Blair's Wars


Book Description

No Prime Minister in modern times has led Britain into as many wars as Tony Blair. In six years in office he committed soldiers to action in Kosovo, Iraq, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. This analysis shows how Blair's government sought to be at the forefront of a turbulent world order.




British Generals in Blair's Wars


Book Description

En række afhandlinger baseret på britiske ledende officerers erfaringer fra operationer, udført under krige britiske tropper har deltaget i efter afslutningen af den kolde krig i den periode, Tony Blair var britisk statsminmister. Vægten er lagt på krigene i Irak og Afghanistan. Konflikterne og krigene var i høj grad udfordrende for de officer, der førte de britiske enheder. Man var nødt til at revidere koncepter og doktriner gældende under den kolde krig, for at kunne leve op til krav, der stilles til militær indsats i nutiden.




Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War


Book Description

For many people, Pennsylvania's contribution to the Civil War goes little beyond the battle of Gettysburg. The North in general has received far less attention than the Confederacy in the historiography of the Civil War—a weakness in the literature that this book will help to address. The essays in this volume suggest a few ways to reconsider the impact of the Civil War on Pennsylvania and the way its memory remains alive even today. Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War contains a wealth of new information about Pennsylvania during the war years. For instance, perhaps as many as 2,000 Pennsylvanians defected to the Confederacy to fight for the Southern cause. And during the advance of Lee's army in 1863, residents of the Gettysburg area gained a reputation throughout North and South as a stingy people who wanted to make money from the war rather than sacrifice for the Union. But the state displayed loyalty as well and commitment to the cause of freedom. Pittsburgh served as the site for one of the first public monuments in the country dedicated to African Americans. Women of the Commonwealth also contributed mightily through organizing sanitary fairs or helping in ways that belied their roles as keepers of the domestic world. And readers will learn from an African American soldier's letters how blacks helped win their own liberation. As a whole, the ten essays contained in Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War include courage on the battlefield but reflect the current trends to understand the motivations of soldiers and the impact of war on civilians, rather than focusing solely on battles or leadership. The essays also employ interdisciplinary techniques, as well as raise gender and racial questions. They incorporate a more expansive time frame than the four years of the conflict, by looking at not only the making of the war—but also its remaking—or how a public revisits the past to suit contemporary needs.




American Ally


Book Description

American Ally is the definitive account of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for the United States in the War on Terror. Drawing on his exclusive access to the key players at the White House and Downing Street, Con Coughlin explains what led Blair to risk his political career for a cause that he truly believed in. Just as Bob Woodward called on insiders to analyze George W. Bush in Bush at War, Coughlin now calls on his own experience and sources to offer a critical analysis and account of Tony Blair at war. Here is an in-depth, probing look at the man who has become America's first ally in the post-9/11 world. Tony Blair's staunch support for the United States since 9/11 has confirmed his position as one of the most important and controversial world leaders of the twenty-first century. In the aftermath of terrorist attacks in London and with Iraq in turmoil, the relationship between Britain and the United States will be critical in determining how future international crises are resolved. American Ally is an essential read for those wishing to make an informed opinion.




Cities of the Dead


Book Description

Exploring the history of Civil War commemorations from both sides of the color line, William Blair places the development of memorial holidays, Emancipation Day celebrations, and other remembrances in the context of Reconstruction politics and race relations in the South. His grassroots examination of these civic rituals demonstrates that the politics of commemoration remained far more contentious than has been previously acknowledged. Commemorations by ex-Confederates were intended at first to maintain a separate identity from the U.S. government, Blair argues, not as a vehicle for promoting sectional healing. The burial grounds of fallen heroes, known as Cities of the Dead, often became contested ground, especially for Confederate women who were opposed to Reconstruction. And until the turn of the century, African Americans used freedom celebrations to lobby for greater political power and tried to create a national holiday to recognize emancipation. Blair's analysis shows that some festive occasions that we celebrate even today have a divisive and sometimes violent past as various groups with conflicting political agendas attempted to define the meaning of the Civil War.




Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq


Book Description

In the wake of the publication of the Chilcot report, this book reinterprets the relationship between British public opinion and the Blair government’s decision-making in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It highlights how the government won the parliamentary vote and got its war, but never won the argument that it was the right thing to do. Understanding how, why and with what consequences Britain wound up in this position means understanding better both this specific case and the wider issue of how democratic publics influence foreign policy processes. Taking an innovative constructivist approach to understanding how public actors potentially influence foreign policy, Strong frames the debate about Iraq as a contest over legitimacy among active public actors, breaking it down into four constituent elements covering the necessity, legality and morality of war, and the government’s authority. The book presents a detailed empirical account of the British public debate before the invasion of Iraq based on the rigorous interrogation of thousands of primary sources, employing both quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods to interpret the shape of debate between January 2002 and March 2003. Also contributing to the wider foreign policy analysis literature, the book investigates the domestic politics of foreign policy decision-making, and particularly the influence public opinion exerts; considers the domestic structural determinants of foreign policy decision-making; and studies the ethics of foreign policy decision-making, and the legitimate use of force. It will be of great use to students and scholars of foreign policy analysis, as well as those interested in legitimacy in international conflict, British foreign policy, the Iraq War and the role of public opinion in conflict situations.




With Malice Toward Some


Book Description

With Malice toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era




The Road to Blair Mountain


Book Description

"Keeney delivers a riveting and propulsive story about a nine-year battle to save sacred ground that was the site of the largest labor uprising in American history. . . . He unveils a powerful playbook on successful activism that will inspire countless others for generations to come." --Eric Eyre, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic In 1921 Blair Mountain in southern West Virginia was the site of the country's bloodiest armed insurrection since the Civil War, a battle pitting miners led by Frank Keeney against agents of the coal barons intent on quashing organized labor. It was the largest labor uprising in US history. Ninety years later, the site became embroiled in a second struggle, as activists came together to fight the coal industry, state government, and the military- industrial complex in a successful effort to save the battlefield--sometimes dubbed "labor's Gettysburg"--from destruction by mountaintop removal mining. The Road to Blair Mountain is the moving and sometimes harrowing story of Charles Keeney's fight to save this irreplaceable landscape. Beginning in 2011, Keeney--a historian and great-grandson of Frank Keeney--led a nine-year legal battle to secure the site's placement on the National Register of Historic Places. His book tells a David-and-Goliath tale worthy of its own place in West Virginia history. A success story for historic preservation and environmentalism, it serves as an example of how rural, grassroots organizations can defeat the fossil fuel industry.




Blair's Successful War


Book Description

Andrew Dorman introduces Sierra Leone as Blair's second great military adventure after Kosovo and the first he undertook on his own. It is tied to Blair's 1999 Chicago speech on the 'Doctrine of the International Community', his move towards humanitarianism and the impact of the Kosovo experience. The book links this move with the rise of cosmopolitan militaries and the increasing involvement of Western forces in humanitarian operations and their impact on the international system. Furthermore, it places it within the context of defence transformation and the emerging Western expeditionary capabilities, in particular the European Union's new battle group concept and developments in concepts such as Network Centric Warfare and Networked Enabled Capability. Examining the whole campaign and considering the impact on the Blair Government, this book will prove to be a key reader on the topic.




The Record of Murders and Outrages


Book Description

After the Civil War's end, reports surged of violence by Southern whites against Union troops and Black men, women, and children. While some in Washington, D.C., sought to downplay the growing evidence of atrocities, in September 1866, Freedmen's Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard requested that assistant commissioners in the readmitted states compile reports of "murders and outrages" to catalog the extent of violence, to prove that the reports of a peaceful South were wrong, and to argue in Congress for the necessity of martial law. What ensued was one of the most fascinating and least understood fights of the Reconstruction era—a political and analytical fight over information and its validity, with implications that dealt in life and death. Here William A. Blair takes the full measure of the bureau's attempt to document and deploy hard information about the reality of the violence that Black communities endured in the wake of Emancipation. Blair uses the accounts of far-flung Freedmen's Bureau agents to ask questions about the early days of Reconstruction, which are surprisingly resonant with the present day: How do you prove something happened in a highly partisan atmosphere where the credibility of information is constantly challenged? And what form should that information take to be considered as fact?