Military history Books

Australia's extensive coastline has a rich and diverse maritime history. In Search of Fish and Fortune celebrates the history of fishing and pearling as some of the first commercial trades established following European settlement on the western...

'Long Live Freedom!'-Hans Scholl's last words before his executionThe White Rose (die Weie Rose) resistance circle was a group of students and a professor at the University of Munich who in the early 1940s secretly wrote and...

Soldiers disguised as a herd of cows, cork bath mats for troops crossing streams and a tank with a piano attachment for camp concerts are just some of the absurd inventions to be found in this book of cartoons designed to keep spirits up during the...

As the devastation of German-occupied Belgium awakened Britain to the horrors of the Great War, a group of English cartoonists responded to these events with characteristic black humor. Among the most inventive responses was advertising artist John...

Japan's post-war armed forces are a paradox, both embarrassing remnants of the past and valuable repositories of experience. This book charts the development of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) from 1954 as both unorthodox military institutions and...

Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, both suffering from shell shock, were sent to convalesce at Craiglockhart hospital in Edinburgh in 1917. Owen, who referred to himself as the 'poet's poet' was unpublished at the time. It was the influence and...

Sub Culture explores the crucial role of the submarine in modern history, its contribution to scientific progress and maritime exploration, and how it has been portrayed in art, literature, fantasy and film. Ranging from the American Civil War to the...

For this book, fifteen distinguished historians were given a deceptively simple task: identify their choice for the worst military leader in history and then explain why theirs is the worst.From the clueless Conrad von Htzendorf and George A. Custer to...

Suspended between sea and sky, battered by the waves and the wind, lighthouses mark the battlelines between the elements. They guard the boundaries between the solid human world and the primordial chaos of the waters; between stability and instability;...

The Russian government's deniable use of rogues, businessmen, enthusiasts, mercenaries and political technologists confounded policymakers as Moscow waged a covert invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Did Crimea and Donbas reveal the Kremlin's new 'hybrid war'...

The epic story of a man born into Caribbean slavery, who defeated Napoleon's armies and crowned himself a free black king.How did a Caribbean child, born into plantation slavery, come to defeat Napoleon's armies in battle and crown himself king of the...

A set of highly renowned experts offer diverse new research and a analysis of today's proxy wars, focusing on the Middle East and its neighbours.Proxy warfare will shape the conflicts of the twenty-first century for the foreseeable future. Yet the...

From Spain to Syria, the thrilling, untold history of Nazi fugitives turned postwar agents for America, the Soviets, the Third World, or themselves.After the Second World War, the Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals 'to the ends of the...

Cyber-warfare is often discussed, but rarely truly seen. When does an intrusion turn into an attack, and what does that entail? How do nations fold offensive cyber operations into their strategies? Operations against networks mostly occur to collect...

In a 1965 letter to 'Newsweek', French writer and academic Bernard Fall (1926-67) staked a claim as the 'Number One Realist' on the Vietnam War. This is the first book to study the thought of this overlooked figure, one of the most important experts on...

In early summer 1982--winter in the South Atlantic--Argentina's military junta invades the Falklands. Within days, a Royal Navy Task Force is assembled and dispatched. This is the story of D Squadron, 22 SAS, commanded by Cedric Delves. The relentless...

The highly eccentric Alfred Dillwyn Knox, known simply as 'Dilly', was one of the leading figures in the British codebreaking successes of the two world wars. During the first, he was the chief codebreaker in the Admiralty, breaking the German navy's...

By the time of Japan's surrender in 1945, an entire generation had grown up knowing nothing but conflict; but the transformation of Japan into a militarist power began decades earlier, with the toppling of the old samurai regime, and the rush of...

Bushido: The Samurai Code of Japan is one of the most influential books ever written on "the way of the warrior." A classic study of Japanese culture, the book outlines the moral code of the Samurai way of living and the virtues every Samurai warrior...

**Selected as one of the 'Biggest Non-Fiction Books of 2019' by The Times**As one of theearliestArabs to join the Afghan Jihad, theAlgerian IslamistAbdullah Anas counted as brothers-in-arms the future icons of al-Qaeda's global war, from Abdullah Azzam...

Responding to a diplomatic stalemate and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, Yemen's civil actors work every day to build peace in fragmented local communities across the country. This book shows how their efforts relate to longstanding justice...

How does the Taliban wage war? How has its war changed over time? Firstly, the movement's extraordinary military operation relies on financial backing. This volume analyses such funding. The Taliban's external sources of support include foreign...

Between South and Central Asia, in the high mountains and cold deserts, India, Pakistan and China have fought brutal wars over barren, uninhabited territory in a bid for control over their national peripheries, including Xinjiang and Tibet in China, and...

When Taliban forces took Kabul on 15 August 2021, it marked the end of the Western intervention that had begun nearly twenty years earlier with the US-led invasion. The fall of Afghanistan triggered a seismic shock in the West, where US President Joe...

The culmination of 25 years of research, Alex Bennett's groundbreaking English translation of Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings reveals the true meaning of the original workThis piece of writing by famed samurai Musashi...

This new edition contains a new introduction by the translator, and has been thoroughly updated to reflect developments that shed new light on the original Japanese text. True Path of the Ninja is the first authoritative...

Treasured for centuries by karate's top masters, the Bubishi is a classic Chinese work on philosophy, strategy, medicine, and technique as they relate to the martial arts.Referred to as the "bible of karate" by famous master Chojun...

The French Revolution facilitated the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but after gaining power he knew that his first task was to end it. In this book William Doyle describes how he did so, beginning with the three large issues that had destabilized...

A fascinating, forgotten story of the six brilliant women who launched modern computing.As the Cold War began, America's race for tech supremacy was taking off. Experts rushed to complete the top-secret computing research started during World War II,...

A multifaceted history of Ho Chi Minh's climactic victory over French colonial might that foreshadowed America's experience in Vietnam.On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could...

People are drawn to the harbours and boats of Scotland whether they have a seafaring background or not. Why do boats take on different shapes as you follow the complex shorelines of islands and mainland? And why do the sails they carry appear to be so...

A gripping true story of wartime espionage.Dundee, 1937. When housewife Mary Curran became suspicious of hairdresser Jessie Jordan's frequent trips to Nazi Germany, she had no idea that she was about to be drawn into an international web of...

The Bruces of fourteenth-century Scotland were formidable and enthusiastic warriors. Whilst much has been written about events as they happened in Scotland during the chaotic years of the first part of the fourteenth century, England's war with...

Scotland has had a uniquely important military history over the last five centuries. Conflict with England in the 16th century, Jacobite rebellions in the 18th century, 20th-century defences and the two world wars, as well as the Cold War, all resulted...

The Russian Civil War of 1917-1920, out of which the Soviet Union was born, was one of the most significant events of the twentieth century. The collapse of the Tsarist regime and the failure of the Kerensky Provisional Government nearly led to the...

Vast Expanses is a cultural, environmental and geopolitical history that examines the relationship between humans and oceans, reaching back across geological and evolutionary time and exploring different cultures around the globe.Our ancient connections...

The Japanese air raids on Darwin on 19 February 1942 are well known to most Australians, but what happened afterwards?For almost two years the airspace over north-west Australia was routinely infiltrated by Japanese air raids, tallying about 70 in total...

'Given the importance of ability, judgment, leadership and discipline to the effective performance of any military force, the nation faces a serious problem when the public begin to have doubts and politicians start to distrust, the capability of the...

'We are at war with them,' wrote a Tasmanian settler in 1831. 'What we call their crime is what in a white man we should call patriotism.'Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. So why are there no official memorials...

** Shortlisted, 2023 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award **Two Australian scientists played a vital yet largely unknown role in the Allied victory in the Second World War. Almost eight decades later, Wizards of Oz finally tells their story.In this...

In the early hours of 26 February 1918, the British hospital ship Glenart Castle steamed into the Bristol Channel, heading for France to pick up wounded men from the killing fields of the Western Front. On board was 32-year-old Australian nurse, Edith...

'Haven't lost the sand, dust, flies or fleas yet, but have had them for so long now they seem part of us' 12 August 1941, TobrukWhen Tom 'Diver' Derrick enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force on 5 July 1940, he was a...

** Shortlisted, ACT Book of the Year Award 2022 **On 29 August 2012 Private Robert Poate, Lance Corporal Rick Milosevic and Sapper James Martin were killed during an insider or green on blue attack in Afghanistan. Their killer, a supposed ally, was a...

'Most veterans were either alcoholics or workaholics and I fitted into the latter category.' - Chris Cannin (6RAR, 1967; 7RAR, 1967-68)'When I look back and I see what I used to do ... there were a lot of things wrong that I...

The legacy of war is complex. From the late twentieth century as we moved closer to the centenary of the start of the First World War, Australia was swept by an 'Anzac revival' and a feverish sense of commemoration. In this book, leading historians...

**2019 Nib Military History Prize Finalist ** 'This book shouldbe read by anyone interested in the way myths become accepted as history.' - Peter Edwards, author of Australia and the Vietnam WarWhy everything you thinkyou know about Australia's...

'Even a military that is solely dedicated to preparing for war creates, simply by existing, a suite of responsibilities that has very little to do with combat.' - Tristan Moss and Tom RichardsonThere is a lot more to military life than war. From...

For the first time, Serving in Silence? reveals the integral role played by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men and women in Australia's military after the Second World War. Their powerful personal stories, recounted with searing honesty,...