This book is intended to serve as an advanced course text for students studying the Cold War. The rearmament of both Germanies in the late 1940s-early 1950s was one of the defining moments of the Cold War. The question of rearming Germany became one of the most difficult questions faced by the Western Allies after World War II. Inside West Germany there was also a considerable debate as to whether Germany ought to rearm at all. Once the decision to rearm was made, the Germans and Western Allies ran into all the practical problems of deciding whether Germany would join NATO, what role the...

This volume brings together a rich array of original contributions - hitherto unavailable in English - on Finland during World War II and the place of the war in Finnish collective memory. Providing readers with a solid narrative of the war's political and military framework from a Finnish perspective, this volume also offers well-argued analyses of the ideological, social and cultural aspects of a society at war. As part of the complex legacy of the war it discusses the 'Karelian question' and the Holocaust in Finnish public memory, topics often neglected in international scholarship....

Representing the best of cutting-edge scholarship in First World War studies, this anthology demonstrates the possibity of finding common ground in how cultural, social, and military historians study the war. Essays focus on the decisions of commanders, inter-allied negotiations, trench culture, prisoners of war, the sailors' war, key developments along the Eastern Front, and how colonial troops experienced the war. Other essays consider the impact of the war on civilians under occupation, the creation of humanitarian relief missions, as well as how the memory of the war affected postwar...

There is no single volume which covers the Indian Army's experiences during the two World Wars. And this is what the present edited volume attempts to do. This collection of 17 essays analyze the army as an institution and also touch upon the cultural ethos of the army and related social issues. Thus, this edited volume is a cross between 'traditional military history' (study of campaigns, tactics, leadership) and 'new military history' (impact of warfare on society and culture). While some of the essays take a pan Indian perspective, a few essays also focus on those regions within India...

Proto-colonial archaeology explores the physical origins of the world culture that evolved out of contacts made in the Age of Exploration, from Columbus to Cromwell. The early defended sites show how colonizing Europeans first responded to the challenges of new environments and new peoples, and how their choices led to conquest, adaption, or failure. Fortifications, once necessary to protect the colonies, are now essential clues to understand their history. The first comparative study of proto-colonial fortifications, First Forts is a collection of essays written by leading...

This book sets out to explore the contribution of the Society of Jesus to the dissemination of knowledge about military architecture in the Baroque age. It shows how the Jesuits developed a militant form of religious expression targeted at protestants and infidels and how many Jesuit mathematicians assisted Catholic leaders by using the mathematical faculties attached to many colleges and seminaries for nobles to provide classroom and private teaching, publications and even consultancies concerning fortification theory, then considered to form part of the 'mathematical disciplines'. This book...

This book presents the results obtained from the historical and archaeological investigations carried out in the framework of a project centred on the site of Shayzar, in Central Syria: Shayzar Project: study of the fortified settlement in Bilad al-Sham. On the basis of a detailed analysis of the archaeological evidence, and of the study of the written documentation available, the book examines the origins and the development of this fortification, especially in relation to the most crucial period as regard as the building of the citadel, i.e., the span of time that stretches from the 10th to...

The sword was the most important of weapons, but relatively little has been written about its metallurgy. The results of the microscopic examination of over a hundred swords are used to tell the story of the making of swords from the first examples through the Middle Ages to the 16th century.

Military institutions have everywhere and always shaped the course of history, but women's near universal participation in them has largely gone unnoticed. This volume addresses the changing relationships between women and armed forces from antiquity to the present. The eight chapters in Part I present broad, scholarly reviews of the existing literature to provide a clear understanding of where we stand. An extended picture essay documents visually women's military work since the sixteenth century. The book's second part comprises eight exemplary articles, more narrowly focused than the...

The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad comprises the first detailed treatment of the pivotal conflict between the Ottomans and Christendom from 1438-1444. Beginning with the Council of Florence and renewed Ottoman expansion it covers the election of Wladislas, the rise of John Hunyadi and the factional politics of the Porte. "The author recounts the major campaigns including Hunyadi's victories in 1442 as well as the Long March and Varna expeditions of 1443/44. He also gives a thorough description of the armies, their tactics and strategy. Dr. Jefferson's work is the first to make...