Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses-the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and extent. The effects of what ...historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan, from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. The Americas, too, did not escape the turbulence of the time.
In this meticulously researched volume, master historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who saw and suffered from the sequence of political, economic, and social crises between 1618 to the late 1680s. Parker also deploys the scientific evidence of climate change during this period. His discoveries revise entirely our understanding of the General Crisis: changes in prevailing weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests. This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.
Parker's demonstration of the link between climate change, war, and catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement. And the implications of his study are equally important: are we adequately prepared-or even preparing-for the catastrophes that climate change brings?
"War . . . is merely an idea, an institution, like dueling or slavery, that has been grafted onto human existence. It is not a trick of fate, a thunderbolt from hell, a natural calamity, or a ...desperate plot contrivance dreamed up by some sadistic puppeteer on high. And it seems to me that the institution is in pronounced decline, abandoned as attitudes toward it have changed, roughly following the pattern by which the ancient and formidable institution of slavery became discredited and then mostly obsolete."-from the Introduction
War is one of the great themes of human history and now, John Mueller believes, it is clearly declining. Developed nations have generally abandoned it as a way for conducting their relations with other countries, and most current warfare (though not all) is opportunistic predation waged by packs-often remarkably small ones-of criminals and bullies. Thus, argues Mueller, war has been substantially reduced to its remnants-or dregs-and thugs are the residual combatants.
Mueller is sensitive to the policy implications of this view. When developed states commit disciplined troops to peacekeeping, the result is usually a rapid cessation of murderous disorder.The Remnants of Warthus reinvigorates our sense of the moral responsibility bound up in peacekeeping. In Mueller's view, capable domestic policing and military forces can also be effective in reestablishing civic order, and the building of competent governments is key to eliminating most of what remains of warfare.
Nationalizing Empires Stefan Berger, Alexei Miller / Stefan Berger, Alexei Miller
2015, 20150630, 2014, 2015-06-10
eBook
The essays in Nationalizing Empires challenge the dichotomy between empire and nation state that for decades has dominated historiography. The authors center their attention on nation-building in the ...imperial core and maintain that the nineteenth century, rather than the age of nation-states, was the age of empires and nationalism. They identify a number of instances where nation building projects in the imperial metropolis aimed at the preservation and extension of empires rather than at their dissolution or the transformation of entire empires into nation states. Such observations have until recently largely escaped theoretical reflection.
In the War of Independence, the Southern Front was first occupied by British and French forces on the grounds of the Mudros Armistice. In reaction to this, after the Sivas Congress, Kuvayımilliye ...organizations (nationalist forces) started to be established in the region. In this period, the British retreated by handing over the places they occupied to the French and resistance began in the occupied areas. The French forces withdrew first from Maraş and then from Urfa as a result of the people's struggle. When the French were put in a difficult position both in Southern Anatolia and Syria, they requested a temporary ceasefire, and during this period, they gained control in Syria to a great extent. After the temporary ceasefire, the French, who focused on occupation activities in the Antep and Adana region with the forces reinforced from Syria, realized that they could not hold on in the region, even though they achieved partial successes, and consequently, they signed the Ankara Treaty with the Government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly after the Victory of Sakarya and withdrew from the region. The Southern Front differed from the Eastern and Western Fronts in several ways. These differences were in terms of the nature of the enemy forces, the change in the occupying forces, the integrity of the operational area, the change in the types of operations, the structure and characteristics of the Kuvayımilliye, and the use of Armenians. On the Southern Front, defense activities and the struggle were carried out in different areas of the front in different ways. In Maraş and Urfa, the battles were mostly fought in the form of urban battles, while in the Adana region, irregular warfare practices were predominant. In Antep, on the other hand, both urban battles and siege-breaking operations took place. While the urban battles in Maraş started in the city center, those in Urfa developed from outside the city center to the city center. The support of the majority of the tribes for the resistance in Urfa was remarkable. The Antep Front stood out with the successful defense of a city surrounded by French forces for 10 months by the people against a far superior enemy. Another important characteristic of the Southern Front is that the first bullet of the National Struggle was shot on this front and the first victories were won on this front. In fact, the Southern Front is a model front for nations that are occupied by superpowers and have to fight the occupiers on their own without armed forces. There are many important lessons to be learned from what happened on the front. Maintaining research on this front and keeping the memory of the struggle alive is a debt of loyalty to our ancestors who heroically endured there at the cost of their lives. The aim of this paper is to clarify the differences between the British and French occupations on the Southern Front and the characteristics that distinguish this front from other fronts and to try to portray the whole picture by taking a holistic approach to the developments from the beginning to the end of the struggle on the front. The literature review method and qualitative research model were used for the study.
Why they die Rothbart, Daniel; Korostelina, Karina
2011., 20110622, 2011, c2011.
eBook
Why do civilians suffer most during times of violent conflict? Why are civilian fatalities as much as eight times higher, calculated globally for current conflicts, than military fatalities? In Why ...They Die, Daniel Rothbart and Karina V. Korostelina address these questions through a systematic study of civilian devastation in violent conflicts. Pushing aside the simplistic definition of war as a guns-and-blood battle between two militant groups, the authors investigate the identity politics underlying conflicts of many types. During a conflict, all those on the opposite side are perceived as the enemy, with little distinction between soldiers and civilians. As a result, random atrocities and systematic violence against civilian populations become acceptable.
Rothbart and Korostelina devote the first half of the book to case studies: deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the Ukraine, genocide in Rwanda, the Lebanon War, and the war in Iraq. With the second half, they present new methodological tools for understanding different types of violent conflict and discuss the implications of these tools for conflict resolution.
John Ferris' work in strategic and intelligence history is widely praised for its originality and the breadth of its research. At last his major pioneering articles are now available in this one ...single volume.
In Intelligence and Strategy these essential articles have been fundamentally revised to incorporate new evidence and information withheld by governments when they were first published. This volume reshapes the study of communications intelligence by tracing Britain's development of cipher machines providing the context to Ultra and Enigma, and by explaining how British and German signals intelligence shaped the desert war. The author also explains how intelligence affected British strategy and diplomacy from 1874 to 1940 and world diplomacy during the 1930s and the Second World War. Finally he traces the roots for contemporary intelligence, and analyzes intelligence and the RMA as well as the role of intelligence in the 2003 Gulf War. This volume ultimately brings new light to our understanding of the relations between intelligence, strategy and diplomacy between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st century.
John Ferris is a Professor of History at The University of Calgary. He has written widely on military history, strategy and intelligence studies. Among his works are The Evolution of British Strategic Policy, 1919-1926 (1989) and The British Army and Signals Intelligence during the First World War. He is a co-author of A World History of Warfare (2002).
1. Lord Salisbury, Secret Intelligence and British Policy Toward Russia and Central Asia, 1874-1878 2. 'Indulged in all Too Little'?: Vansittart, Intelligence and Appeasement 3. Image and Accident: Intelligence and the Origins of the Second World War, 1933-1941 4. The British 'Enigma': Britain, Signals Security and Cipher Machines, 1906-1953 5. The British Army, Signals and Security in the Desert Campaign, 1940-42 6. Clausewitz, Intelligence, Uncertainty and the Art of Command in Modern War (with Michael Handel) 7. NCW, C4ISR, IO and RMA: Towards a Revolution in Military Intelligence?
Before becoming the masters of the Mediterranean world, the Romans had first to conquer the Italian peninsula in a series of harsh conflicts against its other varied and warlike residents. The ...outcome was no foregone conclusion and it took the Romans half a millennium to secure the whole of Italy. Gabriele Esposito presents the armies that fought these wars, in which the Roman military spirit and their famous legions were forged. He not only follows the evolution of the Roman forces from the Regal Period to the outbreak of the Second Punic War but also the forces of their neighbours, rivals and enemies. The most notable of these, the Etruscans, Samnites and the Italian Greeks are given particular attention but others, such as the Celts and Ligures of the North and the warriors of Sicily and Sardinia, are also considered. Details of the organization, weapons, equipment and tactics of each army are described, while dozens of beautiful colour photos of reenactors show how these warriors looked in the field.
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