Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Allure of Battle PDF full book. Access full book title The Allure of Battle by Cathal Nolan. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Cathal Nolan Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199874654 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains - from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon - play a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare.
Author: Cathal Nolan Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199874654 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains - from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon - play a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare.
Author: Cathal J. Nolan Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195383788 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 729
Book Description
"History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains--from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon--played a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but mataeriel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare."--Provided by publisher.
Author: William Garrett Piston Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 9780807855751 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 436
Book Description
In the summer of 1861, Americans were preoccupied by the question of which states would join the secession movement and which would remain loyal to the Union. This question was most fractious in the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In Mi
Author: Carter Malkasian Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1573568856 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
A war of attrition is usually conceptualized as a bloody slogging match, epitomized by imagery of futile frontal assaults on the Western Front of the First World War. As such, many academics, politicians, and military officers currently consider attrition to be a wholly undesirable method of warfare. This first book-length study of wars of attrition challenges this viewpoint. A historical analysis of the strategic thought behind attrition demonstrates that it was often implemented to conserve casualties, not to engage in a bloody senseless assault. Moreover, attrition frequently proved an effective means of attaining a state's political aims in warfare, particularly in serving as a preliminary to decisive warfare, reducing risk of escalation, and coercing an opponent in negotiations. Malkasian analyzes the thought of commanders who implemented policies of attrition from 1789 to the present. His study includes figures central to the study of war, such as the Duke of Wellington, Carl von Clausewitz, B. H. Liddell Hart, General William Slim, General Douglas MacArthur, General Matthew Ridgeway, and General William Westmoreland. While special attention is devoted to the Second World War in the Pacific and the Korean War, this study notes the utility of attrition during the Cold War, as the risk of a Third World War rendered more aggressive strategies unattractive. Increasingly, the United States finds itself facing conflicts that are not amenable to a decisive military solution in which opponents seek prolonged war that will inflict as many casualties as possible on American forces.
Author: Russell F. Weigley Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 9780253217073 Category : History Languages : ru Pages : 608
Book Description
"One of the most interesting, important, and ambitious books about the conduct, and perhaps the ultimate futility, of war." --Gunther E. Rothenberg " A] highly scholarly and wonderfully absorbing study." --John Bayley, The London Review of Books "What Russell F. Weigley writes, the rest of us read. The Age of Battles is a persuasive reminder that even in the age of 'rational' warfare, one can honestly wonder why war seemed an unavoidable policy choice." --Allan R. Millett, The Journal of American History
Author: Max Hastings Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0195205286 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 530
Book Description
This colleciton of anecdotes is principally concerned with American and British conflicts. Hastings has sought stories that illustrate the military condition through the ages, both on the battlefield and in the barracks.
Author: Robert M. Citino Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700616551 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 392
Book Description
Since the earliest days of warfare, military operations have followed a predictable formula: after a decisive battle, an army must pursue the enemy and destroy its organization in order to achieve a victorious campaign. But by the mid-nineteenth century, the emergence of massive armies and advanced weaponry--and the concomitant decline in the effectiveness of cavalry--had diminished the practicality of pursuit, producing campaigns that bogged down short of decisive victory. Great battles had become curiously indecisive, decisive campaigns virtually impossible. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the inability to achieve decisive victories in warfare had become the single greatest military problem facing modern armies. Robert Citino now tells how European military leaders analyzed and eventually overcame this problem by restoring pursuit to its rightful place in combat and resurrecting the possibility of decisive warfare on the operational level. Quest for Decisive Victory chronicles the evolution of European warfare during the first half of the twentieth century. A study of war at the operational level, it demonstrates the interplay and tension between technology and doctrine in warfare and reveals how problems surrounding mobility--including such factors as supply lines, command and control, and prewar campaign planning--forced armies to find new ways of fighting. Citino focuses on key campaigns of both major and minor conflicts. Minor wars before 1914 (Boer, Russo-Japanese, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-13) featured instructive examples of operational maneuver; the First World War witnessed the collapse of operations and the rise of attrition warfare; the Italo-Ethiopian and Spanish Civil Wars held some promise for breaking out of stalemate by incorporating such innovations as air and tank warfare. Ultimately, it was Germany's opening blitzkrieg of World War II that resurrected the decisive campaign as an operational possibility. By grafting new technologies-tanks, aircraft, and radio-onto a long tradition of maneuver warfare, the Wehrmacht won decisive victories in the first year of the war and in the process transformed modern military doctrine. Citino's study is important for shifting the focus from military theory and doctrine to detailed operational analyses of actual campaigns that formed the basis for the revival of military doctrine. Quest for Decisive Victory gives scholars of military history a better grasp of that elusive concept and a more complete understanding of modern warfare.
Author: Chris Hedges Publisher: PublicAffairs ISBN: 1610395107 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.” Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies—corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.
Author: Susan Jacoby Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300155840 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 267
Book Description
Books on Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss abound, as countless scholars have labored to uncover the facts behind Chambers's shocking accusation before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the summer of 1948, that Alger Hiss, a former rising star in the State Department, had been a Communist and engaged in espionage. In this work, the author turns her attention to the Hiss case, including his trial and imprisonment for perjury, as a mirror of shifting American political views and passions.
Author: Todd Burke Porterfield Publisher: ISBN: 9780691059594 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
From monumental battle paintings to the public display of archaeological spoils to the decoration of urban vistas, visual culture promoted modern French imperialism. So argues Todd Porterfield in this provocative look at the forces of art and politics in France's military conquest of the Near East. In challenging the conventional wisdom that France happened into imperial venture, Porterfield explores interactions among artists, generals, journalists, curators, and politicians from the time of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign to the invasion of Algeria during the Restoration and July Monarchy. Together they forged an official culture that provided a rationale for imperialism--based on images of France's moral and technological superiority--and an enduring project for Frenchmen of all political persuasions during an era of domestic instability. The allure of empire derived in part from its function as an alternative, surrogate, mask, and displacement of the Revolution. Porterfield reveals the interlocking strategies, the historical, scientific, moralistic, and gendered judgments, that imperial art conveyed in a strikingly rich variety of media: the obelisk at the Place de la Concorde, battle paintings of the Egyptian campaign, the first Egyptian Museum in the Louvre, and Delacroix's Women of Algiers. Not only do his analyses engage a wide range of urgent debates within cultural studies, but they also shed light on a troubling question. How in the age oflibert,, egalit,, and fraternit, was visual culture enlisted to fabricate a sense of national superiority that led to the subjugation of others?
Author: Cathal Nolan
Author: Cathal Nolan
Author: Cathal J. Nolan
Author: William Garrett Piston
Author: Carter Malkasian
Author: Russell F. Weigley
Author: Max Hastings
Author: Robert M. Citino
Author: Chris Hedges
Author: Susan Jacoby
Author: Todd Burke Porterfield