All Souls Day Pereira, Joseph M
2020, 20201101, 2020-11-01
eBook
The U.S. Army attacked three villages near the German-Belgium border, surprising the Germans who surrendered with little resistance. The German army regrouped and counterattacked. A brief but ...horrific battle ensued, and as the enemy pressed forward, the Americans retreated in haste, leaving behind their wounded and their dead. Discussion of this week-long conflict that began on All Souls Day, November 2, 1944, has been confined to officer training school, in part due to its heavy losses and ignominy. After the war the U.S. Army returned to the battlefield to bring home its fallen. To its dismay it found that many of these men had vanished. The disappearances were puzzling and for decades the U.S. government searched unsuccessfully for clues. After poring over now-declassified battlefield reports and interviewing family members, the authors reconstruct a spellbinding story of love and sacrifice, honor and bravery, as well as a portrait of the gnawing pain of families not knowing what became of their loved ones. Ultimately this work of history and in-depth contemporary journalism proffers a glimmer of light in the ongoing search.
When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for 'a new Bretton Woods' to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the ...remote New Hampshire town where representatives of forty-four nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization. The actual story surrounding the historic Bretton Woods accords, however, is full of startling drama, intrigue, and rivalry, which are vividly brought to life in Benn Steil's epic account.
Upending the conventional wisdom that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, Steil shows that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda hatched within President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury and aimed at eliminating Britain as an economic and political rival. At the heart of the drama were the antipodal characters of John Maynard Keynes, the renowned and revolutionary British economist, and Harry Dexter White, the dogged, self-made American technocrat. Bringing to bear new and striking archival evidence, Steil offers the most compelling portrait yet of the complex and controversial figure of White--the architect of the dollar's privileged place in the Bretton Woods monetary system, who also, very privately, admired Soviet economic planning and engaged in clandestine communications with Soviet intelligence officials and agents over many years.
A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn,The Battle of Bretton Woodsis destined to become a classic of economic and political history.
This book examines the non-fiction work of literary artist Alice Walker in order to glean values and ethical imperatives for womanist theological and ethical reflection.
Die drei Schlachten um den Monte Cassino südlich von Rom tobten von Januar bis Mai 1944. Am 18. Mai 1944 war das Ringen um den Monte Cassino für die Wehrmacht verloren. Die Alliierten hatten den ...umkämpften „Wellenbrecher Cassino“, wie ihn die deutsche Propaganda nannte, nach knapp einem halben Jahr schwerer Kämpfe eingenommen. Nun drangen sie auf Rom vor. Die nationalsozialistische Propaganda agierte jedoch so geschickt und nachhaltig, dass viele Deutsche bis auf den heutigen Tag mit dem Namen „Monte Cassino“ in erster Linie einen letzten deutschen Abwehrsieg und keine Niederlage verbinden. Insbesondere das Bild unbesiegter deutscher Fallschirmjäger hat sich dabei in den Köpfen festgesetzt. Sogar die wissenschaftliche Literatur übernahm dieses Narrativ.Magnus Pahl analysiert in seinem Buch die Inhalte der deutschen Propaganda. Er wirft den Blick ebenso auf die multinationalen Streitkräfte der Alliierten, unter denen das neuseeländische wie auch das polnische Kontingent eine besondere Rolle spielten. Monte Cassino ist auf seine Weise ein europäischer, ja ein globaler Erinnerungsort des Zweiten Weltkriegs. In diesem Sinne ist dem Band ein Geleitwort des polnischen Militärhistorikers Zbigniew Wawer beigegeben.
In Operation Cobra, six US divisions during six dramatic days in Normandy ended the stalemate on the western front, breaking through German defenses after seven weeks of grueling attrition warfare. ...After D-Day examines the experiences of U.S. soldiers in the July 25-30, 1944, Normandy campaign: their mistakes, hardships, and fears, as well as their leadership, courage, and determination. Drawing on original archival sources, Carafano argues that previous accounts of Operation Cobra are flawed. Standard explanations of its success--the force of air power, innovative tactics, superior logistics, the inestimable value of "citizen soldiers," hedgerow busting "rhino" tanks--are in fact myths. And serious mistakes were made: one of the most famous US generals, Omar Bradley, ordered strategic bombing close to US lines, a decision that led to the killing and maiming of hundreds of US soldiers by "friendly fire." Nonetheless, Carafano demonstrates, operational flexibility--the ability of commanders to exercise effective combat leadership and take advantage of troop strengths and material advantages--resulted in Allied victory.
