Khedive Ismail's Army


Book Description

This book provides the first detailed examination in English of the Egyptian-Abyssinian War and looks at the root problems that made Ismail's soldiers ineffective, including class, racism, politics, finance, and changing military technology.




A Confederate Soldier in Egypt


Book Description

General Loring was one of many Confederate officers who after the close of the War of the Rebellion offered their services to foreign rulers. A number of these officers took their way to Egypt, and the author of this book was one of the most successful ot them all. He was made Pasha by the Khedive, and he rendered that ruler honorable and efficient service. It was natural that Loring Pasha should have been led to give his Egyptian experiences durable shape, and his book gives a clear and agreeably written account of the country. Such a writer has much more authority than the mere traveler. General Loring lived long in the country, and in intimate relations with persons at the centre of affairs; being withal a man of thought and intelligence he could not, with his opportunities, fail to acquire and retain impressions and facts of interest and value.




Race and Slavery in the Middle East


Book Description

In the 19th century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet little is known about them. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean.




The Extraordinary Life of Charles Pomeroy Stone


Book Description

Charles Pomeroy Stone (1824-1887) is best known for the 1861 Civil War battle at Ball's Bluff, Virginia, where a close associate of Lincoln's was killed while under Stone's command. Stone was blamed for his death and imprisoned without charges or trial. His story, however, goes far beyond that episode. Ranging from the Halls of Montezuma to Gold Rush California, and from the pyramids of Egypt to the foot of the Statue of Liberty, The Extraordinary Life of Charles Pomeroy Stone: Soldier, Surveyor, Pasha, Engineer by historian Blaine Lamb brings to light the many facets of Stone's remarkable life and career. After graduating from West Point, Stone served with General Winfield Scott in the Mexican-American War; he then commanded a military depot in San Francisco until joining a bank managed by William Tecumseh Sherman during the heady days of the Gold Rush. Stone was then recruited to survey Sonora, Mexico, for American interests. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Stone was in Washington, and his leadership was critical to protecting Lincoln and the city from Confederate attack. Given a field command, he was then made scapegoat for the Ball's Bluff debacle. After being released from prison, he served with distinction, leading a charge during the battle of Pleasant Hill. Following the war he was recommended by Sherman to the khedive of Egypt to modernize the Egyptian army. Serving nine years as "Stone Pasha," he entertained Ulysses S. Grant while the ex-president visited the country in 1878. Grant then recommended the only man he felt could carry out the complex job of constructing France's great gift to the United States: the Statue of Liberty. Stone rose to the challenge, quietly providing his expertise to erect this enduring national symbol. As the author weaves together these and other stories and characters, including Alexander von Humboldt, Thaddeus Lowe, Chinese Gordon, Khedive Ismail, and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the center of this tale of nineteenth-century adventure, war, and intrigue remains Stone himself, a man of honor, steadfast loyalty, and perseverance. -- Inside jacket flaps.




Security Assistance, U.S. and International Historical Perspectives: Proceedings of the Combat Studies Institute 2006 Military History Symposium


Book Description

Product Description: The proceedings from the Combat Studies Institute's 2006 Military History Symposium presents historical research, analysis and policy recommendations on the topic of Security Assistance and the training of indigenous forces.




Lord Methuen and the British Army


Book Description

This study analyzes the readiness of the British military establishment for war in 1899 and its performance in the South African War (1899-1902). It focuses on the career of Field Marshal Paul Sanford, 3rd Baron Methuen, whose traditional military training, used so effectively in Queen Victoria's small wars, was put to the test by the modern challenges of the South African War. A subsidiary aim of this work is to correct and refine the historical consensus that Methuen's campaing in the South African War was plagued by practical errors and poor judgement. The South African War was a crucial transitional episode in the history of the British army. Unlike Great Britain's other expeditions, it required the concentrated resources of the entire empire. It was a modern war in the sense that it employed the technology, the weaponry, the communications, and the transportation of the second industrial revolution.




Gun Barons


Book Description

John Bainbridge, Jr.'s Gun Barons is a narrative history of six charismatic and idiosyncratic men who changed the course of American history through the invention and refinement of repeating weapons. Love them or hate them, guns are woven deeply into the American soul. Names like Colt, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and Remington are legendary. Yet few people are aware of the roles these men played at a crucial time in United States history, from westward expansion in the 1840s, through the Civil War, and into the dawn of the Gilded Age. Through personal drive and fueled by bloodshed, they helped propel the young country into the forefront of the world's industrial powers. Their creations helped save a nation divided, while planting seeds that would divide the country again a century later. Their inventions embodied an intoxicating thread of American individualism—part fiction, part reality—that remains the foundation of modern gun culture. They promoted guns not only for the soldier, but for the Everyman, and also made themselves wealthy beyond their most fevered dreams. Gun Barons captures how their bold inventiveness dwelled in the psyche of an entire people, not just in the minds of men who made firearm fortunes. Whether we revere these larger-than-life men or vilify them, they helped forge the American character.




Arab Patriotism


Book Description

Arab Patriotism presents the essential backstory to the formation of the modern nation-state and mass nationalism in the Middle East. While standard histories claim that the roots of Arab nationalism emerged in opposition to the Ottoman milieu, Adam Mestyan points to the patriotic sentiment that grew in the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, arguing that it served as a pivotal way station on the path to the birth of Arab nationhood. Through extensive archival research, Mestyan examines the collusion of various Ottoman elites in creating this nascent sense of national belonging and finds that learned culture played a central role in this development. Mestyan investigates the experience of community during this period, engendered through participation in public rituals and being part of a theater audience. He describes the embodied and textual ways these experiences were produced through urban spaces, poetry, performances, and journals. From the Khedivial Opera House's staging of Verdi's Aida and the first Arabic magazine to the 'Urabi revolution and the restoration of the authority of Ottoman viceroys under British occupation, Mestyan illuminates the cultural dynamics of a regime that served as the precondition for nation-building in the Middle East. --




Arming the World


Book Description

Arming the World tells the story of the American small arms industry from the early 1800’s through the post-Civil War era. Almost from the beginning, the United States produced arms in new, and radically different, ways, relying upon machinery to mass produce guns when others still made them by hand. Leveraging their technological advantage, American gun-makers produced guns with interchangeable parts and perfected new types of small arms, ranging from revolvers to repeating rifles. The federal government’s staggering purchases of arms during the Civil War stimulated the development of fast-firing breech-loading rifles and metal-cased ammunition. When, in 1865, it became clear that every country in the world had re-equip itself with modern weapons, the Americans had an overwhelming head start. Salesmen from Remington, Winchester, Colt and Smith & Wesson --- and from lesser-known firms, too – traveled the world marketing their guns, dominating – or, perhaps, even inventing – the international arms business. American gun-makers sold rifles and side-arms by the millions and cartridges by the billions to great powers, restive colonies and fading empires alike. Adding a new element to the unstable global balance of power, American gun-makers affected the course of history.