S2 Actual reading list

The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution

Chris DeRose

St. Martin's Press · Nov 03, 2020

The incredible, untold story of the WWII veterans who destroyed a corrupt political machine―the only successful armed rebellion on US soil since the War of Independence. They fought for freedom abroad and returned to find that they had lost it at home. A corrupt political machine was in charge, kept in power by violence and stolen elections - the worst allegations of vote fraud ever brought to the attention of the Department of Justice, according to the Attorney General. The GIs formed a nonpartisan, all-veteran ticket. On Election Day, the GIs and their supporters found themselves assaulted, intimidated, arrested, and even shot. A small band of veterans - the Fighting Bunch - armed themselves and marched on the jail to demand an honest count. The sheriff and his men refused. These men who thought they had seen the last of war returned to the battlefield, one last time. This episode in U.S. history has never been more relevant, but has never been fully told. At the time of the rebellion, national news outlets jammed the phone lines into town, asking questions before the shooting had stopped. Journalists beat a path to Athens from across the country. Hollywood came calling, but the people of McMinn County had moved on. After years of research, including exclusive interviews with the remaining witnesses, archival radio broadcast and interview tapes, scrapbooks, letters, and diaries, author Chris DeRose has reconstructed one of the seminal―yet untold―events in American election history.

The First Food Empire: A History of J. Lyons and Co.

Peter Bird

Phillimore & Company · January 2000

The First Food A History of J. Lyons and Co.

The German Air War in Russia

Richard R. Muller

Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co. of America · 1992

Dr. Richard Muller has produced a new interpretation of the longest continous air offensive waged by the Luftwaffe. He delineates the shifts in German air strategy as well as the relationship between operational art, aviation technology, and the strategy of the German air force's general staff.

The Gulag at War: Stalin's Forced Labour System in the Light of the Archives

Edwin Bacon

New York University Press · 1994

Throughout the Stalin era and after, the Gulag system of forced labor blighted the Soviet Union. Millions were incarcerated in its camps, some to be eventually released, many to die imprisoned and faceless. For decades, histories of the camp system have relied on the experiences of those who suffered within them for their main source of information. Though these accounts have been supplemented with officially sanctioned Soviet publications, the details of the forced labor system have for decades remained hidden by state secrecy. But with the collapse of the Soviet empire, the archives of the Gulag are now opening. Drawing on the archival records kept by Gulag authorities themselves, The Gulag at War traces the development of this system in the Soviet Union from 1920 through 1960. The volume describes the state's perceptions of the camps and their tasks and addresses long-held questions concerning the motives behind the system. Specific attention is given to the World War II years; the information found in the archives shows the importance of forced labor to Soviet, and therefore Allied, victory. The Gulag at War offers a close investigation of different aspects of camp life during this time, supplying data concerning the numbers and backgrounds of the prisoners, the economic tasks and achievements, the camp conditions, and the effectiveness of camp security which have previously been unavailable.

The Heretic: the Life and Times of Josip Broz-Tito

Fitzroy Maclean

Hasrper & Brothers · 1957

The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom

Bantam Books · 1974

Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's concentration camps. But she survived and was released—as a result of a clerical error—and now shares the story of how faith triumphs over evil. For thirty-five years Corrie's dramatic life story, full of timeless virtues, has prepared readers to face their own futures with faith, relying on God's love to overcome, heal, and restore. Now releasing in a thirty-fifth anniversary edition for a new generation of readers, The Hiding Place tells the riveting story of how a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's death camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century.

The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Christian Brose

Hachette Books · Apr 21, 2020

For generations of Americans, our country has been the world's dominant military power. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America's traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war. As Christian Brose reveals in this urgent wake-up call, the future will be defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are revolutionizing global industries and are now poised to overturn the model of American defense. This fascinating, if disturbing, book confronts the existential risks on the horizon, charting a way for America's military to adapt and succeed with new thinking as well as new technology. America must build a battle network of systems that enables people to rapidly understand threats, make decisions, and take military actions, the process known as "the kill chain." Examining threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere, The Kill Chain offers hope and, ultimately, insights on how America can apply advanced technologies to prevent war, deter aggression, and maintain peace

The Korean War

Max Hastings

Pan Books · January 7, 2000

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Now Max Hastings, preeminent military historian, takes us back to the bloody, bitter, struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with more than 200 vets - including the Chinese - Hasting follows real officers and soldiers through the battles. He brilliantly captures the Cold War crisis at home - the strategies and politics of Truman, Acheson, Marshall, MacArthur, Ridgeway, and Bradley - and shows what we should have learned in the war that was the prelude to Vietnam.

The Leaderless Economy: Why the World Economic System Fell Apart and How to Fix It

Peter Temin

Princeton University Press · 2013

A new way to understand financial crises--and a blueprint for tomorrow's recoveryThe Leaderless Economy reveals why international financial cooperation is the only solution to today's global economic crisis. In this timely and important book, Peter Temin and David Vines argue that our current predicament is a catastrophe rivaled only by the Great Depression. Taking an in-depth look at the history of both, they explain what went wrong and why, and demonstrate why international leadership is needed to restore prosperity and prevent future crises.Temin and Vines argue that the financial collapse of the 1930s was an "end-of-regime crisis" in which the economic leader of the nineteenth century, Great Britain, found itself unable to stem international panic as countries abandoned the gold standard. They trace how John Maynard Keynes struggled for years to identify the causes of the Great Depression, and draw valuable lessons from his intellectual journey. Today we are in the midst of a similar crisis, one in which the regime that led the world economy in the twentieth century--that of the United States--is ending. Temin and Vines show how America emerged from World War II as an economic and military powerhouse, but how deregulation and a lax attitude toward international monetary flows left the nation incapable of reining in an overleveraged financial sector and powerless to contain the 2008 financial panic. Fixed exchange rates in Europe and Asia have exacerbated the problem.The Leaderless Economy provides a blueprint for how renewed international leadership can bring today's industrial nations back into financial balance--domestically and between each other.

The Luftwaffe over Germany: Defense of the Reich

Donald Caldwell

GREENHILL · 2007

The Luftwaffe over Germany tells the story of one of the longest and most intense air battles in history. The daylight air struggles over Germany during World War II involved thousands of aircraft, dozens of units, and hundreds of aerial engagements. Until now, there has been no single book that covers the complete story, from the highest levels of air strategy to the individual tales of Fw 190s, Bf 109s and Me 262s in air combat against the American bomber streams. This work explores the German air defense system until its collapse in 1945. It examines the detrimental effect of Luftwaffe theory and doctrine on the German air arms ability to defend the homeland once the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive began in earnest. The hard-pressed Luftwaffe leadership attempted to cobble together an air-defense network while at the same time tending to the combat fronts in Russia and the Mediterranean. Units developed specialized tactics and weapons for dealing with heavily defended bomber formations, while senior commanders sought to construct an elaborate command and control system integrating radar, observers, anti-aircraft guns, and fighters. By mid-1944, they had lost the battle - but had exacted a terrible price from the Americans in the process. The product of a ten-year collaboration between two noted Luftwaffe historians, this work fills a major gap in the literature of World War II. The authors have examined original war diaries, logbooks, doctrine manuals, after-action reports, and interviews with many combat veterans to produce a richly detailed account. Illustrated with nearly two hundred photographs, as well as new maps and diagrams, Luftwaffe Over Germany is certain to become the standard work on the subject.

The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich: A History of the German National Railway, Volume 2, 1933-1945

Alfred C. Mierzejewski

The University of North Carolina Press · November 29, 2000

The largest enterprise in the capitalist world between 1920 and 1945, the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German National Railway) was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in Germany. In this, the second volume of his comprehensive history of the Reichsbahn, Alfred Mierzejewski offers the first complete account of the national railway under Hitler's regime. Mierzejewski uses sources that include Nazi Party membership records and Reichsbahn internal memoranda to explore the railway's operations, finances, and political and social roles from 1933 to 1945. He examines the Reichsbahn's role in German rearmament, its own lack of preparations for war, and its participation in Germany's military operations. He shows that despite successfully resisting Nazi efforts to politicize its internal functions, the Reichsbahn cooperated with the government's anti-Semitic policies. Indeed, the railway played a crucial role in the Holocaust by supporting the construction and operation of the Nazi death camps and by transporting Jews and other victims to them.

The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses

Leon Goldensohn

Vintage Books · 2005

During the Nuremberg trials, Leon Goldensohn—a U.S. Army psychiatrist—monitored the mental health of two dozen Germans leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations went largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately—one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany—made them available to the public in this remarkable collection.  Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop—the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with lesser-known officials essential to the inner workings of the Third Reich. Candid and often shockingly truthful,  The Nuremberg Interviews  is a profound addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency

Annie Jacobsen

2015

The definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, from the author of the New York Times bestseller Area 51 No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present. This is the book on DARPA--a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt, #1)

Edmund Morris

Selected by The Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time This classic biography is the story of seven men—a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician—who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in history. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt begins at the apex of his international prestige. That was on New Year’s Day, 1907, when TR, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, threw open the doors of the White House to the American people and shook 8,150 hands. One visitor remarked afterward, “You go to the White House, you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk—and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes.” The rest of this book tells the story of TR’s irresistible rise to power. During the years 1858–1901, Theodore Roosevelt transformed himself from a frail, asthmatic boy into a full-blooded man. Fresh out of Harvard, he simultaneously published a distinguished work of naval history and became the fist-swinging leader of a Republican insurgency in the New York State Assembly. He chased thieves across the Badlands of North Dakota with a copy of Anna Karenina in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. Married to his childhood sweetheart in 1886, he became the country squire of Sagamore Hill on Long Island, a flamboyant civil service reformer in Washington, D.C., and a night-stalking police commissioner in New York City. As assistant secretary of the navy, he almost single-handedly brought about the Spanish-American War. After leading “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders” in the famous charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, he returned home a military hero, and was rewarded with the governorship of New York. In what he called his “spare hours” he fathered six children and wrote fourteen books. By 1901, the man Senator Mark Hanna called “that damned cowboy” was vice president. Seven months later, an assassin’s bullet gave TR the national leadership he had always craved. His is a story so prodigal in its variety, so surprising in its turns of fate, that previous biographers have treated it as a series of haphazard episodes. This book, the only full study of TR’s pre-presidential years, shows that he was an inevitable chief executive. “It was as if he were subconsciously aware that he was a man of many selves,” the author writes, “and set about developing each one in turn, knowing that one day he would be President of all the people.”

The Russian Revolution: A New History

Sean McMeekin

Basic Books · 2017

In The Russian Revolution, historian Sean McMeekin traces the origins and events of the Russian Revolution, which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and changed the course of world history. Between 1900 and 1920, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation: by the end of these two decades, a new regime was in place, the economy had collapsed, and over 20 million Russians had died during the revolution and what followed. Still, Bolshevik power remained intact due to a remarkable combination of military prowess, violent terror tactics, and the failures of their opposition. And as McMeekin shows, Russia's revolutionaries were aided at nearly every step by countries like Germany and Sweden who sought to benefit—politically and economically—from the chaotic changes overtaking the country. The first comprehensive history of these momentous events in a decade, The Russian Revolution combines cutting-edge scholarship and a fast-paced narrative to shed new light on a great turning point of the twentieth century.

The Secret War For The Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War – How Intelligence Shaped Victory, Defeat, and the Decisions of Commanders

Edwin C. Fishel

Mariner Books · June 22, 1998

Most histories of the Civil War explain victory and defeat in terms of the skill of commanders and their troops. Intelligence records disappeared after the war, and thus a critically important element has largely been ignored. Fishel has unearthed substantial collections of such records, and his "intelligence explanation" radically alters history's understanding of the campaigns. The Secret War for the Union is one of the most important Civil War works ever published.

The Soviet Home Front, 1941-1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II

John Barber

Longman · 1991

Nowhere else was World War II as bloody and destructive as it was in Eastern Europe, and of all nations it was the Soviet Union that paid the highest price for victory. The scale of death and destruction is hard to comprehend even today. Its consequences were to shape Soviet politics, and the shape of the postwar world, right through to our own time. How Soviet society responded to the threat, and survived the reality, of this most terrible of wars is the subject of this powerful and impressive survey.

The Special Operations Executive in Burma: Jungle Warfare and Intelligence Gathering in World War II

Richard Duckett

I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited · 2017

In the mountains of occupied Burma during World War II, British special forces launched a series of secret operations, assisted by the native 'Karen' people. The men of the SOE, trained in sabotage and 'guerrilla' techniques, worked in the jungle, deep behind enemy lines, to obstruct the puppet Burmese government run by Ba Maw at the behest of Emperor Hirohito's Japan. Here, Richard Duckett uses newly declassified documents from the National Archives to reveal for the first time the extent of British special forces' involvement - from the 1941 operation until well beyond Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1948. Duckett argues convincingly that 'Operation Harlington' - the guerrilla campaign to liberate Burma - ranks amongst the most important of the SOE's secret missions. Featuring a wealth of photographs and accompanying material never before published, including direct testimony recorded by veterans of the campaign, detailed maps of covert operations and photographs of the officers involved, The SOE in Burma tells a compelling story of courage and of struggle in the last years of the Second World War.

The Spy in Moscow Station: A Counterspy's Hunt for a Deadly Cold War Threat

Eric Haseltine

Thomas Dunne Books · Apr 30, 2019

The thrilling, true story of the race to find a leak in the United States Embassy in Moscow--before more American assets are rounded up and killed. Foreword by Gen. Michael V. Hayden (Retd.), Former Director of NSA & CIA In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist--those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy? Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia, but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know. Eric Haseltine's The Spy in Moscow Station tells of a time when--much like today--Russian spycraft had proven itself far beyond the best technology the U.S. had to offer. The perils of American arrogance mixed with bureaucratic infighting left the country unspeakably vulnerable to ultra-sophisticated Russian electronic surveillance and espionage. This is the true story of unorthodox, underdog intelligence officers who fought an uphill battle against their own government to prove that the KGB had pulled off the most devastating penetration of U.S. national security in history. If you think The Americans isn't riveting enough, you'll love this toe-curling nonfiction thriller.

The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Kim Barker

Doubleday · 2011

A true-life Catch-22 set in the deeply dysfunctional countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents. Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.

The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918

Nick Lloyd

Liveright Publishing Corporation · 2021

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration . . . Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War' Lawrence James, The Times 'This well-researched, well-written and cogently argued new analysis . . . will undoubtedly now take its rightful place as the standard account of this vital theatre of the conflict' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny _________________ In the annals of military history, the Western Front stands as an enduring symbol of the folly and futility of war. However, as bestselling military historian Nick Lloyd reveals in this highly-praised history - the first of an epic trilogy -- the story is not one of pointlessness and stupidity, but rather a heroic triumph against the odds. With a cast of hundreds and a huge canvas of places and events, Lloyd tells the whole tale, revealing what happened in France and Belgium between August 1914 and November 1918 from the perspective of all the main combatants - including French, British, Belgian, US and, most importantly, German forces. Lloyd examines the most decisive campaigns of the Great War and explains the unprecedented innovation, adaptation and tactical development that have been too long obscured by legends of mud, blood and futility, drawing upon the latest scholarship on the war, wrongly overlooked first-person accounts, and archival material from every angle. Conveying the visceral assault of the battlefield with vivid detail, Lloyd ultimately redefines our understanding of a crucial theatre in this monumental tragedy. _________________ 'Excellent on detail . . . Lloyd's book will be cherished by military history buffs' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'It is the best modern single-volume history of war on the Western Front and is likely to remain the standard account for some time' Jonathan Boff, The Spectator

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

Drew Gilpin Faust

Alfred A. Knopf · January 8, 2008

An illuminating study of the American struggle to comprehend the meaning and practicalities of death in the face of the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War. During the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. This Republic of Suffering explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. The eminent historian Drew Gilpin Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and its understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. She describes how survivors mourned and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the slaughter with its belief in a benevolent God, pondered who should die and under what circumstances, and reconceived its understanding of life after death. Faust details the logistical challenges involved when thousands were left dead, many with their identities unknown, on the fields of places like Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg. She chronicles the efforts to identify, reclaim, preserve, and bury battlefield dead, the resulting rise of undertaking as a profession, the first widespread use of embalming, the gradual emergence of military graves registration procedures, the development of a federal system of national cemeteries for Union dead, and the creation of private cemeteries in the South that contributed to the cult of the Lost Cause. She shows, too, how the war victimized civilians through violence that extended beyond battlefields-from disease, displacement, hardships, shortages, emotional wounds, and conflicts connected to the disintegration of slavery.

Tiger Tanks at War

Michael Green

Zenith Press · February 15, 2008

The first prototype for the Tiger tank was set to be ready for Hitlers birthday on April 20, 1942. The Henschel Company, competing with Porsche, produced the superior model, and by August of that year the formidable Tiger-or Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. H. -was in full production. This book takes us behind the scenes with the Tiger tank, reviewing the full history, the design and mechanics, and the mixed record of this machine, which was designed to outgun its Russian counterparts. Military writer Michael Green offers a close-up account-accompanied by photographs, diagrams, and maps-of how the Tiger tank operated, how it was armed, and where it succeeded brilliantly, as well as where it failed miserably. His book fills a fascinating niche in the history of military technology, and of the impact of technology on history itself.

Time To Kill

Paul Addison

Pimlico · 1997