In "Germans to the Front," David Large charts the path from Germany's total demilitarization immediately after World War II to the appearance of the Bundeswehr, the West German army, in 1956. The book is the first comprehensive study in English of West Ge
Our Mothers' War is a stunning and unprecedented portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way women participate in American society. Never before has the vast range of women's experiences during this pivotal era been brought together in one book. Now, Our Mothers' War re-creates what American women from all walks of life were doing and thinking, on the home front and abroad. These heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking accounts of the women we have known as mothers, aunts, and grandmothers reveal facets of their lives that have usually remained unmentioned and unappreciated. Our Mothers' War gives center stage to one of WWII's most essential fighting forces: the women of America, whose extraordinary bravery, strength, and humanity shine through on every page.
Although photography was already a well-established fixture of 19th century society, it was the marriage of photography and the airplane that created the new military art of aerial observation during World War I. Shooting the Front is a pioneering study of the impact of aerial photography on America's fledgling air force during its baptism of fire above the trenches of the Western Front. This comprehensive history from the Defense Intelligence Agency highlights aerial photography's ability to command the high ground and provide a concise view of a battle area, both tactically and strategically. It is an authoritative account of aerial reconnaissance and the interpretation of photographs as they evolved into the most important sources of intelligence along the entire Western Front during the Great War. This comprehensive resource will interest military history and aviation enthusiasts, as well as students of the history of intelligence. The numerous illustrations, many never before published, include images of aircraft, cameras, and people, authentic official aerial photos, and maps in varying scales, all designed to help the reader relive the exhilarating and dangerous experience of aerial observation in World War I.
As many as 20,000 women worked in Union and Confederate hospitals during America's bloodiest war. Black and white, and from various social classes, these women served as nurses, administrators, matrons, seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, and custodial workers. Jane E. Schultz provides the first full history of these female relief workers, showing how the domestic and military arenas merged in Civil War America, blurring the line between homefront and battlefront. Schultz uses government records, private manuscripts, and published sources by and about women hospital workers, some of whom are familiar--such as Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, Louisa May Alcott, and Sojourner Truth--but most of whom are not well-known. Examining the lives and legacies of these women, Schultz considers who they were, how they became involved in wartime hospital work, how they adjusted to it, and how they challenged it. She demonstrates that class, race, and gender roles linked female workers with soldiers, both black and white, but became sites of conflict between the women and doctors and even among themselves. Schultz also explores the women's postwar lives--their professional and domestic choices, their pursuit of pensions, and their memorials to the war in published narratives. Surprisingly few parlayed their war experience into postwar medical work, and their extremely varied postwar experiences, Schultz argues, defy any simple narrative of pre-professionalism, triumphalism, or conciliation.
World War I is beyond the memory of almost everyone alive today. Yet it has left as deep a scar on the imaginative landscape of our century as it has on the land where it was fought. Nowhere is that more evident than on the Western Front-the sinuous, deadly line of trenches that stretched from the coast of Belgium to the border of France and Switzerland, a narrow swath of land in which so many million lives were lost. For journalist Stephen O'Shea, the legacy of the Great War is personal (both his grandfathers fought on the front lines) and cultural. Stunned by viewing the "immense wound" still visible on the battlefield of the Somme, and feeling that "history is too important to be left to the professionals," he set out to walk the entire 450 miles through no-man's-land to discover for himself and for his generation the meaning of the war. Back to the Front is a remarkable combination of vivid history and opinionated travel writing. As his walk progresses, O'Shea recreates the shocking battles of the Western Front, many now legendary-Passchendaele, the Somme, the Argonne, Verdun-and offers an impassioned perspective on the war, the state of the land, and the cultivation of memory. His consummate skill with words and details brings alive the players, famous and faceless, on that horrific stage, and makes us aware of why the Great War, indeed history itself, still matters. An evocative fusion of past and present, Back to the Front will resonate, for all who read it, as few other books on war ever have.
This eye-opening study gives a nuanced, provocative account of how German soldiers in the Great War experienced and enacted masculinity. Drawing on an array of relevant narratives and media, it explores the ways that both heterosexual and homosexual soldiers expressed emotion, understood romantic ideals, and approached intimacy and sexuality.
“Is This the Front?” from “The Last Rus’ Princess” series is a captivating tale of love, survival, and hope set in war-torn Ukraine, masterfully blending historical events with vivid characters to deliver an emotionally resonant and unforgettable reading experience. The historical novel is set amidst the turmoil of World War II and Nazi German-occupied Ukraine. The story follows Maria, a former Baroness of the Kievan Rus', now residing in Ukraine, as she strives to escape war-torn Eastern Europe with her husband and children. Amidst the chaos and atrocities, a mysterious Rider of Viking descent, part of the Cossack lineage, witnesses the horrors inflicted upon the people of L'wow, now L'viv. The city, once filled with diverse cultures, is now locked down and deserted, with Russian soldiers mercilessly tormenting and executing prisoners for sport. The Rider, guided by memories of his childhood, grapples with the brutality he witnesses and faces the challenges of survival in this dark and turbulent time. As the plot unfolds, readers are immersed in a tale of resilience, love, and the indomitable human spirit, while exploring the historical backdrop of a region scarred by war and the enduring power of cultural heritage and family bonds.
A legacy of an empire and a nation at war, Letters from the Front is a collection of correspondence sent by British and Commonwealth troops from the front line of war to their loved ones at home. Poignant expressions of love, hope and fear sit alongside amusing anecdotes, grumbles about rations and thoughtful reflections, eloquently revealing how, despite the passage of time, the experiences of the fighting man are shared in countless wars and battles across history. From the muddy trenches of the Somme through the frozen ground of the Falklands to the heat and dust of Afghanistan today, these letters are the ordinary soldier's testament to life on the front line.
On The Forward Edge is an American Government text-novel. It teaches the basic principles of American Government through the medium of a novelistic account of young people working for change at the time of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Clark Schooler, a recent college graduate, begins his newspaper career by reporting on the sit-in demonstrations of the early civil rights movement. He covers the efforts of college students to use direct-action and protests to force the racial integration of a movie theater in Baltimore. His editor then sends him to the all-white University of Mississippi to witness and write about the campus riot that takes place when a black student, James Meredith, attempts to attend the University. After covering the 1963 March on Washington, Clark is given a journalistic internship in the Capitol Hill office of United States Senator Thomas H. Kuchel of California. Senator Kuchel is one of the floor leaders for the civil rights bill that will eventually be enacted as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In his capacity as a Senate aide, Clark observes first hand the inner workings of Congress, particularly the way in which senators supporting racial segregation are using the Senate filibuster to "talk to death" the civil rights bill. Clark works with Senator Kuchel to find 67 votes to "cloture" the civil rights bill and thereby end the filibuster. Clark meets Bonnie Kanecton, a young lawyer working for Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois. Bonnie shows Clark how, through carefully crafted legislative compromises, Senator Dirksen is able to fashion a final version of the bill capable of winning 67 votes for cloture. But the battle is not over until the Supreme Court, in the late fall of 1964, upholds the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This study is a historical analysis of the campaign waged by Field Marshal von Manstein on the Russian southern front during the winter 1942-43. The study begins just after the 6th Army’s encirclement in Stalingrad and describes the four principal phases of Manstein’s campaign: the attempted relief of the 6th Army; the protection of Army Group A as it disengaged from the Caucasus; the prevention of Manstein’s lines of communications from being cut; and the counterblow to regain the initiative. The lessons learned from the campaign provide a perspective of battle at the operational level of war. The factors leading to Manstein’s success are discussed and include: superior generalship at the operational level; superior tactical maturity of the Germans; and German tactical and operational agility. The study describes the transition from the operational defensive to the operational offensive and how a defender can have the initiative. Manstein’s use of depth is explained. The concepts of center of gravity and operational art as they pertain to this campaign are also described. The study concludes with the implications of the lessons learned for a NATO-Soviet conflict in a central European scenario. The study points out that Manstein demonstrated that victory is possible even when forced to react to the enemy’s plan. The ability of NATO to replicate, today, the agility of Manstein’s forces and the synchronization achieved by his commanders is questioned. The implications of NATO’s lack of operational depth, in contrast to Manstein, are described. The impact of changes in force design since World War II are also explained.