befall those who are, to one degree or another, captives of their enemies. As such, they are no longer masters of their own fate. As a work of reference this first volume, as part of a set of three, is unrivalled, and will be of immense benefit to scholars and practitioners researching and advising on the laws of warfare. It also tells a story which throws fascinating new light on the history of international law and on the history of warfare itself.

The Necessary War, Volume 1
The Necessary War, Volume 1

Author: Tim Cook

Publisher: Penguin Canada

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 734

ISBN-13: 014319304X

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Co-winner of the 2014-2015 Charles P. Stacey Award Tim Cook, Canada’s leading war historian, ventures deep into World War Two in this epic two-volume story of heroism and horror, of loss and longing, sacrifice and endurance. Written in Cook’s compelling narrative style, this book shows in impressive detail how soldiers, airmen, and sailors fought—the evolving tactics, weapons of war, logistics, and technology. It gauges Canadian effectiveness against the skilled enemy whom they confronted in battlefields from 1939 to 1943, from the sweltering heat of Sicily to the frigid North Atlantic, and from the urban warfare of Ortona to the dark skies over Germany. The Necessary War examines the equally important factors of morale, discipline, and fortitude of the Canadian citizen-soldiers. The war was an engine of transformation for Canada. With a population of fewer than twelve million, Canada embraced its role as an arsenal of democracy, exporting war supplies, feeding its allies, and raising a million-strong armed forces that served and fought in nearly every theatre of war. The nation was mobilized like never before in the fight to preserve the liberal democratic order. The six-year-long exertion caused disruption, provoked nationwide industrialization, ushered in changes to gender roles, exacerbated the tension between English and French, and forged a new sense of Canadian identity. Canadians were willing to bear almost any burden and to pay the ultimate price in the pursuit of victory. As with his award-winning two-volume series on WWI, Tim Cook uses original sources, letters from soldiers, rare documents, and maps of battlefields to illustrate the contributions and sacrifices made by what is often called the greatest generation. Magisterial in its scope, The Necessary War illuminates Canada’s past as never before. From the Western Front to the home front, Canadians served many roles in a war that had to be fought and won.

A Ceaseless Watch
A Ceaseless Watch

Author: Angus Britts

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1682475514

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A Ceaseless Watch: Australia’s Third Party Naval Defense, 1919–1942 illustrates how Australia confronted the need to base its post–World War I defense planning around the security provided by a major naval power: in the first instance, Britain, and later the United States. Spanning the period leading up to Australia’s greatest security crisis—the military threat posed by Japan throughout the majority of 1942—the work takes the reader all the way up to the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy by the United States Navy in the Solomon Islands campaign. Angus Britts focuses on Anglo-Australian defense relations from 1919–42 when the British were Australia’s primary naval protectors until they were superseded in the Pacific by the United States in May 1942 at the battle of the Coral Sea. Britts traces the process of the alignment or divergence of differing strategic interests between Australia and Britain in particular. Taking place against the backdrop of Imperial Japan’s expansionism debates within Australian political and defense circles during this period, namely the nature of the most likely threat to the continent itself, what became an important subplot to the events then unfolding in the Pacific. Looking at the development of the “Singapore strategy” which utilized the British fleet at Singapore to protect Australia’s interests, Britts lays out how the cornerstone for Australian defense planning was based on the continued assurances from successive British governments that they would honor their naval commitments should Australia itself eventually come under serious threat from Japanese aggression. The Australian-American defense relationship evolved at a later stage within the timeframe in this work, but the varying interactions between both nations throughout the interwar years are likewise addressed, as is the foundation of their wartime relations. Britts illustrates the difficulty in forming a defense relationship between small and great powers, where the needs of the former are not subsumed by the interests of the latter, from the interwar years to the start of World War II. In an era when the entire Pacific region was at war, the inability of a larger power to fulfill its side of a defensive pact with a smaller power shaped the future of the region itself.

Playing at War
Playing at War

Author: Patrick A. Lewis

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2024-09-19

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0807183466

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Playing at War offers an innovative focus on Civil War video games as significant sites of memory creation, distortion, and evolution in popular culture. With fifteen essays by historians, the collection analyzes the emergence and popularity of video games that topically engage the period surrounding the American Civil War, from the earliest console games developed in the 1980s through the web-based games of the twenty-first century, including popular titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and War of Rights. Alongside discussions of technological capabilities and advances, as well as their impact on gameplay and content, the essays consider how these games engage with historical scholarship on the Civil War era, the degree to which video games reflect and contribute to popular understandings of the period, and how those dynamics reveal shifting conceptions of martial identity and historical memory within U.S. popular culture. Video games offer productive sites for extending the analysis of Civil War memory into the post–Confederates in the Attic era, including the political and cultural moments of Obama and Trump, where overt expressions of Lost Cause memory were challenged and removed from schools and public spaces, then embraced by new manifestations of white supremacist organizations. Edited by Patrick A. Lewis and James Hill Welborn III, Playing at War traces the drift of Civil War memory into digital spaces and gaming cultures, encouraging historians to engage more extensively with video games as important cultural media for examining how contemporary Americans interact with the nation’s past.

The History of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada
The History of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada

Author: Roman Johann Jarymowycz

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2023-05-15

Total Pages: 495

ISBN-13: 0228017114

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In three volumes spanning centuries, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Jarymowycz recounts the story of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, the oldest Highland regiment in the country. He traces its history from the roots, when soldiers, settlers, and militia volunteers rallied to defend the southern borders of their adopted country against invasion from the United States. Drawing on diaries, letters, classified documents, and the regimental archive, Jarymowycz weaves the strands of a complex story into an epic narrative of a resolute collective of officers and men. Since its birth in 1862 as the 5th Battalion, Volunteer Militia Rifles of Canada, thousands of citizens have served in the unit. In addition to securing Canada’s borders, Black Watch soldiers have fought in the South African War, both world wars, and the Korean War. They have bolstered NATO operations and United Nations peacekeeping missions, and they provided aid to the civil power during the 1997 Quebec and Eastern Ontario ice storm disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Montreal-based battalion continues to serve Canada in its traditional role as a reserve infantry unit, and to this day, Black Watch soldiers frequently deploy on dangerous missions abroad. In volume 1, readers will learn of the Black Watch’s origins; its first foreign enterprise, the South African War; and a detailed account of the Great War, where the regiment evolved from the 5th Royal Highlanders to become the Canadian Black Watch, as they were known throughout the empire. The Montreal regiment trained four battalions for overseas duty, three of which participated in the greatest battles of the First World War, an unprecedented accomplishment. This volume not only offers a critical analysis of campaigns, key actions, and tactical evolution, but also includes an intimate and compelling account of the sacrifices that forged this extraordinary regiment. This monumental history of Canada’s oldest Highland regiment is at once a record of Scottish heritage, a portrait of Montreal rising as an industrial giant, and an examination of the emergence of a military culture from the Western Front.

Sexual Violence in Conflict
Sexual Violence in Conflict

Author: Francis Chinedu Abara

Publisher: BrownWalker Press

Published: 2020-11-01

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1599426080

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The originality of this book rests in the application of the human security framework to analyze sexual and gender-based violence in conflict. The human security paradigm is concerned and centered on the individual's security threats holistically and is inclusive of both men and women in its agenda. The author argues that making a balanced narrative of sexual violence that includes both men and women as both victims and perpetrators could be a more effective means of preventing conflict-related sexual violence than when men are excluded. Another positive feature of the book rests in its analysis of the plights of victims and survivors of sexual violence during conflict and post-conflict situations. The author describes the devastating emotional and traumatic pain, the psychological agony, the health problems, stigmatization, and impoverishment that sexual violence causes victims and survivors. Moving beyond victims and survivors, the book also examines perpetrators of sexual violence and the questionable part played by a range of social actors. This book has taken on the challenge of interdisciplinary studies that draws upon and integrates evidence and concepts from peace and conflict studies, gender studies, law and human rights as well as sociology and psychology to offer a balanced and elucidatory narrative of the occurrence, perpetrations, impacts, as well as responses and actions required of the international community. It makes a convincing argument that sexual violence in conflict is prevalent and persistent, and that it is a global threat to human security. The subject matter is timely and the author's writing style is easy to follow without taking down the reader, making this book a suitable reading for students, academics as well as practitioners. REVIEWS and WORDS OF PRAISE Rev. Abara has produced a critically reflective and thought-provoking text documenting how and when sexual violence is used as a strategic weapon of war and poses a real threat to global security. This is an important book in ensuring that the mental, physical and economic health and diversity of the victims of sexual violence in conflict are central to developments in human security. --Professor Amanda J. Broderick, Vice-Chancellor & President, University of East London, UK Francis has taken on the challenge of writing an interdisciplinary book that draws upon and integrates evidence and concepts from peace and conflict studies, gender studies, law and human rights as well as sociology and psychology to offer a balanced and elucidatory narrative of the occurrence, perpetrations, impacts, as well as responses and actions required of the international community. --Professor Giorgia Donà, Co-director of the Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London A highly relevant book that underlines contemporary issues facing the world today. In a clear and easy to follow style, the author provides a brilliantly insightful engagement in this complex topic. --Professor Wilson Ozuem, Arden University, UK Rev Francis Abara provides a fresh and comprehensive analysis into one of the greatest afflictions of our times - sexual violence in conflict. The horrific, long-term effects of the physical, emotional, economic, social and mental damage of sexual violence are laid bare. Importantly this book takes a gender inclusive approach and analyses the victimization of both women and men. --Dr Edna Maeyen Solomon, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Greenwich, London This book comprehensively presents a systematic analysis of sexual violence in conflict as a threat to global security which Rev. Abara has drawn from a wide range of sources and synthesized into cogent, coherent, and urgent arguments of global importance. Remarkably, this book is distinctive because it is devoid of prolixity and rhetoric but plainly expresses the social and political upheavals within which sexual violence is unleashed. --Dr Moses Itene, Doctor of International Law and Jurisprudence, University of Huddersfield

The French and Indian War (Vol. 1-6)
The French and Indian War (Vol. 1-6)

Author: Joseph Alexander Altsheler

Publisher: e-artnow

Published: 2019-04-06

Total Pages: 1385

ISBN-13: 8027303249

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This carefully crafted ebook: "The French and Indian War" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Hunters of the Hills: A Story of the French and Indian War The Shadow of the North: A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign The Rulers of the Lakes: A Story of George and Champlain The Masters of the Peaks: A Story of the Great North Woods The Lords of the Wild: A Story of the Old New York Border The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis

Memories of the Civil War
Memories of the Civil War

Author: Richard Marazano

Publisher: Cinebook Limited

Published: 2021-11-07

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13: 9781849185288

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In a world devastated by man, a rich minority lives in luxury inside fortress-cities protected by elite troops, while what's left of humanity toils in slavery for them. Can such a system endure for long - and at what price?