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Making British Defence Policy: Continuity and Change (Routledge Advances in Defence Studies)
by Robert SelfThis book explores the process by which defence policy is made in contemporary Britain and the institutions, actors and conflicting interests which interact in its inception and continuous reformulation. Rather than dealing with the substance of defence policy, this study focuses upon the institutional actors involved in this process. This is a subject which has commanded far more interest from public, Parliament, government and the armed forces since the protracted, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful British military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work begins with a discussion of two contextual factors shaping policy. The first relates to the impact of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States over defence and intelligence matters, while the second considers the impact of Britain’s relatively disappointing economic performance upon the funding of British defence since 1945. It then goes on to explore the role and impact of all the key policy actors, from the Prime Minister, Cabinet and core executive, to the Ministry of Defence and its relations with the broader ‘Whitehall village’, and the Foreign Office and Treasury in particular. The work concludes by examining the increasing influence of external policy actors and forces, such as Parliament, the courts, political parties, pressure groups and public opinion. This book will be of much interest to students of British defence policy, security studies, and contemporary military history.
Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain's Road to War
by Ian KershawBritain, as the most powerful of the European victors of World War One, had a unique responsibility to maintain the peace in the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles. The outbreak of a second, even more catastrophic war in 1939 has therefore always raised painful questions about Britain's failure to deal with Nazism. Could some other course of action have destroyed Hitler when he was still weak? In this highly disturbing new book, Ian Kershaw examines this crucial issue. He concentrates on the figure of Lord Londonderry - grandee, patriot, cousin of Churchill and the government minister responsible for the RAF at a crucial point in its existence. Londonderry's reaction to the rise of Hitler-to pursue friendship with the Nazis at all costs-raises fundamental questions about Britain's role in the 1930s and whether in practice there was ever any possibility of preventing Hitler's leading Europe once again into war.
Making Jet Engines in World War II: Britain, Germany, and the United States
by Hermione GiffardOur stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. With Making Jet Engines in World War II, Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology. Giffard compares the approaches of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own war aims and industrial expertise. Germany, which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines. Britain, on the other hand, produced relatively few engines—but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs. The US emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production. Taken together, Giffard's work makes a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product.
Making Jet Engines in World War II: Britain, Germany, and the United States
by Hermione GiffardOur stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. With Making Jet Engines in World War II, Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology. Giffard compares the approaches of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own war aims and industrial expertise. Germany, which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines. Britain, on the other hand, produced relatively few engines—but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs. The US emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production. Taken together, Giffard's work makes a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product.
Making Jet Engines in World War II: Britain, Germany, and the United States
by Hermione GiffardOur stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. With Making Jet Engines in World War II, Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology. Giffard compares the approaches of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own war aims and industrial expertise. Germany, which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines. Britain, on the other hand, produced relatively few engines—but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs. The US emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production. Taken together, Giffard's work makes a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product.
Making Jet Engines in World War II: Britain, Germany, and the United States
by Hermione GiffardOur stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. With Making Jet Engines in World War II, Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology. Giffard compares the approaches of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own war aims and industrial expertise. Germany, which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines. Britain, on the other hand, produced relatively few engines—but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs. The US emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production. Taken together, Giffard's work makes a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product.
Making A Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq
by James AshcroftIn September 2003, James 'Ash' Ashcroft, a former British Infantry Captain, arrived in Iraq as a 'gun for hire'. It was the beginning of an 18-month journey into blood and chaos.In this action-packed page-turner, Ashcroft reveals the dangers of his adrenalin-fuelled life as a security contractor in Baghdad, where private soldiers outnumber non-US Coalition forces in a war that is slowly being privatised. From blow-by-blow accounts of days under mortar bombardment to revelations about life operating deep within the Iraqi community, Ashcroft shares the real, unsanitised story of the war in Iraq - and its aftermath - direct from the front line.
Making Makers: The Past, the Present, and the Study of War
by Michael P. FinchMaking Makers presents a comprehensive history of a seminal work of scholarship which has exerted a persistent attraction for scholars of war and strategy: Makers of Modern Strategy. It reveals the processes by which scholars conceived and devised the book, considering both successful and failed attempts to make and remake the work across the twentieth century, and illuminating its impact and legacy. It explains how and why these influential volumes took their particular forms, unearths the broader intellectual processes that shaped them, and reflects on the academic parameters of the study of war in the twentieth century. In presenting a complete genesis of the Makers project in the context of intellectual trends and historical contingency, this book reflects on a more complex and nuanced appraisal of the development of scholarship on war. In so doing it also offers contributions to the intellectual biographies of key figures in the history of war in the twentieth century, such as Edward Mead Earle, Peter Paret, Gordon Craig, and Theodore Ropp. Making Makers contributes to an intellectual history of military history and contextualises the place of history and historians in strategic and security studies. It is not only a history of the book, but a history of the networks of scholars involved in its creation, their careers, and lines of patronage, crossing international boundaries, from Europe to the USA, to Asia and Australia. It is an investigation of ideas, individuals, and groups, of work completed and scholarship produced, as well as contingency and opportunities missed.
Making Makers: The Past, the Present, and the Study of War
by Michael P. FinchMaking Makers presents a comprehensive history of a seminal work of scholarship which has exerted a persistent attraction for scholars of war and strategy: Makers of Modern Strategy. It reveals the processes by which scholars conceived and devised the book, considering both successful and failed attempts to make and remake the work across the twentieth century, and illuminating its impact and legacy. It explains how and why these influential volumes took their particular forms, unearths the broader intellectual processes that shaped them, and reflects on the academic parameters of the study of war in the twentieth century. In presenting a complete genesis of the Makers project in the context of intellectual trends and historical contingency, this book reflects on a more complex and nuanced appraisal of the development of scholarship on war. In so doing it also offers contributions to the intellectual biographies of key figures in the history of war in the twentieth century, such as Edward Mead Earle, Peter Paret, Gordon Craig, and Theodore Ropp. Making Makers contributes to an intellectual history of military history and contextualises the place of history and historians in strategic and security studies. It is not only a history of the book, but a history of the networks of scholars involved in its creation, their careers, and lines of patronage, crossing international boundaries, from Europe to the USA, to Asia and Australia. It is an investigation of ideas, individuals, and groups, of work completed and scholarship produced, as well as contingency and opportunities missed.
Making Mogadishu Safe: Localisation, Policing and Sustainable Security (Whitehall Papers)
by Alice HillsThis Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which Mogadishu’s inhabitants try to stay out of harm’s way, from security officials in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to the city’s powerful district commissioners, from patrolling policemen to the women road-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleyways of the Waberi district. Its central proposition is that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future. It uses the neighbourhood-watch schemes developed in certain districts of Mogadishu - most notably Waberi - to understand the ways in which the city’s inhabitants respond to the security models promoted by international advisers.
Making Mogadishu Safe: Localisation, Policing and Sustainable Security (Whitehall Papers)
by Alice HillsThis Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which Mogadishu’s inhabitants try to stay out of harm’s way, from security officials in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to the city’s powerful district commissioners, from patrolling policemen to the women road-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleyways of the Waberi district. Its central proposition is that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future. It uses the neighbourhood-watch schemes developed in certain districts of Mogadishu - most notably Waberi - to understand the ways in which the city’s inhabitants respond to the security models promoted by international advisers.
The Making of a Nazi Hero: The Murder and Myth of Horst Wessel
by Daniel SiemensOn 14 January 1930, Horst Wessel, a young and ambitious member of the SA was shot at close range at his home in Berlin. Although the crime was never completely solved, the murder was most likely committed by a group of communists with close ties to the city's gangland. Wessel later died from his injuries. Joseph Goebbels, whose attention had already been drawn to Wessel as a possible future Nazi leader, was the first to recognize the propaganda potential of the case. 'A young martyr for the Third Reich' he wrote in his diary on 23 February 1930 immediately after receiving the news of Wessel's death. This was the beginning of the myth-making that transformed an ordinary individual into a masculine role model for an entire generation.Two months later, thousands of people lined the streets for Wessel's funeral parade and Goebbels delivered a graveside eulogy. In the years that followed - and as Nazi power increased - Horst Wessel became the hero of the Nazi movement - with his elaborate memorial quickly becoming a site of pilgrimage. The song Die Fahne Hoch for which Wessel had written the lyrics (and which subsequently became popularly known as the Horst Wessel Song) became the official Nazi party anthem and the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, where Wessel was murdered was renamed Horst-Wessel-Stadt in his honour. Numerous biographies and films followed.Using previously unseen material, Daniel Siemens provides a fascinating and gripping account of the background to Horst Wessel's murder and uncovers how and why the Nazis made him a political hero. He examines the Horst Wessel 'cult' which emerged in the aftermath of Wessel's death and the murders of revenge, particularly against Communists, committed by the SA and Gestapo after 1933. At the same time, the story of Horst Wessel provides a portrait of the Nazi propaganda machine at its most effective and most chilling.
The Making of a Royal Naval Officer
by William CarneWilliam Carne’s life, like so many others in the 20th Century, was defined by the two World Wars. He joined the Royal Navy as a cadet aged just sixteen in 1914. This is his story of his life at sea, from his own memoirs, letters, diaries and photos. It is a humbling account of his time as a midshipman on HMS New Zealand at the Battle of Jutland, to Captain of HMS Coventry in 1941 during the evacuation of Crete. It is also a fascinating insight into society at that time, both in the Service and at home. It is the story of The Making of a Royal Naval Officer.
The Making of a World Order: Global Historical Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles (Routledge Studies in Modern History)
by Albert Wu Stephen W. SawyerWhy does 1919 deserve further study and debate a hundred years later? What lessons for global history may we learn from the world order created at the end of the Great War? Drawing insight from the global turn of the past several decades that has forced us to reconsider the most important world events and processes since the French Revolution and especially the growing interest in World War I as a global conflict that extended far beyond the borders of Europe, this volume explores the global political ramifications of the treaties prepared at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 by focusing on key topics: how the Paris Peace Conference re-shaped the geo-political configurations of the Middle East, the importance of transformations in Asia and particularly China in the immediate postwar period, the shifts in Southeastern Europe, new feminist movements in Central Europe, and the pre-history of neoliberalism. Read together, the papers demonstrate how the peace treaties signed in 1919 and 1920 marked a profound transformation on local, national, continental, and global scales.
The Making of a World Order: Global Historical Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles (Routledge Studies in Modern History)
by Albert Wu Stephen W. SawyerWhy does 1919 deserve further study and debate a hundred years later? What lessons for global history may we learn from the world order created at the end of the Great War? Drawing insight from the global turn of the past several decades that has forced us to reconsider the most important world events and processes since the French Revolution and especially the growing interest in World War I as a global conflict that extended far beyond the borders of Europe, this volume explores the global political ramifications of the treaties prepared at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 by focusing on key topics: how the Paris Peace Conference re-shaped the geo-political configurations of the Middle East, the importance of transformations in Asia and particularly China in the immediate postwar period, the shifts in Southeastern Europe, new feminist movements in Central Europe, and the pre-history of neoliberalism. Read together, the papers demonstrate how the peace treaties signed in 1919 and 1920 marked a profound transformation on local, national, continental, and global scales.
The Making of Modern Afghanistan (Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies)
by B. HopkinsExamines the evolution of the modern Afghan state in the shadow of Britain's imperial presence in South Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century, and challenges the staid assumptions that the Afghans were little more than pawns in a larger Anglo-Russian imperial rivalry known as the 'Great Game'.
The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria To V. E. Day
by Andrew MarrIn The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and surprising. As the political forum moved from Edwardian smoking rooms to an increasingly democratic Westminster, the people of Britain experimented with extreme ideas as they struggled to answer the question ‘How should we live?’ Socialism? Fascism? Feminism? Meanwhile, fads such as eugenics, vegetarianism and nudism were gripping the nation, while the popularity of the music hall soared. It was also a time that witnessed the birth of the media as we know it today and the beginnings of the welfare state. Beyond trenches, flappers and Spitfires, this is a story of strange cults and economic madness, of revolutionaries and heroic inventors, sexual experiments and raucous stage heroines. From organic food to drugs, nightclubs and celebrities to package holidays, crooked bankers to sleazy politicians, the echoes of today's Britain ring from almost every page.
The Making Of Strategy: Rulers, States, And War (PDF)
by Williamson Murray Macgregor Knox Alvin BernsteinMost writing about strategy has focused on individual strategic theorists or great military leaders. This book focuses instead on the messy processes by which rulers and states have framed strategy in the past - a subject of vital practical importance to strategists, and of great interest to students of strategy and statecraft. It consists of 17 case studies that range from fifth-century Athens and Ming China to Hitler's Germany, Israel, and the post-1945 United States. The studies analyse, within a common interpretive framework, precisely how rulers and states have made strategy. The introduction emphasises the constants in the rapidly shifting world of the strategist; the concluding essay tries to understand the forces that have driven the transformation of strategy since 400 BC and seem likely to continue to transform it in the future.
The Making Of The British Army: From The English Civil War To The War On Terror
by Allan MallinsonEdgehill, 1642: Surveying the disastrous scene in the aftermath of the first battle of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell realizes that war can no longer be made in the old, feudal way: there has to be system and discipline, and therefore - eventually - a standing professional army.From the 'New Model Army' of Cromwell's distant vision, former soldier Allan Mallinson shows us the people and events that have shaped the army we know today. How Marlborough's momentous victory at Blenheim is linked to Wellington's at Waterloo; how the desperate fight at Rorke's Drift in 1879 underpinned the heroism of the airborne forces at Arnhem in 1944; and why Montgomery's momentous victory at El Alamein mattered long after the Second World War was over. From the Army's origins at the battle of Edgehill to our current conflict in Afghanistan, this is history at its most relevant - and most dramatic.
The Making of the Modern Middle East: A Personal History
by Jeremy BowenA Spectator Book of the YearA New Statesman Book of the Year ‘An illuminating and riveting read.’ - Jonathan DimblebyJeremy Bowen, the International Editor of the BBC, has been covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to explain its complex past and its troubled present.In The Making of the Modern Middle East – in part based on his acclaimed podcast, ‘Our Man in the Middle East’ – Bowen takes us on a journey across the Middle East and through its history. He meets ordinary men and women on the front line, their leaders, whether brutal or benign, and he explores the power games that have so often wreaked devastation on civilian populations as those leaders, whatever their motives, jostle for political, religious and economic control.With his deep understanding of the political, cultural and religious differences between countries as diverse as Erdogan’s Turkey, Assad’s Syria and Netanyahu’s Israel and his long experience of covering events in the region, Bowen offers readers a gripping and invaluable guide to the modern Middle East, how it came to be and what its future might hold.
Making The Russian Bomb: From Stalin To Yeltsin
by Thomas B. CochranThe Natural Resources Defense Council once again provides the definitive account of the current status of Russian nuclear weapons. Taking advantage of previously unavailable information the authors describe the origins, growth, and decline of the massive Soviet nuclear weapons production complex-the places involved in the recent headline-making epi
Making The Russian Bomb: From Stalin To Yeltsin
by Thomas B. CochranThe Natural Resources Defense Council once again provides the definitive account of the current status of Russian nuclear weapons. Taking advantage of previously unavailable information the authors describe the origins, growth, and decline of the massive Soviet nuclear weapons production complex-the places involved in the recent headline-making epi
Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare)
by null Alex MayhewThe First World War was an unprecedented crisis, with communities and societies enduring the unimaginable hardships of a prolonged conflict on an industrial scale. In Belgium and France, the terrible capacity of modern weaponry destroyed the natural world and exposed previously held truths about military morale and tactics as falsehoods. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers suffered some of the worst conditions that combatants have ever faced. How did they survive? What did it mean to them? How did they perceive these events? Whilst the trenches of the Western Front have come to symbolise the futility and hopelessness of the Great War, Alex Mayhew shows that English infantrymen rarely interpreted their experiences in this way. They sought to survive, navigated the crises that confronted them, and crafted meaningful narratives about their service. Making Sense of the Great War reveals the mechanisms that allowed them to do so.
Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives (Reinterpreting History: How Historical Assessments Change over Time)
by Mark Philip Bradley Marilyn B. YoungMaking 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.
Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives (Reinterpreting History: How Historical Assessments Change over Time)
by Marilyn B. Young Mark Philip BradleyMaking 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.