Search results

The Second Scottish War of Independence began in 1332, only four years after the previous conflict had ended. Fought once more for the continued freedom of Scotland from English conquest, the war also witnessed a revival of Scottish civil conflict as the Bruce-Balliol fight for the Scottish crown recommenced once more. Breaking out sporadically until peace was agreed in 1357, the Second Scottish War is a conflict that resides still in the shadow of that which preceded it: compared to the wars of...

Divided Houses is a tale of contrasting fortunes. In the last decade of his reign Edward III, a senile, pathetic symbol of England's past conquests, was condemned to see them overrun by the armies of his enemies. When he died, in 1377, he was succeeded by a vulnerable child, who was destined to grow into a neurotic and unstable adult presiding over a divided nation. Meanwhile France entered upon one of the most glittering periods of her medieval history, years of power and ceremony, astonishing...

Soldiers of Fortune by Richard Harding Davis, 1897. In the stifling jungles of a small South American country, Robert Clay works as a civil engineer at a mine. With two American assistants, he attempts to reap all the rewards found in this challenging environment. But he also has a secret history as a mercenary, fighting for whichever side will pay him the most. Clay finds himself in love with Alice Langham, the daughter of the wealthy American owner of the mine. His competition for Alice is Reg...

The British government has taken steps to halt the prosecution of soldiers responsible for the deaths of civilians in Northern Ireland, most of whom had no connection to paramilitary activities. These killings were part of a ruthless dirty war that commenced in 1970 when Brigadier Frank Kitson, a counter-insurgency specialist, was sent to Northern Ireland. Kitson had spent decades in Britain’s colonies refining old, and developing new, techniques which he applied in Northern Ireland. He became...

Israel's Wars, 1947-1993 is a fascinating overview of Israel's wars with the Palestinians and the Arabs. From the 1947-8 Jewish-Palestinian struggle for the possession and mastery of the land of Palestine to the Intifada between 1987-1993, this book also examines Israel's conflicts with its Arab neighbours, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the PLO in Lebanon. Israel's Wars analyzes the effect of the wars on the people of Israel. In 1947 with the Holocaust very fresh in their memories, the Israelis demon...

The 20000 strong Zulu force was able to defeat the small British contingent and force Lord Chelmsford to revise his plans for invading Zululand but, although only 350 of the 1500 British survived, the loss of several thousand of their men by the Zulus was more crucial in the total picture of the campaign. The news of the British defeat appalled the nation where the public was used to easy victories over such indigenous opponents and this was to be the worst single dayAs loss of British troops be...

The book Lady Astronauts, Lady Engineers, and Naked Ladies is a gender history of the American space community and by extension a social history of American society in the twentieth century during the Cold War. In order to expand and differentiate the prevalent postwar narrative about gender relations and cultural structures in the United States, the book analyzes several different groups of women interacting in different social spaces within the space community. It therewith grants insight into...

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Hybrid Warfare refers to a military strategy that blends conventional warfare, so-called 'irregular warfare' and cyber-attacks with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy and foreign political intervention. As Hybrid Warfare becomes increasingly commonplace, there is an imminent need for research bringing attention to how these challenges can be...

In this book, expert author Paul Crickmore leads the reader deeper than ever before into the 'Black World' of the A-12 and SR-71 top-secret reconnaissance mission. For the first time, detailed accounts from CIA and USAF pilots bring to life the experience of flying highly classified missions in the Blackbird, whilst Allied and former Warsaw Pact fighter pilots describe their efforts to intercept the spy-plane. Travelling more than a mile every 2 seconds and flying fifteen miles above the earth's...

This is Philip Efiong's account of the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War (1967-70). He was a key player during the event and second-in-command to the Biafran leader, General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. The story begins with the coup d'etats of January and July 1966, and recounts ensuing ethnic and regional conflicts. After the first coup,Efiong is posted to State House as Principal Staff Officer and then to Kaduna as Acting Commander of the First Brigade. But the second coup is executed shortly after an...

Archibald Wavell was born a few years before Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and died shortly after the end of the Second World War (1883-1950). During that time the country in which he was born and brought up in changed beyond recognition, undergoing a fundamental revision in the attitudes, expectations, prejudices and hopes of the British people. His life epitomises that of a generation of famous men whose education and upbringing equipped them for a future that was to prove an illusion.At sev...