The cunning of history

Sample

John Grenier

This book explores the evolution of American war, showing how the first war waged against Indian noncombatant populations and their agricultural resources became the standard method of war employed by early Americans and which ultimately defined their military heritage. The bloodthirsty American conquest of Indian communities east of the Mississippi River helps demonstrate how early Americans embraced warfare shaped by extravagant violence and focused on conquest. Grenier provides a major revision in understanding the place of warfare directed on noncombatants in the American military tradition, and his conclusions are relevant to understand US 'special operations' in the War on Terror.

Sample

Eric Koch

Part detective story, part biography, this is the fascinating tale of Hilmar and Odette, both born illegitimately in Germany before the Second World War, both half-Jewish, both brought up by "Aryan" families. Eric Koch, having discovered that his well-to-do family has two skeletons in the closet (Odette is his half-sister and Hilmar is his step-cousin), embarks on a search into his family history and into the very different fates of these two "Half-Jews" who grew into adults as the Nazi party came to power. Hilmar's adoptive mother discovers he is a Jew, and (despite his being a dutiful, even loving, son) when the opportunity arises denounces him to the Gestapo. Hilmar's increasingly desperate attempts to escape deportation and stay with the woman with whom he has fallen in love prove futile. He finally falls victim to the machinery of oppression and is sent to Auschwitz. By contrast, Odette, never suspecting that she is part-Jewish, ascends the social ladder and comes to hobnob with the Nazi boheme in her Berlin salon. To ingratiate himself with the right people, her publisher husband dreams up new forms of propaganda to help the Nazi cause. Hilmar and Odette's parallel stories advance in step through this book, each casting light on the other. And around the fringes of their lives move the spectres of Napoleon, Joseph Goebbels, and Lili Marleen. The narrator's detective tale becomes a third story, as he probes his family's past and explores the shadowy territory where personal uncertainties and frailties meet the implacable sophistry of Nazi ideology.

Sample

Alan Grant

"The American Political Process examines both the formal institutions of government and organisations such as political parties and pressure groups. It analyses how these bodies interact in the making of public policy in the United States in order to provide an understanding of contemporary American politics." "The new seventh edition of the text has been thoroughly updated and substantially revised to take account of such important events as the 2000 presidential election, the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, the 2002 midterm elections and the war against Iraq. It looks at political development in the new century against the background of a long-established constitutional structure and a distinctively American political culture." "Each chapter includes a variety of useful tables and figures as well as suggestions for further reading and there is an extensive glossary of terms in American politics which provides an easily accessible reference for the reader. New features of the seventh edition include details of relevant web sites, summaries of each chapter and questions designed to encourage thought and reflection on the key issues. The American Political Process will appeal to all those students who want a well-established and comprehensive introductory text that explains how American politics really works."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

Bill Moyers

From Moyer's third PBS series, this text represents an unparalleled entree into the debates, the intellectual and cultural currents, and above all the fascinating people that have so powerfully shaped modern times.