The War Diaries of André Dennison
Author : André Dennison
Publisher : Ashanti Publishing
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 48,94 MB
Release : 1989
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN :
Special Force
Author : Alastair MacKenzie
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 28,81 MB
Release : 2011-10-30
Category : History
ISBN : 0857721011
Book Description
The exploits of the British Army's elite 22nd Special Air Service Regiment - the regiment of the SAS that forms part of the Regular army - are shrouded in mystery and myths abound about its members. But what is the truth behind the public facade of clinical professionalism? How has such a small regiment attracted so many weighty legends? And what is the purpose of the SAS in the 21st century? "Special Force" provides an original and unusually critical overview of the activities of the SAS from the Malayan Emergency of 1950 to the present day. In the context of a detailed and often controversial analysis of the post-war activities of the Regiment, MacKenzie establishes that the Regiment's almost legendary professional competence is often not backed up by reality. Far from being part of a structured deployment of strategic military assets, MacKenzie argues that the use of the SAS in recent years has been primarily driven by the 'entrepreneurial' actions of a few SAS commanding officers. "Special Force" not only offers a revelatory history of the SAS in the modern period, it is also a disturbing expose of the truth behind the myth. It will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the British military - past, present and future.
Black Soldiers in the Rhodesian Army
Author : M. T. Howard
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 29,59 MB
Release : 2024-01-31
Category : History
ISBN : 1009348442
Book Description
Draws from original interviews to provide insight into why thousands of black soldiers fought loyally and effectively for the Rhodesian Army.
Fighting and Writing
Author : Luise White
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 179 pages
File Size : 27,8 MB
Release : 2021-02-08
Category : History
ISBN : 1478021284
Book Description
In Fighting and Writing Luise White brings the force of her historical insight to bear on the many war memoirs published by white soldiers who fought for Rhodesia during the 1964–1979 Zimbabwean liberation struggle. In the memoirs of white soldiers fighting to defend white minority rule in Africa long after other countries were independent, White finds a robust and contentious conversation about race, difference, and the war itself. These are writings by men who were ambivalent conscripts, generally aware of the futility of their fight—not brutal pawns flawlessly executing the orders and parroting the rhetoric of a racist regime. Moreover, most of these men insisted that the most important aspects of fighting a guerrilla war—tracking and hunting, knowledge of the land and of the ways of African society—were learned from black playmates in idealized rural childhoods. In these memoirs, African guerrillas never lost their association with the wild, even as white soldiers boasted of bringing Africans into the intimate spaces of regiment and regime.
A History of Counterinsurgency
Author : Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 717 pages
File Size : 47,85 MB
Release : 2015-05-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN :
Book Description
This two-volume history of counterinsurgency covers all the major and many of the lesser known examples of this widespread and enduring form of conflict, addressing the various measures employed in the attempt to overcome the insurgency and examining the individuals and organizations responsible for everything from counterterrorism to infrastructure building. How and when should counterinsurgency be pursued as insurgency is growing in frequency and, conversely, while conventional warfare continues to decline as a means by which political rivals seek to impose their will upon each other? What lessons from the past should today's policymakers, strategists, military leaders, and soldiers in the field keep in mind while facing off against 21st-century insurgents? This two-volume set offers a comprehensive history of modern counterinsurgency, covering the key examples of this widespread and enduring form of conflict. It identifies the political, military, social, and economic measures employed in attempting to overcome insurgency, examining the work of the individuals and organizations involved, demonstrating how success and failure dictated change from established policy, and carefully analyzing the results. Readers will gain valuable insight from the detailed assessments of the history of counterinsurgency that demonstrate which strategies have succeeded and which have failed—and why. After an introductory essay on the subject, each chapter provides historical background to the insurgency being addressed before focusing on the specific policies pursued and actions taken by the counterinsurgency force. Each section also provides an assessment of those operations, including in most cases an analysis of lessons learned and, where appropriate, their relevance to counterinsurgency operations today. The set's coverage spans modern counterinsurgencies from Europe to Asia to Africa since 1900 and includes the ongoing counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan today. Its wide, international approach to the subject makes the set a prime resource for readers seeking specific information on a particular conflict or a better understanding of the general theories and practices of counterinsurgency.
The Irish War
Author : Tony Geraghty
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 478 pages
File Size : 40,30 MB
Release : 2002-11-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9780801871177
Book Description
In The Irish War military veteran and historian Tony Geraghty reveals the sinister patterns of action and reaction in this generations-old domestic conflict. Drawing on public and covert sources, as well as interviews with members of British Intelligence, the security forces, and the Irish Republican Army, he brings to light the disturbing inner workings of an organized terrorist group and its military opposition.
Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare
Author : Daniel Marston
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 21,8 MB
Release : 2011-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1849086435
Book Description
A fascinating discussion of the development of counterinsurgency by experts in the field. Throughout history armies of occupation and civil power have been faced with the challenges of insurgency. British and American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has highlighted this form of conflict in the modern world. Armies have had to adopt new doctrines and tactics to deal with the problems of insurgency and diverse counterinsurgency strategies have been developed. Here, fourteen authors examine the development of counterinsurgency from the early 20th century to the present. Including information on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Afghanistan and Iraq this book is a timely and accessible survey of a critical facet of modern warfare. This new paperback edition features a revised introduction, updated chapters on Iraq and Afghanistan and a completely new chapter on Columbia by expert Thomas Marks.
Unpopular Sovereignty
Author : Luise White
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 50,75 MB
Release : 2015-03-23
Category : History
ISBN : 022623519X
Book Description
A truly satisfactory history of Rhodesia, one that takes into account both the African history and that of the whites, has never been written. That is, until now. In this book Luise White highlights the crucial tension between Rhodesia as it imagined itself and Rhodesia as it was imagined outside the country. Using official documents, novels, memoirs, and conversations with participants in the events taking place between 1965, when Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from Britain, and 1980 when indigenous African rule was established through the creation of the state of Zimbabwe, White reveals that Rhodesians represented their state as a kind of utopian place where white people dared to stand up for themselves and did what needed to be done. It was imagined to be a place vastly better than the decolonized dystopias to its north. In all these representations, race trumped all else including any notion of nation. Outside Rhodesia, on the other hand, it was considered a white supremacist utopia, a country that had taken its own independence rather than let white people live under black rule. Even as Rhodesia edged toward majority rule to end international sanctions and a protracted guerilla war, racialized notions of citizenship persisted. One man, one vote, became the natural logic of decolonization of this illegally independent minority-ruled renegade state. Voter qualification with its minutia of which income was equivalent to how many years of schooling, and how African incomes or years of schooling could be rendered equivalent to whites, illustrated the core of ideas about, and experiences of, racial domination. White s account of the politics of decolonization in this unprecedented historical situation reveals much about the general processes occurring elsewhere on the African continent."
Ending Civil War
Author : Matthew Preston
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 26,38 MB
Release : 2004-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 085771239X
Book Description
Matthew Preston returns politics to its rightful place at the heart of the study of internal conflict. Rejecting approaches that emphasise economics or ethnicity, this comparative investigation of the wars in Rhodesia and Lebanon sets out the complex political dynamic that eventually produced the ultimately sucessful peace agreements of Lancaster House and Taif respectively. It was a dynamic, though, in which the ebbs and flows of events at the negotiating table and on the battlefield played only a supporting role. Rather more significant were power struggles within belligerent parties that brought consolidated yet unscrupulous leadership, growing disempowerment and suffering of civilians of all communities, and the acquisition and subsequent leverage over the belligerents by regional powers. Yet the years of negotiation over seats in parliament failed to usher in a democratic era in either country. 'Peace' brought a de-escalation in violence, but the political struggle continued, to be won decisively by Robert Mugabe's ZANU(PF) in independent Zimbabwe, and by Syria and her allies in Lebanon. At a time when Western leaders proclaim the political necessity of addressing 'failed states', 'Ending Civil War' provides a salutary reminder that the competing elites of those failed states possess their own political agendas, ones frequently resistant to the command of great but distant powers. The primary agendas of civil war in Rhodesia and Lebanon were not those of economic greed, nor of ethnic hatred, but of the age-old phenomenon of the struggle for control: of organisations, of civilians, and, ultimately, of the state. The idioms of violence were those of the time - cyclical bouts of fighting, massacres, assassinations and kidnappings -but the deployment of limited violence for political ends was one which Carl von Clausewitz would clearly have recognised.
The Rhodesian War
Author : Paul L. Moorcraft
Publisher : Stackpole Books
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 43,5 MB
Release : 2010
Category : History
ISBN : 0811707253
Book Description
- The vicious conflict (1964-79) that brought Robert Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe - Expert coverage of the war, its historical context, and its aftermath - Descriptions of guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency operations, and actions by units like Grey's Scouts Amid the colonial upheaval of the 1960s, Britain urged its colony in Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) to grant its black residents a greater role in governing the territory. The white-minority government refused and soon declared its independence, a move bitterly opposed by the black majority. The result was the Rhodesian Bush War, which pitted the government against black nationalist groups, one of which was led by Robert Mugabe. Marked by unspeakable atrocities, the war ended in favor of the nationalists.
