This charming gift book takes a humorous look at the little-known history of US/ Canadian hostilities, focusing on the top-secret invasion plans each country drew up for the other during the 1920`s & 30`s. Featuring extended (and hilarious) excerpts from each (now de-classified) plan, as well as invasion maps, illustrations, & historical anecdotes that chart the unneighbourly history along the 5, 000 miles of the ”world`s friendliest border.” ...

When his boss offers Chris Ayres an assignment embedded with US Marines on the front line in Iraq, he's too cowardly to say no. He soon finds himself camped in the desert, blinded by sandstorms, surrounded by military machismo on all sides. He decides he wants out. But this, his greatest act of cowardice, will almost kill him. War Reporting for Cowards is an extraordinary true story & the debut of a brilliant new voice. A hilarious cross between Scoop & Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, it is a seditious insight into the political events that have defined the century. ...

` Highly readable... an intimate & varied account of fascinating stories of people at war` History of War War Stories is a fascinating account of ordinary men & women swept up in the turbulence of war. These are the stories
- many untold until now
- of thirty-four individuals who have pushed the boundaries of love, bravery, suffering & terror beyond the imaginable. They span three centuries & five continents. There is the courage of Edward Seager who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade; the cunning of Krystyna Skarbek, quick-thinking spy & saboteur during the Second World War; the skullduggery of Benedict Arnold, who switched sides in the American War of Independence & the compassion of Magdalene de Lancey who tenderly nursed her dying husband at Waterloo. Told with vivid narrative flair & full of unexpected insights, War Stories moves effortlessly from tales of spies, escapes & innovation to uplifting acts of humanity, celebrating men & women whose wartime experiences are beyond compare.

...

War Trash is the unforgettable story of Yu Yuan, a young Chinese army officer sent by Mao with a corps of volunteers` to help shore up the Communist side in Korea. When the Americans capture Yu, his command of English propels him into the role of unofficial interpreter in the psychological warfare that defines the POW camp. Desperate to return to his beloved fiancee & widowed mother, Yu is trapped by both barbed wire & politics. ...

War with the Newts (1936) is Karel Capek`s darkly humorous allegory of early twentieth-century Czech politics. Captain van Toch discovers a colony of newts in Sumatra which can not only be taught to trade & use tools, but also to speak. As the rest of the world learns of the creatures & their wonderful capabilities, it is clear that this new species is ripe for exploitation
- they can be traded in their thousands, will do the work no human wants to do, & can fight
- but the humans have given no thought to the terrible consequences of their actions.

...

The year 2010 sees the official celebration of the bicentenary of the revolutions in the Ro de la Plata. This book contains the narrative that Thomas Kinder wrote of his voyage to that region in 1808-10 & of his stay in Madeira, Montevideo & Buenos Aires which has never been published nor, apparently, used by any historian. Thomas Kinder was an English banker who later featured among those who financed the new republic of Peru. His voyage to the Ro de la Plata followed the illfated British attempts to capture Buenos Aires in 1806-7. He obtained first hand information about the campaigns of Beresford & Whitelocke & became familiar with all the leading figures of the revolutionary period. ...

From the celebrated author of the international bestseller Who Killed Daniel Pearl? comes another startlingly original work of literature. In WAR, EVIL & THE END OF HISTORY, Bernard-Henri Levy continues his daring investigation into the breeding grounds of terrorism with a series of riveting first-person reports from five of the world`s most horrific `forgotten` war zones. In Sri Lanka, he conducts a clandestine interview with a terrified young woman recently escaped from a suicide-bomber training camp. He journeys, blindfolded, into the Colombian jungle to interview a psychotic drug lord who considers himself the successor to Che Guevara & fronts a bloodthirsty `guerilla` army. Levy surreptitiously observes the nameless slaves working the diamond mines that fund an endless war in Angola, airdrops into a rebel stronghold in the blockaded Nuba mountains of the Sudan & reports on the ongoing carnage in Burundi between Hutus & Tutsis. But Levy is more than just a journalist: as France`s leading philosopher, he follows the reports with a series of intensely personal & probing `reflections` considering how, in an enlightened, cultured, & well-informed society, these wars have acquired such a perverse ”non-meaning.” He considers war literature from Stendhal, Hemingway, Proust & others, & issues an excoriating response to those who have glorified it. He reconsiders his own background as a student revolutionary in Paris in May 1968, & as a 22-year-old war reporter in Bangladesh. &, in one of the book`s most moving passages, he recounts his travels with Ahmad Massoud, the anti-Taliban Afghan leader assassinated hours before the September 11 attacks. Already a huge bestseller in Europe, WAR, EVIL & THE END OF HISTORY is the work of one of the world`s most popular philosophers at the height of his powers. ...

The object of this book is to introduce readers to a whole range of military history which has all the drama, dangers, horrors & excitement that we associate with Stalingrad or the Somme. Battles are acute moments of history whenever & wherever they have been fought. Through them we can understand how warfare & world history have evolved. Choosing just one hundred battles from recorded human history is a challenge. Not just because it is necessary to cover almost 6, 000 years of history, but because men have fought each other almost continuously for millennia. Anyone who knows anything about the history of war may be disappointed at what has had to be left out. However, each of the 100 memorable battles described shows both how the nature of armed combat has changed over human history, & also how, despite changes in technology, organisation or ideas, many things have remained the same. It is an old adage that you can win a battle but lose a war. The battles featured here almost always resulted in victory for one side or another, but the victor did not necessarily win the war. Some battles are decisive in that broader historical sense, others are not. The further back in time, the more likely it is that an enemy could be finished off in one blow. The wars of the modern age, between major states, have involved repeated battles until one side was battered into submission. Some of the great generals of the recent past
- Napoleon, Robert E Lee, Erich von Manstein
- have been on the losing side but are remembered nonetheless for their generalship. Some on the winning side have all but disappeared from the history books or from public memory. Equally, in many battles, the issue is not victory or defeat, but what the battle can tell us about the history of warfare itself. New weapons, new tactics, new ways of organising armed forces can have a sudden impact on the outcome of a battle. But so too can leadership, or the effects of a clever deception, or raw courage. That is why the book has been divided up into clear themes which apply equally to the battles of the ancient world as they do to the battles of today. As Professor Richard Overy laments: ” Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history, messy, bloody & real. That, at least, has not changed in 6, 000 years.”

...

A soldier falls asleep on duty & is threatened with being court-martialled. An officer lies in mud, fighting for his life & the life of his men. A young man walks across Waterloo Bridge, explosives in his rucksack, heart pounding. In this powerfully moving book, Faulks shows us the true face of war. These are stories of death & survival, of hope & despair, & of ordinary people whose lives will never be the same again. Selected from the books Birdsong, A Possible Life & A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world`s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human. ...

War is one of the greatest human evils. It has ruined livelihoods, provoked unspeakable atrocities & left countless millions dead. It has caused economic chaos & widespread deprivation. & the misery it causes poisons foreign policy for future generations. But, argues bestselling historian Ian Morris, in the very long term, war has in fact been a good thing. In his trademark style combining inter-disciplinary insights, scientific methods & fascinating stories, Morris shows that, paradoxically, war is the only human invention that has allowed us to construct peaceful societies. Without war, we would never have built the huge nation-states which now keep us relatively safe from random acts of violence, & which have given us previously unimaginable wealth. It is thanks to war that we live longer & more comfortable lives than ever before. & yet, if we continue waging war with ever-more deadly weaponry, we will destroy everything we have achieved; so our struggles to manage warfare make the coming decades the most decisive in the history of our civilisation. In War: What Is It Good For? Morris brilliantly dissects humanity`s history of warfare to draw startling conclusions about our future. ...