Böcker utgivna av University Press of Kansas

One of the most persistent myths to come out of World War II is that the Third Reich failed because a militarily incompetent Hitler and a small circle of ""yes-men"" consistently overrode the professional judgement of the German General Staff. This text seeks to dispel this long-standing myth.

Collectively examines the Reconstruction policies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes, revealing how they confronted and responded to the complex issues presented during a contested era in American Politics.

This work locates the CIA's origins in government-wide efforts to reorganize national security during the transition from World War II to the Cold War. The author believes that the creation of the CIA was the culmination of years of negotiation among numerous policy makers.

In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam launched a massive military offensive designed to deliver the coup de grace to South Vietnam and its rapidly disengaging American ally. But an over-confident Hanoi misjudged its opponents who. This is the story of heroism against great odds.

From Eisenhower's toppling of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 to Bush's overthrow of Noriega in Panama in 1989, this title casts an eye on eight major cases of US intervention in the Western Hemisphere, offering interpretations of why they occurred and what they signified.

Who killed JFK? Ever since that fateful day in Dallas, theories about President Kennedy's murder have proliferated, running the gamut from the official "e;lone gunman"e; verdict to both serious and utterly screwball conspiracy theories. Michael Kurtz, a distinguished historian who has plumbed every crevice of this controversial case for more than thirty years, now sums up and critiques four decades of debate, while also offering provocative new perspectives.Kurtz presents an objective accounting of what we actually know and don't know about the assassination, underlining both the logic and the limitations of the major theories about the case. He then offers unique interpretations of the physical and forensic evidence and of existing areas of controversy, leading him to new conclusions that readers will find hard to dismiss.Kurtz shows how the official investigation's egregious mishandling of the crime-scene evidencerelated to virtually every aspect of the caseis largely responsible for the lone gunman/conspiracy schism that confronts us today. Those responsible for that investigation (including the Dallas police, the FBI, and the Warren Commission) failed so miserably in their efforts that they would have been laughed off the air if they had been portrayed on any of TV's popular CSI series.One of the few experts writing on the subject who actually met Oswald, Kurtz also provides new information about the accused assassin's activities around the time of the assassination and about his double life, analyzing Oswald's ties to the intelligence community, to organized crime, and to both anti- and pro-Castro Cuban activists. Mustering extraordinary documentation-including exclusive interviews with key figures and extensive materials declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board-he both confirms and alters much previous speculation about Oswald and other aspects of the case.Who really killed JFK? Forty years later, most Americans still feel they don't know the truth and that their own government isn't telling them the whole story. This book offers a corrective to even the most recent "e;final verdicts"e; and establishes a sound baseline for future research.

For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives (""short and lively"") - wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again.

Offering an in-depth history of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) from 1955 to 1975, the author takes readers into the barracks and training centers of the ARVN to plumb the hearts and souls of these forgotten soldiers. He explores the lives of ordinary men, focusing on troop morale and motivation within the context of Vietnamese society.

In the hell that was World War II, the Eastern Front was its heart of fire and ice. Gottlob Herbert Bidermann served in that lethal theater from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years recaptures the sights, sounds, and smells of the war as it vividly portrays an army marching on the road to ruin.A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail never before available in English. It offers a ground soldier's perspective on life and death on the front lines, providing revealing new information concerning day-to-day operations and German army life. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. He shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape. He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range. In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags. Bidermann's account debunks the myth of a highly mechanized German army that rolled over weaker opponents with impunity. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving. His story commits that living hell to the annals of World War II and broadens our understanding of its most deadly combat zone.Translator Derek Zumbro has rendered Bidermann's memoir into a compelling narrative that retains the author's powerful style. This English-language edition of Bidermann's dynamic story is based upon a privately published memoir entitled Krim-Kurland Mit Der 132 Infanterie Division. The translator has added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers.

Unsentimental and realistic in his approach, the author tells the stories of chaplains who risked their lives in World War II. The text combines a social history, with thumbnail sketches of key battles and powerful portraits of men of the cloth under fire.

In the days when dinosaurs dominated the earth, their marine counterparts every bit as big and ferocious reigned supreme in prehistoric seas. In this entrancing book, Richard Ellis, one of the world's foremost writers on the denizens of the deep, takes us back to the Mesozoic era to resurrect the fascinating lives of these giant seagoing reptiles

Richard Lukas presents the compelling eyewitness accounts of Polish Christians who suffered at the hands of the Germans. Their stories provide a somber reminder that non-Jewish Poles were just as likely as Jews to suffer at the hands of the Nazis, who viewed them with nearly equal contempt.