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During the First World War, a rich crop of legends sprouted from the battlefields and grew with such ferocity that many still excite controversy today. This book is the first to examine the roots of those stories and reveal the truth. Some myths remain well-known. Did an entire battalion of the Norfolk Regiment vanish without trace at Gallipoli in 1915? Did thousands of Russian troops actually pass through England with snow on their boots? In 1914, an acute spy mania gripped the British public, who imagined that the country was brimming with German spies. Xenophobia, denunciations and attacks on dachshunds were rampant. Amazingly, there was even talk of enemy aircraft dropping poisoned sweets to kill British children. Myths such as the Angel of Mons and the Comrade in White were more innocent creations. With no radio or television, rumours of disaster were rife, and the apparition of mystical guardian spirits gave hope to the civilian population at home. Other stories, such as the so-called Crucified Canadian, and the existence of a gruesome German corpse rendering factory, were more sinister. Yet in an age of new and startling technologies such as poison gas, submarine warfare and the tank, such tales appeared believable. Using a wide range of contemporary sources, James Hayward traces the story of each myth and examines the likely explanation. Supported by a selection of rare photographs and illustrations, the result is a refreshingly different perspective on the common 'mud and trenches' view of the First World War, shedding fascinating new light on many curious and unexplained wartime tales.
"The wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in neighboring Croatia and Kosovo grabbed the attention of the western world not only because of their ferocity and their geographic location, but also because of their timing. This violence erupted at the exact moment when the cold war confrontation was drawing to a close, when westerners were claiming their liberal values as triumphant, in a country that had only a few years earlier been seen as very well placed to join the west. In trying to account for this outburst, most western journalists, academics, and policymakers have resorted to the language of the premodern: tribalism, ethnic hatreds, cultural inadequacy, irrationality; in short, the Balkans as the antithesis of the modern west. Yet one of the most striking aspects of the wars in Yugoslavia is the extent to which the images purveyed in the western press and in much of the academic literature are so at odds with evidence from on the ground."—from The Myth of Ethnic War V. P. Gagnon Jr. believes that the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were reactionary moves designed to thwart populations that were threatening the existing structures of political and economic power. He begins with facts at odds with the essentialist view of ethnic identity, such as high intermarriage rates and the very high percentage of draft-resisters. These statistics do not comport comfortably with the notion that these wars were the result of ancient blood hatreds or of nationalist leaders using ethnicity to mobilize people into conflict. Yugoslavia in the late 1980s was, in Gagnon's view, on the verge of large-scale sociopolitical and economic change. He shows that political and economic elites in Belgrade and Zagreb first created and then manipulated violent conflict along ethnic lines as a way to short-circuit the dynamics of political change. This strategy of violence was thus a means for these threatened elites to demobilize the population. Gagnon's noteworthy and rather controversial argument provides us with a substantially new way of understanding the politics of ethnicity.
Do countries fight wars for oil? Given the resource's exceptional military and economic importance, most people assume that states will do anything to obtain it. Challenging this conventional wisdom, The Oil Wars Myth reveals that countries do not launch major conflicts to acquire petroleum resources. Emily Meierding argues that the costs of foreign invasion, territorial occupation, international retaliation, and damage to oil company relations deter even the most powerful countries from initiating "classic oil wars." Examining a century of interstate violence, she demonstrates that, at most, countries have engaged in mild sparring to advance their petroleum ambitions. The Oil Wars Myth elaborates on these findings by reassessing the presumed oil motives for many of the twentieth century's most prominent international conflicts: World War II, the two American Gulf wars, the Iran–Iraq War, the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the Chaco War. These case studies show that countries have consistently refrained from fighting for oil. Meierding also explains why oil war assumptions are so common, despite the lack of supporting evidence. Since classic oil wars exist at the intersection of need and greed—two popular explanations for resource grabs—they are unusually easy to believe in. The Oil Wars Myth will engage and inform anyone interested in oil, war, and the narratives that connect them.
This exciting new collection examines the relationships between warfare, myths, and fairy tales, and explores the connections and contradictions between the narratives of war and magic that dominate the ways in which people live and have lived, survived, considered and described their world. Presenting original contributions and critical reflections that explore fairy tales, fantasy and wars, be they "real" or imagined, past or present, this book looks at creative works in popular culture, stories of resistance, the history and representation of global and local conflicts, the Holocaust, across multiple media. It offers a timely and important overview of the latest research in the field, including contributions from academics, story-tellers and artists, thereby transcending the traditional boundaries of the disciplines, extending the parameters of war studies beyond the battlefield.
General George S. Patton famously said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!" Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close -- in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America -- and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: “The richest and most powerful single document of the American experience in World War II” (The Boston Globe). “The Good War” is a testament not only to the experience of war but to the extraordinary skill of Studs Terkel as an interviewer and oral historian. From a pipe fitter’s apprentice at Pearl Harbor to a crew member of the flight that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, his subjects are open and unrelenting in their analyses of themselves and their experiences, producing what People magazine has called “a splendid epic history” of WWII. With this volume Terkel expanded his scope to the global and the historical, and the result is a masterpiece of oral history. “Tremendously compelling, somehow dramatic and intimate at the same time, as if one has stumbled on private accounts in letters locked in attic trunks . . . In terms of plain human interest, Mr. Terkel may well have put together the most vivid collection of World War II sketches ever gathered between covers.” —The New York Times Book Review “I promise you will remember your war years, if you were alive then, with extraordinary vividness as you go through Studs Terkel’s book. Or, if you are too young to remember, this is the best place to get a sense of what people were feeling.” —Chicago Tribune “A powerful book, repeatedly moving and profoundly disturbing.” —People
A “well-reasoned and timely” (Booklist) essay collection interrogates the Lost Cause myth in Civil War historiography. Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states’ rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself. Unfortunately, skillful propagandists have been so successful in promoting this romanticized view that the Lost Cause has assumed a life of its own. Misrepresenting the war’s true origins and its actual course, the myth of the Lost Cause distorts our national memory. In The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, nine historians describe and analyze the Lost Cause, identifying ways in which it falsifies history—creating a volume that makes a significant contribution to Civil War historiography. “The Lost Cause . . . is a tangible and influential phenomenon in American culture and this book provides an excellent source for anyone seeking to explore its various dimensions.” —Southern Historian
The Second World War gave rise to a rich crop of legends, many of which persist in the public consciousness today. Some are well known, such as the escape of an undead Hitler to South America, Allied aircraft buzzed by 'Foo Fighters' and UFOs, German parachutists dressed as nuns, and a failed German invasion of Suffolk in 1940. Others are more subtle, such as the vaunted Dunkirk spirit, which portrayed the disaster of 1940 as a victory, and the conspiracy theories surrounding Rudolf Hess. Did he fly to Scotland to negotiate a peace treaty with members of the Royal Family? Was the aged prisoner who died in Spandau Prison a double? From tales of betrayal at Dieppe and Arnhem to Hitler's obsession with the occult and Nazi U-boat bases in Ireland, James Hayward offers a refreshing and intriguing perspective on the myths, legends and folk memories of the Second World War.
Explores the foundations of conflict in Kosovo, charging that the international community's failure to support the Albanians in their initial passive resistance to Serbian repression led to violence.