Military History Strategy

GCHQ is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the UK, and has existed for 100 years - but we still know next to nothing about it. In this ground-breaking book - the first and most definitive history of the organisation ever published - intelligence expert Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s development from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside into one of the world leading espionage organisations.

In How the Laser Happened, Nobel laureate Charles Townes provides a highly personal look at some of the leading events in 20th-century physics. This lively memoir, packed with firsthand accounts and historical anecdotes, is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of science and an inspiring example for students considering scientific careers.

Possibly the foremost classic of military strategy. The Art of War was written by Sun Tzu (Sunzi, Sun Wu), a quasi-legendary figure. The work dates from the 6th to the 3rd century BCE. It is known worldwide as required reading for students of political and military science and history. Most editions of this work include a great amount of commentary from various editors, making the work more difficult to understand. We have dispensed with that here, and only include the core treatise in straightforward, modern prose.

Fighting a superior foe is a momentous task. There are many ways it can be done; there are many ways victories can be achieved. In war, there are no rules, there are no laws; there are only strategies and tactics. Many say what they would do in the face of tyranny; many know what they should do when the powerful become predators. A divided people can be isolated and devoured. Survival depends upon the masses forming one mind.

Bringing together 10 eminent Revolutionary War experts, editor Ed Lengel presents their stirring narratives of the military campaigns that changed history and gave birth to a new nation. These historians guide you through the fateful decade of the 1770s in British America. In 1776, you battle in Brooklyn Heights, then cross the Delaware with Washington. In the late summer and fall of '77, you bushwhack down the Champlain Valley with Johnny Burgoyne. You struggle through winter with Washington and his beleaguered troops in Valley Forge.

Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1.25 trillion operate. How is it possible that the United States Government gets it so wrong on so many critical issues, and so often? And if our expensive national security machine is not working, what can be done?

World War I was the stage for a new form of mass destruction and violent chemical warfare. When the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war in 1917, the Germans turned their offensive moves to the eastern front in hopes of winning the war in 1918. But as fresh American troops entered the front, the scales tipped against Germany.

The Art of Military Strategy: Lessons from Sun Tzu, Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte introduces listeners to the leadership, strategies, and battle exploits of these three great men. With this audiobook, you’ll understand how they influenced their generations and the impact they've had on the history of the world.

For more than two thousand years, The Art of War has stood as a cornerstone of Chinese culture, a lucid epigrammatic text that reveals as much about human psychology, politics, and economics as it does about battlefield strategy. The influence of Sun-Tzu's text has grown tremendously in the West in recent years, with military leaders, politicians, and corporate executives alike finding valuable insight in these ancient words.

From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker, and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain’s greatest wartime leader and politician. Deep down though, he was foremost a warlord. In this audiobook, historian Anthony Tucker-Jones explores the record of Winston Churchill as a military commander, assessing how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office. This audiobook assesses his choices in the some of the most controversial and high-profile campaigns of World War II.

In the shadowed swamps of Revolutionary South Carolina, General Francis Marion—the Swamp Fox—waged a war of wits against the British Empire, turning mud and moonlight into weapons of liberty. With a ragtag militia, he struck like thunder, vanishing before the redcoats could strike back, his name a whispered legend of defiance. Now, in The Swamp Fox Unleashed, retired Marine Colonel Daniel Hunter Wilson reveals how Marion’s guerrilla genius echoes through centuries, shaping the Marine Corps’ modern doctrine of maneuver warfare.

In five case studies of US Army doctrine, Campbell pits military realism against bureaucratic and cultural perspectives in three key areas - nuclear versus conventional warfare, preferences for offense versus defense, and COIN missions - and finds that the army has been more doctrinally flexible than those perspectives would predict. He demonstrates that decision makers, while vowing in the wake of Vietnam to avoid (COIN) missions, nonetheless found themselves adapting to the geopolitical realities of fighting “low intensity” conflicts.

In June 1944, the attention of the nation was riveted on the events unfolding in France. But in the Pacific, the Battle of Saipan was of extreme strategic importance. D-Day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan is a gripping account of one of the most dramatic engagements of World War II. The conquest of Saipan and the neighboring island of Tinian was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, making the American victory against Japan inevitable.

In an increasingly urbanized world, urban terrain has become a greater factor in military operations. Simultaneously, advances in military technology have given military forces sharply increased capabilities. The conflict comes from how urban terrain can negate or degrade many of those increased capabilities. What happens when advanced weapons are used in a close-range urban fight with an abundance of cover? Storming the City analyzes the performance of the US Army and US Marine Corps in urban combat in four major urban battles of the mid-20th century.

No single sea battle has had more far-reaching consequences than the one fought in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862. The Confederacy, with no fleet of its own, built an iron fort containing 10 heavy guns on the hull of a captured Union frigate named the Merrimack. The North got word of the project when it was already well along, and, in desperation, commissioned an eccentric inventor named John Ericsson to build the Monitor, an entirely revolutionary iron warship.

World War II was a media war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the press to a great extent, of course, but as the war progressed, the media also came to influence commanders' decisions on the battlefield. The Media Offensive offers a new way to understand military-media relations during World War II. The press and public opinion shaped not only how the conflict was seen but also how it was fought. In what could be called "the new history of war reporting," the focus is switched from how the military controlled reporters to how military decisions were shaped by the press.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Saul David's comprehensive history, All the King's Men: The British Soldier from the Restoration to Waterloo, read by the actor Sean Barrett. "The British soldier," wrote a Prussian officer who served with Wellington, "is vigorous, well fed, by nature highly brave and intrepid, trained to the most vigorous discipline, and admirably well-armed...

On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aeroplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions. He gazed up in envy at this massive demonstration of paratroop power.

On War by the Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) is a classic of war and military strategy published in 1832. Some of the key concepts discussed in the book include: the methods of critical analysis, the uses and abuses of historical studies, the nature of the balance-of-power mechanism, the relationship between political objectives and military objectives in war, the asymmetrical relationship between attack and defense, strategic and operational "centers of gravity", the "culminating point of the offensive", and the "culminating point of victory".

Dive into the heart of the ancient Inca Empire with “Warriors of the Sun: The Inca Legacy of Cusco.” This captivating historical narrative brings to life the legendary Inca warriors who defended and expanded the empire from their capital in Cusco. Explore the rich tapestry of Inca culture, military strategy, and the indomitable spirit of the warriors who stood at the forefront of one of history’s most fascinating civilizations. From the rise of the Inca Empire to its dramatic encounters with Spanish conquistadors, this book offers a detailed and immersive journey through time.