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Royal Navy Force H 1940–42
Formed to project British naval power from Gibraltar, Force H was the Royal Navy''s unique strategic task force. This fully illustrated study explains its roles, organization and history.In June 1940, the fall of France and its powerful fleet completely changed the naval balance in both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. To counter this, the Admiralty formed Force H, a unique task force based at Gibraltar, which was assigned some of Britain’s most powerful capital ships. Command was given to James Somerville, one of Britain’s finest admirals, who reported directly to the Admiralty. Force H would be the Royal Navy’s ‘fire brigade’ in the theatre.In this book, naval historian Angus Konstam presents a detailed study of Force H’s purpose, capabilities, organization, and how it fought to dominate the seas around the crucial Straits of Gibraltar. Until the Italian surrender in 1943, Force H would be tasked with crucial actions from the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir to hunting the Bismarck in the Atlantic, and from Malta convoy escort to supporting Allied amphibious landings from Madagascar to Sicily.Packed with spectacular original artwork, maps and diagrams, it demonstrates how Force H, more than any other British naval force, had the strategic flexibility and firepower to turn the tide of war in not just one, but two vital theatres.
The Hump 1942–45
A comprehensively illustrated history and analysis of ''The Hump'' campaign in World War II, the huge and treacherous airlift over the Himalayas to keep China fighting.In World War II, the war in China tied down much of the Japanese Army, and it was crucial to keep China fighting and supplied. But when the Burma Road fell, the only way left was by air, in piston-engined transports, over the Himalayas from India. As Japan captured new bases and stationed fighters to intercept, the possible routes over ''The Hump'' became increasingly treacherous. In this book, aviation historian Mark Lardas explains how the campaign was fought. While the effort started with only 25 transports and its original organization was ad hoc, by July 1945 it had grown into a vast and organized air armada, with new airfields, specialized navigation aids, and a force of 640 aircraft. The cost was high, with 594 aircraft lost, and over 1,300 killed. But during the war it hauled nearly 700,000 tons of supplies, keeping China in the war. The India-China Wing of the Air Traffic Command earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its efforts, the first ever awarded to a non-combat unit. Packed with illustrations and maps, this is the story of the first successful strategic airlift in history. The lessons of the Hump fed into the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, and it was the essential forerunner behind the United States'' capability to project power in the Cold War.
Knowledge and Narrative
This Element is concerned with narrative as a mode of knowing. It draws attention to the epistemic value of historical narrative qua narrative. This it does not only in an abstract sense, but also with the help of recent works of history. Special attention is given to narrative sentences and narrative theses. A narrative thesis redescribes the actions and events the historian is concerned with and allows for the temporal whole or unity we associate with narrative, with its beginning, middle, and end. A thesis, it is argued, is indispensable and qualifies the work of historians as narrative. The concern with narrative has not lost any of its relevance, for the simple reason that it informs us about history as an academic discipline and the knowledge it produces. For as long as historians decide what events are important in their past and for what reason, they will rely on narrative.
The Indian Caliphate
The remarkable story of the last Ottoman Caliph, exiled by Atatürk, who tried to recreate the Caliphate in the Indian princely state of Hyderabad.Abdulmecid II was a talented painter, music enthusiast and Francophile. He was also the last Ottoman Caliph, expelled from Istanbul in March 1924 when Turkey abolished the 1,300-year-old Caliphate.From his villa on the French Riviera, Abdulmecid launched a plan to resurrect the institution and transform world history. Indian politician Shaukat Ali brokered a marital alliance between the Ottomans and the Nizam of Hyderabad, the world’s richest prince, who governed a state the size of Italy in the Indian subcontinent. This saw the union of Islam’s two greatest houses, and of the Islamic west and east. It cemented Hyderabad’s status as a global Muslim capital, and left Abdulmecid’s grandson, the Ottoman prince and the designated Nizam-in-waiting, perfectly placed to claim the Caliphate. But Partition in 1947 and the annexation of Hyderabad the following year spelled the end of this prospect. Exploring the lives, cultures and sensibilities of an amazing cast of players, The Indian Caliphate details this extraordinary history, which for decades has been consigned to near oblivion. This story of the downfall of two Muslim dynasties reveals a forgotten fact: that India was, in many ways, the very epicentre of the Islamic world in the early twentieth century.
Fifth Sun
In November 1519, Hernando Cortés walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story--and the story of what happened afterwards--has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all, we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native Americans were intrigued by the Roman alphabet and, unbeknownst to the newcomers, they used it to write detailed histories in their own language of Nahuatl. Until recently, these sources remained obscure, only partially translated, and rarely consulted by scholars. For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes. The conquest, in this work, is neither an apocalyptic moment, nor an origin story launching Mexicans into existence. The Mexica people had a history of their own long before the Europeans arrived and did not simply capitulate to Spanish culture and colonization. Instead, they realigned their political allegiances, accommodated new obligations, adopted new technologies, and endured. This engaging revisionist history of the Aztecs, told through their own words, explores the experience of a once-powerful people facing the trauma of conquest and finding ways to survive, offering an empathetic interpretation for experts and non-specialists alike.
Oil Lamps in the Holy Land during the Early and Later Islamic Periods (7th–16th/17th CE)
This volume is the last in a comprehensive catalogue of oil lamps in the collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority. It considers the final stage of development in the shaping and decoration of pottery lamps, drawing from earlier forms to gradually become distinct lamps in their own right while retaining characteristics of their forerunners. The change of shape from a saucer to a small closed lamp was subject to both western and eastern influences and guided the local workshops for the next thousand years. The lamps of the Islamic period clearly demonstrate this continuity, incorporating the ethnic and cultural changes among Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy Land.This is readily discernible in the Islamic period, when lamp production throughout the country became ''culturally'' unified, as expressed by the general avoidance of depicting ethnic symbols. The lamps from the Islamic period are easily recognizable by their linear style of decoration (no relief, the avoidance of figural art). The acceptance of the shape of these lamps and their division into sections with a central pattern (the decorated ''channel'') – suggested here as a Christian means of perceiving the lamp and its light as a divine vessel – was now further adapted through the pattern along the center of the ''nozzle'' under the wick hole, rendering the torch from which the flame/light emanated (or the shrine and hanging lamp (the wick hole) beneath the lamp’s vault) as an integral part of the pattern resting on the filling hole.
Warriors of the Dark Ages
Were the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks and Saxons as mindlessly violent as popular belief suggests? Or were they only too human, struggling for freedom and surviva? ociety was in turmoil – political instability and economic uncertainty divided loyalties in Europe. Entrepreneurs and opportunists were prepared to risk all in bids for power. Men such as Attila the Hun, Gaiseric the Vandal and Alaric the Goth pitted their wits against the leaders of the rapidly mutating Roman establishment in the fourth to sixth centuries. Studded with painstakingly researched anecdotes of scandal, court gossip, superstition and fanatical religious beliefs, Warriors of the Dark Ages takes a refreshing look at a complex story of pawns and manipulators, saints and sinners, which was resolved when people with very different values and outlooks learned to accept each other. The finale was uplifting – a tale of human conflict painfully moulded into a brilliant new future as modern Europe and its component states. Through the writings of ancient commentators, glimpse the love, hate, treachery and, at times, humour as prevalent in the European Dark Ages as they are today.
Indo-Aryans in the Bronze Age
This volume is devoted to the origins and early history of the Indo-Aryans. According to the generally accepted theory, they originated in the Eurasian steppe, from where they subsequently migrated to the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau. However, evidence to support these developments is lacking. The author has collected linguistic, palaeogenetic and archaeological data to reconstruct the processes that occurred in the Eneolithic and Bronze Age over large areas of Eurasia, demonstrating that the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Iranians was in Northwestern Iran. From there some migrated to Southeastern Iran, which led to the emergence of Indo-Aryan dialects around the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, the migration of Indo-Aryan tribes to the north-east of Iran and Central Asia began, which later culminated with migration to India, as well as to the Near East, Eastern Europe, the Southern Urals and, occasionally, to Southern Siberia.
Hansando and Busan 1592
A detailed look at Admiral Yi''s four 1592 sorties that defeated the Japanese navy and established him as a national hero.In 1592, Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin planned a series of attacks against the Japanese navy. His first two campaigns saw him destroy several isolated Japanese squadrons engaged in coastal raiding activities. Once informed of these attacks, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered his daimyos to assemble their ships in a dedicated task force to meet Yi in battle. In his third campaign, Yi was able to successfully lure out a Japanese fleet and destroy it in August at the Battle of Hansando. Yi and his ships then sunk fleets at Angolpo. To capitalize on this victory, the Koreans then bombarded the Japanese fleet at Busan in September.With period images, colourful artwork and detailed maps, this book delves into Admiral Yi''s tactics, which were decisive to stopping the momentum of the Japanese advance into Korea. These naval engagements destabilized the Japanese grip on the southern coast and ended hopes of sustaining their armies by sea. Historian Yuhan Kim brings to life the actions of one of the greatest naval commanders in the world and explores why Admiral Yi was so successful.
The Indian Army at War 1947–99
This absorbing study describes and illustrates the Indian Army forces that fought in five wars during the second half of the 20th century.The Indian Army is the world’s largest volunteer army, with an enviable history and tradition of valour and gallantry. It was involved in warfare soon after India’s independence and has fought five wars between 1947 and 1999, notably against Pakistan (1947–48, 1965, 1971 and 1999) but also against China (1962). Besides these, the Indian Army has been involved in smaller internal conflicts and counter-insurgency operations, some of which continue. The Indian Army has also carried out two military interventions overseas, namely in the Maldives (1988) and in Sri Lanka (1987–90).The troops who fought in these operations, culminating in 1999’s Kargil War against Pakistan, are described and illustrated in this book, written by an Indian Army veteran. The Indian Army’s evolving uniforms, insignia and personal equipment are depicted in photographs, some previously unpublished, and eight plates of original colour artwork. The book is an important contribution to our understanding of the Indian Army’s contribution to global military history since Independence in 1947.
The Home Front
Prior to the American Revolution, the urban centers of colonial North America had little direct experience of war. With the outbreak of violence, British forces occupied every major city, invading the most private of spaces: the home. By closely considering the dynamics of the household —how people moved within it, thought about it, and wielded power over it— The Home Front reveals the ways in which occupation fundamentally upended the structures of colonial society and created opportunities for unprecedented economic and social mobility. In occupied cities, British officers usurped male authority to quarter themselves with families, patriot wives governed households in their husbands' absence, daughters flirted with officers, domestic servants disappeared with soldiers, and enslaved kin absconded to British lines in pursuit of freedom. As Lauren Duval shows, the unique conditions of occupation produced an aggrieved American population bound by shared emotional distress and domestic disorder. In the wake of this deeply disorienting experience, elite Americans deliberately reconsecrated the private home as a national symbol that epitomized masculine authority. Building on a stunning wealth of primary sources, Duval vividly captures daily life during the Revolution through the eyes and ears of those who intimately experienced it, showing how men and women of all races, statuses, and states of freedom understood its implications for their lives, families, and the nascent American Republic.
'If Any Person Will Meddle of My Cause'
Heather R. Darsie reviews the political missteps and implications of Anne Boleyn’s queenship. She dives deeper into the threat Anne posed to Henry, and why legal changes made during the early years of the English Reformation allowed Henry VIII to judicially murder his inconvenient queen. Anne’s choice of attire, reported last words, mode of execution, and burial all point to a significant religious element which has not been explored before. Anne wore colours traditionally associated with martyrdom, announced that she did not come to preach, was executed by beheading instead of burning, and had a very crude burial in an unmarked grave. These elements point to Henry - and Anne - viewing her death as being motivated by Anne’s religious faux pas. Anne tried to portray herself as a martyr, and Henry did everything he could to prevent Anne from reaching that status. The author shows that Anne supported French Reformists, including those involved in the alarming French Affair of the Placards in late 1534, asking Henry to petition for the release of at least one of the heretics, and then bringing him to England. This is a different Anne.
Agent of Change
In Agent of Change Huda Mukbil takes us behind the curtain of a leading spy agency during a fraught time, recounting her experiences as an intelligence officer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Mukbil was the first Black Arab-Canadian Muslim woman to join CSIS and was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism after 9/11. Mukbil’s mastery of four languages quickly made her a counterterrorism expert and a uniquely valuable asset to the organization. But as she worked with colleagues to confront new international threats, she also struggled for acceptance and recognition at the agency. Following the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the rise of homegrown extremism, Mukbil was framed as an inside threat. Determined to prove her loyalty, while equally concerned about the surveillance and profiling of Muslims and revelations of Western agencies’ torture and torture by proxy, Mukbil started to question CSIS’s fluctuating ethical stance in relation to its mandate. Her stellar work on a secondment to MI5, the British Security Service, earned commendation; this shielded her, but only temporarily, from the hostile workplace culture at CSIS. Ultimately, Mukbil and a group of colleagues went public about the pervasive institutional discrimination undermining CSIS and national security from within. Mukbil’s expertise in international security and her commitment to workplace transparency drove important changes at CSIS. Dazzlingly written, her account is an eye-opener for anyone wanting to understand how racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia undermine not only individuals, but institutions and the national interest – and how addressing this openly can tackle populism and misinformation.
Trauma Beyond Time
Trauma Beyond Time: Temporal Constructs in Holocaust Testimonies challenges our understanding of what it means to be a Holocaust survivor, arguing that the term "post-Holocaust" fundamentally misrepresents survivors' experiences. Through careful analysis of Holocaust literature and testimony, this book reveals how trauma persists across generations, defying conventional historical timelines. For those who perished, there can be no "after" to the Holocaust—their stories were violently ended. Yet for survivors, the Holocaust didn't simply conclude in 1945. Their experiences demonstrate how trauma continues to shape lives decades later, making "post-Holocaust" a misleading concept that fails to capture their ongoing reality. Using the multigenerational testimony of the Tabak family as a case study, this research shows how trauma disrupts linear time, creating a continuous present where past horrors remain alive. The author examines Holocaust diaries that end abruptly with their authors' deaths, alongside memoirs that document how survivors navigate a world forever altered by their experiences. Perhaps most profound is the examination of intergenerational trauma, where descendants inherit the psychological imprint of events they never personally witnessed. For these individuals, there is no "before" the Holocaust—only its ongoing echoes through family memory and inherited trauma. By reconsidering how we frame survivorship, this book calls for a more nuanced, trauma-informed approach to Holocaust studies that honors the continuing reality of survivors' experiences.
Arrested Development
Winner of the Marshall Shulman Book Prize of the Harriman Institute of Columbia UniversityWinner of the W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian StudiesIn Arrested Development, Alessandro Iandolo examines the USSR's role in West Africa during the 1950s and 1960s as an aid donor, trade partner, and political model for newly independent Ghana, Guinea, and Mali. With a strong economy in the 1950s, the USSR expanded its global outreach, supporting economic development in post-colonial Africa and Asia. Many nations saw the Soviet model as a path to political and economic independence. Drawing on extensive Russian and West African archival research, Iandolo explores Soviet ideas, sponsored projects, and their lasting impact. Soviet specialists worked alongside West African colleagues to design ambitious development plans, build infrastructure, establish collective farms, survey mineral resources, and manage banking and trade. These collaborations - and the tensions they created - shed light on how Soviet and West African visions of development intersected. Arrested Development positions the USSR as a key player in twentieth-century economic history, reshaping global approaches to modernization.
A Tempestuous Sea of Liberty
The final work by late historian Thomas N. Ingersoll on the political crisis posed by the presidential election of 1800—the reverberations of which are still felt today. Written by the late Thomas Ingersoll before his death in December 2021, this book examines the fourteen-month struggle to control the identity and future of the United States following George Washington’s death in December 1799. In this period, Americans engaged in a fierce debate over every aspect of political life, but especially over the meaning of egalitarianism and equality in the nascent nation. Ingersoll’s work focuses in particular on the divisions between two emergent national political parties: the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. Both were “democratic,” strictly speaking, but they were still nervous about what “democracy” actually meant. Each party was also deeply divided along a spectrum from most moderate to most extreme. After a fraught election campaign shaped by disagreements over fundamental issues of class, gender, race, and religion, the populist Democratic-Republicans sent the moderately progressive Thomas Jefferson to the White House and won control of the House of Representatives. This victory ended twelve long years of Federalist domination and began one of the greatest political dramas in American history. Rather than accepting their electoral defeat, the Federalists sought to subvert the will of the people and sow chaos and anarchy in the courts and in Congress, nearly tearing the country apart in the process. The Revolution of 1800 did nothing to stem the tide of a growing sectionalism that threatened to unmoor the nation but rather moved the country one step closer to all-out civil war. A Tempestuous Sea of Liberty is a magisterial history of this pivotal period in American history, written by a senior historian in full command of the material.
The Military Austin Ten
The military Austin Ten, also known as the Austin Ten ‘Tilly’ Light Utility Truck, accompanied British forces from Dunkirk to D-Day and from Northern Europe to North Africa during the Second World War. Although it would be overshadowed by the more adaptable jeep, with its 4x4 off-road capabilities, the military Austin 10 carried out a wide range of duties for the British armed forces and was one of the vehicles on which the young Princess Elizabeth learned her mechanic skills in the Auxiliary Training Service (ATS).This fascinating book charts the development of both the Austin Ten saloon car and the military specification vehicle that was developed from it to produce a robust and dependable vehicle. The book shows how the roles of the military Austin Ten ranged from light deliveries, message carrying and reconnaissance. It was so popular that, after the war ended, it was used in civilian roles by demobbed servicemen starting new trades.Accompanied by both archive and modern photographs of both original and restored vehicles, this is an indispensable concise guide to one of the British armed forces’ most loved Second World War vehicles.
Misfire
Of all the Allied strategic defensive campaigns in the first half of World War II, the fight to defend Malaya and Singapore provided perhaps the best chance to use special forces to wider effect. In December 1941 the issue in the East during World War II was whether or not the Japanese could drive the Western Allies out of Southeast Asia before the Allies could reinforce strongly enough to prevent it. Consequently, the British Army organized, trained, and specifically equipped special-forces combat units to operate independently, for long periods of time if necessary, physically separated from the main forces in the field. British Army special-forces units were usually directed to carry out two broad but often closely related missions: provide direct assistance to main force operations; and harass enemy movements, lines of supply, and communications. Special forces were also frequently used to destroy specific targets, sometimes in completely independent operations with no main force in the field, and especially to act as the eyes and ears of the main force, gathering intelligence on enemy movements and or screening those of friendly forces. In Misfire, Brian Farrell analyzes how and why the British Army developed special forces in the early years of World War II; what uses it made of them; and the role that special and irregular forces played in defending Malaya and Singapore against Japanese invasion, from prewar preparations to capitulation in February 1942. Farrell’s examination of the use of special and irregular forces helps us understand both the Malayan campaign and wider efforts to defend Southeast Asia as well as what that campaign tells us about the evolution of such forces in the British and Empire armies.
Industrializing Iron Construction at the Ecole Centrale Paris, 1829-1865
As industrialization began to evolve in the early nineteenth century, engineers were urgently needed to integrate science into the field of construction. They needed to learn how to innovate and understand the new material—iron. Industrializing Iron Construction at the École Centrale Paris, 1829–1865 explains a novel response to that need, a successful new school to educate civil and structural engineers, architects, contractors, and industrialists who would become major players in the development of modern iron construction. Among them were two of the most prominent creators of our modern world—Eiffel, of the thousand-foot tower, and Jenney, of Chicago skyscraper fame. The École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris created a unique pedagogy that taught not only how to solve problems, but how to innovate. This is the lively account of how that happened. It traces the sources of French education in engineering and architecture and follows the careers and ideas of the chief players. Familiar faces like the architect Jean-Nicolas Louis Durand, the École Polytechnique's founder Gaspard Monge, the bridge builder Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, and the theoretician Gaspard Riche de Prony appear in a new light. Half-remembered pioneers like the railway builder Eugene Flachat gain prominence. Forgotten innovators like César Leblanc, the creator of technical drafting, or Alphonse Halbou, who patented the rolled I-beam, resurface. New names like Auguste Perdonnet, a railway promotor, the theoretician Jean-Baptiste Bélanger, or the three-generation Roussel contracting family emerge. Even the French empress Eugénie takes an active part in the development. The school's success was a product of the interaction of its pioneers, their collaborations, and their clashes. Industrializing Iron Construction at the École Centrale Paris, 1829–1865 uncovers new sources to view icons of nineteenth-century construction from a fresh perspective. Structures we know so well suddenly emerge in a new light. The reading room of the Bibliotheque nationale de France, the iron-framed Moulin Menier, or the record-spanning Galerie des Machines point the way to a new understanding of structure and construction. A brand-new school created by an enthusiastically motivated group of innovators initiated our modern age in engineering and architectural education.
V kategórii populárno - náučné encyklopédie nájdete široký výber kníh, ktoré vám poskytnú poznatky z rôznych oblastí zaujímavým a zrozumiteľným spôsobom. Encyklopédie vám pomôžu získať komplexný prehľad o rôznych témach, ako ľudské telo a človek, príroda, vesmír, veda a technika a história.
Naša ponuka encyklopédií populárno-náučného charakteru vám umožní objaviť fascinujúci svet poznania a rozšíriť svoje vedomosti o rôznych témach.



























