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This revised and updated guide to the American Civil War offers an intimate account of America's bloodiest and most divisive conflict - 160 years on.

This comprehensive and visually arresting guide explores the history, causes, and consequences of the war with eyewitness accounts by soldiers and civilians, profiles of military leaders and other key figures, and timelines that give an overview of how the events developed.

Fully revised and updated, and produced in association with the Smithsonian Institute, The American Civil War is packed with information on the course of the battle and locations of particular importance, with detailed coverage of related topics such as slavery and the treatment of wounded soldiers, providing a rich and detailed account of one of the most controversial conflicts ever fought.

Vividly illustrated throughout with paintings, maps, and photographs, it features detailed galleries showcasing weapons, equipment, and other artefacts, along with informative features on all of the most important memorial sites associated with the Civil War.

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Working with British Military Intelligence, an elite unit of young Jewish paratroopers volunteered to return to eastern Europe. Once behind enemy lines, they would use their expertise in the local languages and terrain to rescue thousands of downed Allied pilots and escaped POWs. At the same time, these volunteer commandos would help Jewish civilians escape deportation to death camps or take up arms in resistance against the Nazis. Hannah Senesh was one of only three female paratroopers who risked everything to infiltrate occupied Europe.

In 1939, at just eighteen years old, Hannah emigrated from Hungary to British Mandatory Palestine, where she dreamed of being a poet and a schoolteacher. Instead, she became a poet and a paratrooper. Five years after fleeing Europe, Hannah parachuted back into occupied territory as a freedom fighter with the most crucial role in her team- the wireless operator tasked with sending and deciphering top secret British radio codes. Though captured after crossing the border into Hungary, she refused to give up her radio codes or any information about her mission, despite enduring months of torture. Her final act of defiance - choosing to die before a firing squad rather than beg for clemency - cemented her legendary status as the 'Jewish Joan of Arc', and her posthumously published poems, translated into more than twenty languages, continue to inspire new generations of readers.

More than just a gripping historical account of Hannah's life and afterlife, Crash of the Heavens offers a powerful reminder of the human spirit's ability to shine, even in the darkest of times.

'Hannah Senesh isn't just a hero. She's a reminder of what happens when Jews stop running and start fighting. Crash of the Heavens captures the essence of that moment - when young volunteers, men and women, parachuted into the heart of Nazi Europe not as victims but as warriors.'
-Aaron Cohen, author of Brotherhood of Warriors

'What a story! This book is a magnificent masterwork, and you won't be able to put it down.'
-Colonel Jack Jacobs, US Army (retired), Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, author of If Not Now, When?

'Impeccably researched, powerfully told, Crash of the Heavens is a testament to courage, determination and resilience. A story for our times.'
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In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich set out to write her first book, The Unwomanly Face of War, when she realized that she grew up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War but whose stories were absent from official narratives. Travelling thousands of miles, she spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories.

With the dawn of Perestroika, a heavily censored edition came out in 1985 and it became a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union - the first in five books that have established her as the conscience of the twentieth century.",{"_810":826,"_812":839,"_783":840},{"_810":826,"_812":842,"_783":1209},"Penguin Canada",{"_810":826,"_812":817,"_783":1211},"UK-B Format Paperback",{"_810":826,"_812":847,"_783":848},{"_810":826,"_812":853,"_783":1214},"20TH CENTURY HISTORY: c 1900 to c 2000_c 1939 to c 1945 (INCLUDING WW2); SECOND WORLD WAR_EASTERN EUROPE
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'It should become a standard work on this campaign' Telegraph
'James Holland is now our foremost authority on the Italian campaign' John C. McManus
'A heart-pounding narrative of the brutal Allied fight to take Rome... This is history at its finest' James M. Scott, Pulitzer Prize finalist
'Holland writes with eloquence and power about the harsh realities of a brutal battle that grabbed the world's attention and helped to decide the future of Italy' Professor Michael S. Neiberg
___________

There are no such thing as an easy victory in war but after triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with the Italian surrender, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943.

And yet it didn't happen. Hitler ordered his forces to dig in and fight for every yard, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional campaigns of the Second World War.

By the start of 1944, the Allies found themselves coming up against the Gustav Line: a formidable barrier of wire, minefields, bunkers and booby traps, woven into a giant chain of mountains and river valleys that stretched the width of Italy where at its strongest point perched the Abbey of Monte Cassino.

It would take five long bitter winter months and the onset of summer before the Allies could finally bludgeon their way north and capture Rome. By then, more than 75,000 troops and civilians had been killed and the historic abbey and entire towns and villages had been laid waste.

Following a rich cast of characters from both sides - from frontline infantry to aircrew, from clerks to battlefield commanders, and from politicians and civilians caught up in the middle of the maelstrom - James Holland has drawn widely on diaries, letters and contemporary sources to write the definitive account of this brutal battle. The result is a compelling and often heart-breaking narrative, told in the moment, as the events played out, and from the perspective of those who lived, fought and died there.

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War: What Is It Good For?

The Role of Conflict in Civilisation, from Primates to Robots

by Ian Morris