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From acclaimed aviation historian Michael Napier, this is a highly illustrated survey of the aerial fighting in the flashpoints of the Cold War.The Cold War years were a period of unprecedented peace in Europe, yet they also saw a number of localised but nonetheless very intense wars throughout the wider world in which air power played a vital role. Flashpoints describes eight of these Cold War conflicts: the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Congo Crisis of 1960-65, the Indo-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971, the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973, the Falklands War of 1982 and the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. In all of them both sides had a credible air force equipped with modern types, and air power shaped the final outcome.Acclaimed aviation historian Michael Napier details the wide range of aircraft types used and the development of tactics over the period. The postwar years saw a revolution in aviation technology and design, particularly in the fields of missile development and electronic warfare, and these conflicts saw some of the most modern technology that the NATO and Warsaw Pact forces deployed, alongside some relatively obscure aircraft types such as the Westland Wyvern and the Folland Gnat.Highly illustrated, with over 240 images and maps, Flashpoints is an authoritative account of the most important air wars of the Cold War.

An authoritative history of the French nation that can be read for novelistic pleasure, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Discovery of France and Parisians.

'An enthralling account of a pivotal moment in modern history. . . replete with startling revelations about the deception and mutual suspicion that brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of Armageddon in October 1962' Martin Chilton, IndependentThe definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford PrizeFor more than four weeks in the autumn of 1962 the world teetered. The consequences of a misplaced step during the Cuban Missile Crisis could not have been more grave. Ash and cinder, famine and fallout; nuclear war between the two most-powerful nations on Earth.In Nuclear Folly, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the riveting story of those weeks, tracing the tortuous decision-making and calculated brinkmanship of John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and of their advisors and commanders on the ground. More often than not, Plokhy argues, the Americans and Soviets simply misread each other, operating under mutual distrust, second-guesses and false information. Despite all of this, nuclear disaster was avoided thanks to one very human reason: fear.Drawing on an impressive array of primary sources, including recently declassified KGB files, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama of those tense days. Authoritative, fast-paced and unforgettable, this is the definitive new account of the Cold War's most perilous moment.

This fully illustrated study assesses the origins, development, and combat record of the legendary Tiger and Churchill Tanks during World War II.The Tiger and the Churchill are two of the most recognizable heavily armoured tanks of World War II. Both were designed hastily in the early years of the war, and both witnessed inauspicious debuts in battle in August 1942 (the Churchill in the disaster at Dieppe, the Tiger near Leningrad). Despite their heavy weight, both tanks had surprisingly good tactical mobility, and were intended to serve in breakthrough operations. Yet there were key differences between them too, chiefly in the effectiveness of their main armament. This fascinating and detailed work explores the design and development of these famous tanks and the influence this had on their head-to-head encounters, the support services each tank relied upon, and the skills and experiences of the crews that fought in them. The specific battlefield conditions of Normandy in June and July 1944 are also examined, exploring the effect they had on the duels between these two heavyweight AFVs. .

Major new study of the war that shaped eighteenth-century Europe. The first comprehensive history of the war to be published for ninety years.

Logistics is the vital subject in waging war. This book fills a gap in war studies with logistics as a huge subject at the centre of all conflict, globally and historically.

A gripping and detailed study of the brutal urban battle for Budapest, which saw German and Hungarian troops struggling to halt the joint Soviet-Romanian offensive to take the key city on the Danube.The 52-day-long siege of Budapest witnessed some of the most destructive urban fighting of the war. The Transdanubia region was strategically vital to Nazi Germany for its raw materials and industry, and because of the bridgehead it allowed into Austria. As a result, Hitler declared Budapest a fortress city in early December 1944. The battle for the city pitted 90,000 German and Hungarian troops against 170,000 Soviet (2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts) and Romanian attackers. The operations to take the city ran across several phases, from the initial Soviet approach to Budapest commencing in late October 1944, through the encirclement of city first on the Pest side of the Danube, and then on the Buda bank, and on to the savage urban fighting that began in December 1944 for the Hungarian capital. This superbly detailed work analyses the background, chronology and consequences of the siege from both a military and political perspective, and documents the huge losses in military and civilian casualties and material damage.

A gripping examination of the Battle of the Barents Sea, fought in the near darkness and icy cold of the northern winter, in which the Kriegsmarine sought to sever the crucial Allied Arctic Convoy route once and for all.The Arctic convoys that passed through the cold, dangerous waters of the Barents Sea formed a vital lifeline ΓÇô a strategic link in tanks, supplies and above all goodwill between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. In December 1942, under Operation Regenbogen (Rainbow), the German Kriegsmarine sought to strike a crippling blow on the Arctic convoys and finally sever this all-important sea route. In this fascinating work, renowned naval expert Angus Konstam documents the fate of the Allied Convoy JW 51B as it came under attack from some of the Kriegsmarine''s most powerful surface warships ΓÇô a pocket battleship, a heavy cruiser and six destroyers. Illustrated with stunning battlescene artworks, maps, 3D diagrams and photographs, it explores the David and Goliath struggle between the Allied ships defending the convoy and the powerful German force, until the arrival of the two British cruisers tipped the balance of power. The Battle of the Barents Sea, fought amid snowstorms and the darkness of the Arctic night, would prove to be a turning point in the hard-fought war in northern waters, and would test Hitler''s patience with his surface fleet to the limit.

An illustrated history of how Japan devised and launched a new kind of air campaign in late 1944 ΓÇô the suicidal assaults of the kamikaze units against the approaching Allied fleets.As summer changed to autumn in 1944, Japan was losing the war. Still unwilling to surrender, Japan''s last hope was to try to wear down US resolve enough to reach a negotiated settlement. Extraordinary measures seemed necessary, and the most extraordinary was the formation of Special Attack Units ΓÇô known to the Allies as the kamikazes. The concept of organized suicide squadrons was first raised on June 15, 1944. By August, formations were being trained. These formations were first used in the October 1944 US invasion of the Philippine Islands, where they offered some tactical success. The program was expanded into a major campaign over the rest of the Pacific War, seeing a crescendo during the struggle for Okinawa in April through May 1945. This highly illustrated history examines not just the horrific missions themselves, but the decisions behind the kamikaze campaign, how it developed, and how it became a key part of Japanese strategy. Although the attacks started on an almost ad hoc basis, the kamikaze soon became a major Japanese policy. By the end of the war, Japan was manufacturing aircraft specifically for kamikaze missions, including a rocket-powered manned missile. A plan for a massive use of kamikazes to defend the Japanese Home Islands from invasion was developed, but never executed because of Japan''s surrender in August 1945. Packed with diagrams, maps and 3D reconstructions of the attacks, this book also assesses the Allied mitigation techniques and strategies and the reasons and the degree to which they were successful.

When the first edition of Volume 1 was published twenty years ago, it hit the WW II interested community as a bomb. Richard Goldblatt at SimHqCom, called it without a doubt one of the finest aviation history books Ive ever read, and J.J. Fedorowicz called it an indispensable reference highly recommended. At Stone & Stone it was voted as the No. 1 military history book of the year. That edition was sold out in about a year, and since no new edition was published, it has become a rarity. The first edition contained a maximum of 100,000 words. The second edition not only has much higher quality as far as the research is concerned but also contains twice that word count, a very large number of absolutely new photos (many of which are from pilot veterans photo albums and have never been published before), printed in the same high quality as in Volumes 4 and 5.

This study covers, in remarkable detail, a number of forgotten and overlooked armoured engagements on the Eastern Front 1944-45, based on Soviet and German archives.

The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 2014New York Times top ten bestseller 2014Amazon.com's Top Ten History Books of the Year 2014New York Times Book of the Year 2014'Fascinating... Masterly' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

This study describes the air-sea offensive supporting the ground-force invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in February and April 1945, which led to the sinking of the Yamato and the onslaught of the Japanese kamikaze.During the Pacific War, the island invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were the last two major ground campaigns. By the time these took place in early 1945, the US Navy had reached an exceptional level of coordination in its amphibious operations, and was able to overrun and subdue Japanese territories efficiently. Faced with the increasing might of these forces and to prevent further defeat, Imperial Japan deployed its kamikaze aircraft and attacked many US heavy aircraft carriers and destroyers; several were sunk, while others were knocked out of the war. This superbly illustrated book explores the air-sea aspects of the pivotal battles that took place, and includes the "death ride" of the Japanese battleship Yamato (the largest ever built), and the mass kamikaze attacks off Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as well as the Iwo Jima and Okinawa amphibious invasions and the naval and air bombardments of the two islands. It also considers the contribution of the USAAF and the British Pacific Fleet to the eventual victory of US air and ground forces.

A fully illustrated history of how the US Navy destroyed Truk, the greatest Japanese naval and air base in the Pacific, with Operation Hailstone, and how B-29 units and the carriers of the British Pacific Fleet kept the base suppressed until VJ-Day.In early 1944, the island base of Truk was a Japanese Pearl Harbor; a powerful naval and air base that needed to be neutralized before the Allies could fight their way any further towards Tokyo. But Truk was also the most heavily defended naval base outside the Japanese Home Islands and an Allied invasion would be costly. Long-range bombing against Truk intact would be a massacre so a plan was conceived to neutralize it through a series of massive naval raids led by the growing US carrier fleet. Operation Hailstone was one of the most famous operations ever undertaken by American carriers in the Pacific.This book examines the rise and fall of Truk as a Japanese bastion and explains how in two huge raids, American carrier-based aircraft reduced it to irrelevance. Also covered is the little-known story of how the USAAF used the ravaged base as a live-fire training ground for its new B-29s -- whose bombing raids ensured Truk could not be reactivated by the Japanese. The pressure on Truk was kept up right through 1945 when it was also used as a target for the 509th Composite Squadron to practice dropping atomic bombs and by the British Pacific Fleet to hone its pilots'' combat skills prior to the invasion of Japan.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of one of the most important campaigns in the colonization of the Americas, the Spanish conquest of the vast Inca Empire.On November 16, 1532, the Inca emperor Atahualpa was the most powerful man in South America, having emerged victorious from a three-year civil war. Now his authority was absolute over millions of subjects living the length of an empire that stretched 2,500 miles from the towering mountains of the Andes, to the verdant rainforest of the Amazon, to the arid plains of the Pacific Coast. However, a group of strangers, comprising just 169 men and 69 horses led by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, soon entered his empire from the north. Despite having 80,000 men at his disposal, Atahualpa was seized and imprisoned. Pizarro burned with the same ruthless ambition as his cousin, Hernán Cortés, who had taken Tenochtitlan, and understood that by seizing the autocrat at the top of the social structure, the state would be at his disposal. Pizarro then marched on Cuzco, the Inca capital, and installed a new puppet emperor, Manco. However, in 1536, Manco roused the people against the intruders, and the Spaniards, having held sway over the entire empire, now found themselves under siege in the capital, desperately striving to hold back the overwhelming numbers of the Inca warriors massing against them. This fascinating and colorfully illustrated book documents the long and bloody siege, and describes how at the end of ten bitter months, during which Pizarro was defeated at the battle of Ollantaytambo and lost his brother, Juan, while storming the great fortress of Sacsayhuamán, Pizarro emerged the victor. Using photos, documents, and historical sources to illustrate the story, this volume brings an ancient piece of history vividly to life.

“Written from the unusual perspective of a navigator, this is a compelling account of the air war against Germany.” —Publishers Weekly   They began operations out of England in the spring of ’43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the “Bloody Hundredth” a legend.   Harry H. Crosby—soon to be portrayed by Anthony Boyle in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last. After dealing with his fear and gaining in skill and confidence, he was promoted to Group Navigator, surviving hairbreadth escapes and eluding death while leading thirty-seven missions, some of them involving two thousand aircraft. Now, in a breathtaking and often humorous account, he takes us into the hearts and minds of these intrepid airmen to experience both the triumph and the white-knuckle terror of the war in the skies.   “Affecting . . . A vivid account . . . Uncommonly thoughtful recollections that address the moral ambiguities of a great cause without in any way denigrating the selfless valor or camaraderie that helped ennoble it.” —Kirkus Reviews   “Re-creates for us the sense of how it was when European skies were filled with noise and danger, when the fate of millions hung in the balance. An evocative and excellent memoir.” —Library Journal   “The acrid stench of fear and cordite, the coal burning stoves, the heroics, the losses . . . This has to be the best memoir I have read, bar none.” —George Hicks, director of the Airmen Memorial Museum

Leading expert Gavin Mortimer tells the remarkable origin story of a wartime special forces unit that defied the odds.Z Special Unit, one of the most intrepid but arguably the most unsung of Allied Special Forces of the Second World War waged a guerrilla war against Japan for two years in the south-west Pacific. On some of their 81 operations Z Special Unit slipped into enemy harbours in canoes and silently mined ships before vanishing into the night; on others they parachuted into the dense Borneo jungle to fight with headhunters against the Japanese and on one occasion they landed on an Indonesian island and smuggled out the pro-Allied sultan from under Japanese noses. The Japanese weren't the only adversary that Z Special Unit encountered in the brutal terrain of the Pacific. In the mango swamps of Borneo and the dense jungle of Papua New Guinea they were faced with venomous snakes, man-eating crocodiles and deadly diseases. But it was the enemy soldiers who proved the most ruthless foe, beheading those Z Special Unit commandos who fell into their hands.Drawing on veteran interviews as well as operational reports and recently declassified SOE files, Gavin Mortimer explores the incredible history of this remarkable special forces unit and the band of commandoes that defied the odds.

Explores the history of China from the founding of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) to the present day. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this rising superpower in what promises to be the 'Chinese century'.

US Army Air Cavalry Patches: An Imperfect Album of US Army Air Cavalry Unit Insignia (2001-2021), for the first time in one place presents a collection of Air Cavalry unit insignia and patches. Collectors and historians alike will find this colorful collection which covers all air cavalry units that were active in the United States Army from September 11, 2001, until 2021 both interesting and informative. The patches and insignia are presented in full color and represent 20 years of collecting and over 3 years of research which are presented on 60 pages.

A charming and heartfelt story about war, art, and the lengths a woman will go to to find the truth about her family.'As devourable as a thriller... Incredibly moving' Elle'Pauline Baer de Perignon is a natural storyteller - refreshingly honest, curious and open' Menachem KaiserIt all started with a list of paintings. There, scribbled by a cousin she hadn't seen for years, were the names of the masters whose works once belonged to her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss: Renoir, Monet, Degas, Tiepolo and more. Pauline Baer de Perignon knew little to nothing about Strauss, or about his vanished, precious art collection.But the list drove her on a frenzied trail of research in the archives of the Louvre and the Dresden museums, through Gestapo records, and to consult with Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano. What happened in 1942? And what became of the collection after Nazis seized her great-grandparents' elegant Parisian apartment?The quest takes Pauline Baer de Perignon from the Occupation of France to the present day as she breaks the silence around the wrenching experiences her family never fully transmitted, and asks what art itself is capable of conveying over time.

From the first shots fired at Fort Sumter in 1861 to the final clashes on the Road to Appomattox in 1864, The Atlas of the Civil War reconstructs the battles of America's bloodiest war with unparalleled clarity and precision. Edited by Pulitzer Prize recipient James M. McPherson and written by America's leading military historians, this peerless reference charts the major campaigns and skirmishes of the Civil War. Each battle is meticulously plotted on one of 200 specially commissioned full-color maps. Timelines provide detailed, play-by-play maneuvers, and the accompanying text highlights the strategic aims and tactical considerations of the men in charge. Each of the battle, communications, and locator maps are cross-referenced to provide a comprehensive overview of the fighting as it swept across the country. With more than two hundred photographs and countless personal accounts that vividly describe the experiences of soldiers in the fields, The Atlas of the Civil War brings to life the human drama that pitted state against state and brother against brother.