Learning from Foreign Wars examines how the Russian army interpreted, and what lessons it learned from the wars in Europe between 1859 and 1871, and the American Civil War. This was a time marked by rapid change - political, social, economic and technological. By raising the question of learning from foreign wars the author attempts to fill a gap in the historiography of the Russian army.The army was one of the pillars on which the Russian regime built its power, and it was crucial...

How should the countries in the Baltic Sea region and their allies meet the strategic challenges posed by an openly aggressive and expansionist Russia? NATO and the nonaligned states in the region are now more concerned about an external threat than they have been since the end of the Cold War. Russia has been probing air space, maritime boundaries, and even land borders from the Baltic republics to Sweden. Russia's undermining of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea worries former Soviet repu...

Novel insights into Russian military thought—from the Crimean War to the war in UkraineThe development of the Russian military's strategic thought is an understudied and thus misunderstood subject in the West. Strategy in Russia encompasses the broader context of foreign and domestic policy as well as the military's ties to the country's leadership. The military's strategic thought is closely linked to Russia's existence as a state and explains patterns of Russian ...

Novel insights into Russian military thought―from the Crimean War to the war in UkraineThe development of the Russian military's strategic thought is an understudied and thus misunderstood subject in the West. Strategy in Russia encompasses the broader context of foreign and domestic policy as well as the military's ties to the country's leadership. The military's strategic thought is closely linked to Russia's existence as a state and explains patterns of Russian ...

**Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize"A superb and immensely important book."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostThe Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years...**The end of World War II in Europe is remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, but the reality was quite different. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed, and more than thirty mil...

**An absorbing, revelatory, and definitive account of one of the greatest tragedies in human history, by the author of The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and Hitler's People“This is history in the grand style, the kind of large-scale narrative that few historians dare to write these days. It is difficult to imagine how it could be improved upon, let alone surpassed.” —The Washington Post"This superb book is n...

Originally published as Deathride, this is the true story of the Eastern Front in World War II, emphasizing how close Germany came to winning and the USSR to losing; the severity of the Soviet losses, which have been minimized due to Soviet propaganda; and the importance of the Allied invasions of North Africa and Sicily, among other factors, in forcing Hitler to re-deploy troops, saving the Soviets from disaster.The German invasion of the Soviet Union on ...

From a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War I.“A rich and provocative book, evocative and heartbreaking.” — AtlanticThe Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England’s fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental co...

**The definitive account of the month after Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, revealing how reckless statesmen directly led to World War I.“Almost impossible to put down ... A punchy and riveting narrative.” —New York Review of Books**When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, no one could have imagined the shocking bloodshed that would soon follow. Indeed, as acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914...

The renowned WWII historian offers a penetrating analysis of the ethical dilemmas faced by leaders and ordinary soldiers in this "powerful, gripping book" ( Washington Times).In Moral Combat, Michael Burleigh delivers a brilliant new examination of the day-to-day moral crises underpinning the momentous conflicts of the Second World War. A magisterial counterpart to his award-winning and internationally bestselling The Third Reich, winner o...

***In Halik Kochanski's extraordinary book, the untold story of Poland and the Poles in the Second World War is finally heardBy almost every measure the fate of the inhabitants of Poland was the most terrible of any group in the Second World War. Following the destruction of its armed forces in the autumn of 1939, the Republic of Poland was partitioned between Nazi and Soviet forces and officially ceased to exist. Racial violence and ideological conformity were at the very heart of...

A detailed and absorbing narrative of the campaigns fought on the 'forgotten' Eastern Front of the Great War, vividly illustrating that these campaigns were no less costly, tragic and important than the catastrophes of the Somme, Verdun and Passchendaele.The massive offensives on the Eastern Front during 1915 are too often overshadowed by the events in Western Europe, but the scale and ferocity of the clashes between Imperial Germany, Habsburg Austria-Hungary and T...