What challenges will America face in armed conflicts of the future and how will we prepare for them? National security depends upon the ability of the military to “predict” the future nature of war. Despite the difficulty in making such predictions, one must remember: nation states and other countries will continue to use armed conflict as a means to further their aims, and these aims will, at times, run contrary to American interests. As a result, the United States will continue to be con...

Jacob Abbott’s series of biographies of prominent historical figures, Makers of History, includes one of the world’s most inspiring figures: Alexander the Great. Abbott pens the story of Alexander III, who became the king of Macedonia – an ancient Greek kingdom – at the age of 19 and died a mere 13 years after. Known as Alexander the Great for his conquests across the world, the Macedonian king was also excessive in his lifestyle, which was probably why his resounding success didn’t stay l...

Military treatises have long fascinated readers, even those who are not professional military men, and people in other fields have long sought to apply the lessons learned in military treatises to other walks of life. Among the worlds military treatises, without question two of the most famous and influential are Sun Tzus The Art of War and Carl von Clausewitzs On War, written over 2,000 years apart but containing similar and useful advice for readers, and still staples of literature for peo...

Could the South have won the Civil War?To many, the very question seems absurd. After all, the Confederacy had only a third of the population and one-eleventh of the industry of the North. Wasn’t the South’s defeat inevitable?Not at all, as acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander reveals in this provocative and counterintuitive new look at the Civil War. In fact, the South most definitely could have won the war, and Alexander documents exactly how a Confederate victory...

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These...

The reigns of Augustus and his successor Tiberius saw an epic struggle between the Romans and local peoples for the territory between the Rhine and Elbe rivers in what is now Germany.Following two decades of Roman occupation, Germania Magna erupted into revolt in AD 9 following the loss of the three legions commanded by Publius Quinctilius Varus to the Cheruscan nobleman Arminius and an alliance of Germanic nations in the dense forests of the Teutoburger Wald. The ...

The short but savage Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 pitched well-equipped but complacent British soldiers into combat with the Zulu, one of history's finest fighting forces.The clashes between these two different armies prompted tactical innovation on both sides, as the British and their Zulu opponents sought to find the optimal combination of mobility, protection and firepower. This engrossing study traces the changing face of infantry combat in the Anglo-Zulu War. Three ...

On 9 July 1755 amid the wilderness of North America, Britain suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in her history. This illustrated volume explores the lead-up, the battle and its far-reaching consequences.General Braddock's army, a mixture of British regulars and American militia, was shattered, losing over 900 men from a force of 1,300. Braddock was killed and the remnants of his army rescued by his aide, Colonel George Washington. The origins of this defe...

Long acknowledged as a classic text on strategy, Sun Tzu's The Art of War has been admired by leaders as diverse as Mao Zedong and General Norman Schwartzkopf. However, having been written two thousand years ago, the book can be somewhat daunting to the modern reader. Mark McNeilly, author of Sun Tzu and the Art of Business (OUP, 2011), which made Sun Tzu accessible to the business executive, has extracted the six concepts most applicable to modern warfare, making them ea...

The Petersburg Campaign was the last great campaign fought in the eastern theater of the US Civil War and the last to see U.S Grant take on Robert E Lee.In 1864 General Ulysses S. Grant decided to strangle the life out of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia by surrounding the city of Petersburg and cutting off General Robert E. Lee's supply lines. The ensuing siege would carry on for nearly ten months, involve 160,000 soldiers, and see a number of pitched bat...

A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about "strategic" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained...

Narrative medicine is a fresh discipline of health care that helps patients and health professionals to tell and listen to the complex and unique stories of illness. The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine expresses the collective experience and discoveries of the originators of the field. Arising at Columbia University in 2000 from roots in the humanities and patient-centered care, narrative medicine draws patients, doctors, nurses, therapists, and health activists toge...