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Author: Reed R. Bonadonna Publisher: US Naval Institute Press ISBN: 9781682470671 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
When Kipling says in "The Young British Soldier," "I'll sing you a soldier as fair as I may," he reminds us that a soldier is made of the words of poetry, history, and the laws and language of his calling. The complete solider is not only a contributor to the civilization that he or she serves. Drawing from military history, sociology, and other disciplines, Solidiers and Civilization covers the history of the military profession in the Western world from the ancient Greeks to the present day and shows how both soldiers and their civilizations have helped mold each other over time. Reed Bonadonna goes beyond traditional insights to locate the military profession in the context of both literary and cultural history, maintaining that soldiers have made an unacknowledged contribution to the theory and practice of civilization, and that they will again be called upon to do so in important ways. Throughout history soldiers have sought instruction and inspiration from the past to gain insight into modern conflicts. Military professionals of today must know, heed, and apply the examples and narrative of the most successful and exemplary of their predecessors to help advance a civilization into its future. However, this process can succeed only when it includes critical self-examination and a discourse with the larger society it serves. Soldiers and Civilization argues that the military profession, in its broadest consideration, might be viewed as an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities, a repository of important practical and abstract knowledge on armed conflict, ethics, community, and human nature. By representing and upholding the values on which civilization is founded, true military professionals provide the stability for it to thrive and create new ideas, thereby ensuring an existential symbiosis that serves and preserves both. -- from dust jacket.
Author: Reed R. Bonadonna Publisher: US Naval Institute Press ISBN: 9781682470671 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
When Kipling says in "The Young British Soldier," "I'll sing you a soldier as fair as I may," he reminds us that a soldier is made of the words of poetry, history, and the laws and language of his calling. The complete solider is not only a contributor to the civilization that he or she serves. Drawing from military history, sociology, and other disciplines, Solidiers and Civilization covers the history of the military profession in the Western world from the ancient Greeks to the present day and shows how both soldiers and their civilizations have helped mold each other over time. Reed Bonadonna goes beyond traditional insights to locate the military profession in the context of both literary and cultural history, maintaining that soldiers have made an unacknowledged contribution to the theory and practice of civilization, and that they will again be called upon to do so in important ways. Throughout history soldiers have sought instruction and inspiration from the past to gain insight into modern conflicts. Military professionals of today must know, heed, and apply the examples and narrative of the most successful and exemplary of their predecessors to help advance a civilization into its future. However, this process can succeed only when it includes critical self-examination and a discourse with the larger society it serves. Soldiers and Civilization argues that the military profession, in its broadest consideration, might be viewed as an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities, a repository of important practical and abstract knowledge on armed conflict, ethics, community, and human nature. By representing and upholding the values on which civilization is founded, true military professionals provide the stability for it to thrive and create new ideas, thereby ensuring an existential symbiosis that serves and preserves both. -- from dust jacket.
Author: Lorien Foote Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 146966528X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 313
Book Description
During the Civil War, Union and Confederate politicians, military commanders, everyday soldiers, and civilians claimed their approach to the conflict was civilized, in keeping with centuries of military tradition meant to restrain violence and preserve national honor. One hallmark of civilized warfare was a highly ritualized approach to retaliation. This ritual provided a forum to accuse the enemy of excessive behavior, to negotiate redress according to the laws of war, and to appeal to the judgment of other civilized nations. As the war progressed, Northerners and Southerners feared they were losing their essential identity as civilized, and the attention to retaliation grew more intense. When Black soldiers joined the Union army in campaigns in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, raiding plantations and liberating enslaved people, Confederates argued the war had become a servile insurrection. And when Confederates massacred Black troops after battle, killed white Union foragers after capture, and used prisoners of war as human shields, Federals thought their enemy raised the black flag and embraced savagery. Blending military and cultural history, Lorien Foote's rich and insightful book sheds light on how Americans fought over what it meant to be civilized and who should be extended the protections of a civilized world.
Author: Lawrence H. Keeley Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199880700 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as "the pacification of the past"). Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared even women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children (a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus). In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley is a seasoned writer and his book is packed with vivid, eye-opening details (for instance, that the homicide rate of prehistoric Illinois villagers may have exceeded that of the modern United States by some 70 times). But he also goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.
Author: Reed Bonadonna Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 0811769372 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 235
Book Description
The U.S. military invests heavily in time and resources to train its officers to be leaders in the broadest sense – forming them not only in military art and science (strategy, tactics, command, etc.), but also in humanistic knowledge, character, and values, as well as how to apply this education on a lightning-fast battlefield or within an inertially slow bureaucracy. The military develops its leaders, at the service academies and in ROTC programs, through very specific but also broad and deep education – a way of thinking that also has wide application in the civilian world, not only in various professional fields that need leaders and thinkers, but also among military history enthusiasts who want to understand how officers have thought across time and among American citizens who want – and, really, need – to understand how our military leaders think, how they advise presidents, how they lead on the battlefield. In a genre-busting book that spans Stackpole’s two longstanding military programs – reference and history – Reed Bonadonna describes how officers think, how they ought to think, how they develop their skills, and how they can improve these skills, as well as how average civilians and citizens can learn from the example of military officers and their program of education. Bonadonna draws from military history, from military arts and science, from literature and science and more, to show how officers develop their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. A military officer is often called upon to be not only fighter and leader, but also negotiator, organizer, planner and preparer, teacher, writer, scientist, and advisor, and needs broad learning. This is a deeply learned and insightful book, one that cites Lincoln, Grant, Patton, Eisenhower, Marshall, and Churchill as easily as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, not to mention Homer, Plato, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, George Orwell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Joseph Heller, Phil Klay, and even Jane Austen. The book is descriptive as well as prescriptive and should find eager readers inside the military (where officers take seriously their professional education and their professional reading lists) as well as outside, where many look to the military, to military reading lists, and to military history, to glean lessons for life and work.
Author: Reid Mitchell Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0140263330 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
The soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were united by a common history, and yet the legacy of this past was ambiguous, upholding both rebellion and union. Union and Confederate men went to war as Americans, convinced they fought an un-American, savage enemy. The war they fought was as emotional and catastrophic as any in history, a violent crucible that forged a new national identity. Civil War Soldiers is a fresh and compelling attempt to fathom the war's significance—then and now—and makes immediate the charged issues and bitter ironies of a nation torn by a conflict over the common ideals of liberty and justice. Drawing on diaries and letters, the focus of this pioneering study is on the men who fought, caught up in a conflict whose causes and consequences seemed as complex and contradictory to the soldiers themselves as they do to us. Reid Mitchell re-creates their experience and discusses the questions one would have most wanted to ask them: Why did you fight? How did you feel about slavery and race? What did you take home from the war? What legacy have you left us? "Fresh insights, startling descriptions, and poignant human detail about the war from the men who fought it."—Chicago Tribune
Author: Niall Ferguson Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101548029 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 432
Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.
Author: Andre Norton Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises ISBN: 1618242989 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 508
Book Description
Andre Norton-Grand Mistress of science fiction-presents a grand tapestry of the far-flung interstellar future, in which the first starships from Earth have burst out into the universe . . . only to run straight into the restraining grasp of the stagnant alien federation known as Central Control. Only as interstellar mercenaries can humans go to the stars; the aliens who already dominate the galaxy allow no other recourse. But when Swordsman Third Class Kana Karr and his comrades-in-arms are betrayed and abandoned on a hostile world by their alien masters, the warriors from Earth begin a desperate but glorious march across a planet whose every sword is against them. Their actions may doom humanity's future . . . or lead the way to an empire of their own! Four thousand years later, galactic civilization is collapsing, and the underfunded crew of an exploration starship is forced to set down on an uncharted planet: a mysterious, abandoned world that is achingly beautiful-and hauntingly familiar. Ranger Sergeant Kartr, telepath and stellar Patrolman, searches with his crewmates for the source of a beacon which may mean escape for them all. What he finds is far stranger: the first clue to what may become the greatest revelation in galactic history! The defining events of future historyas only Andre Norton could tell them! At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
Author: Margaret MacMillan Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1984856146 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 332
Book Description
Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.
Author: Mary Louise Roberts Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226923096 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 364
Book Description
How do you convince men to charge across heavily mined beaches into deadly machine-gun fire? Do you appeal to their bonds with their fellow soldiers, their patriotism, their desire to end tyranny and mass murder? Certainly—but if you’re the US Army in 1944, you also try another tack: you dangle the lure of beautiful French women, waiting just on the other side of the wire, ready to reward their liberators in oh so many ways. That’s not the picture of the Greatest Generation that we’ve been given, but it’s the one Mary Louise Roberts paints to devastating effect in What Soldiers Do. Drawing on an incredible range of sources, including news reports, propaganda and training materials, official planning documents, wartime diaries, and memoirs, Roberts tells the fascinating and troubling story of how the US military command systematically spread—and then exploited—the myth of French women as sexually experienced and available. The resulting chaos—ranging from flagrant public sex with prostitutes to outright rape and rampant venereal disease—horrified the war-weary and demoralized French population. The sexual predation, and the blithe response of the American military leadership, also caused serious friction between the two nations just as they were attempting to settle questions of long-term control over the liberated territories and the restoration of French sovereignty. While never denying the achievement of D-Day, or the bravery of the soldiers who took part, What Soldiers Do reminds us that history is always more useful—and more interesting—when it is most honest, and when it goes beyond the burnished beauty of nostalgia to grapple with the real lives and real mistakes of the people who lived it.
Author: Reed R. Bonadonna
Author: Reed R. Bonadonna
Author: Lorien Foote
Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Author: Lawrence H. Keeley
Author: Reed Bonadonna
Author: Reid Mitchell
Author: Niall Ferguson
Author: Andre Norton
Author: Margaret MacMillan
Author: Mary Louise Roberts