Political campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and canvass block by block, house by house, voter by voter. Ground Wars provides an in-depth ethnographic portrait of two such campaigns, New Jersey Democrat Linda Stender's and that of Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who both ran for Congress in 2008. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen examines how American political operatives use "personalized political communication" to engage with the electorate, and weighs the implications of ground war tactics for how we understand political campaigns and what it means to participate in them. He shows how ground wars are waged using resources well beyond those of a given candidate and their staff. These include allied interest groups and civic associations, party-provided technical infrastructures that utilize large databases with detailed individual-level information for targeting voters, and armies of dedicated volunteers and paid part-timers. Nielsen challenges the notion that political communication in America must be tightly scripted, controlled, and conducted by a select coterie of professionals. Yet he also quashes the romantic idea that canvassing is a purer form of grassroots politics. In today's political ground wars, Nielsen demonstrates, even the most ordinary-seeming volunteer knocking at your door is backed up by high-tech targeting technologies and party expertise. Ground Wars reveals how personalized political communication is profoundly influencing electoral outcomes and transforming American democracy.

Dr. Donald J. Mrozeks research sheds considerable light on how the use of air power evolved in the Vietnam War. Much more than simply retelling events, Mrozek analyzes how history, politics, technology, and the complexity of the war drove the application of air power in a long and divisive struggle. Mrozek delves into a wealth of original documentation, and his scholarship is impeccable. His analysis is thorough and balanced. His conclusions are well reasoned but will trouble those who have never seriously considered how the application of air power is influenced by factors far beyond the battlefield. Wether or not the reader agrees with Mrozek, the quality of his research and analysis makes his conclusions impossible to ignore. John C. Fryer, Jr. Brigadier General, United States Air Force Commander, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education

This is a philosophical treatise on war written by an Oxford grad who served in Afghanistan.

It is timely for researchers to approach metaphor as social and situated, as a matter of language and discourse, and not just as a matter of thought. Over the last twenty five years, scholars have come to appreciate in depth the cognitive, motivated and embodied nature of metaphor, but have tended to background the linguistic form of metaphor and have largely ignored how this connects to its role in the discourses in which our lives are constructed and lived. This book brings language and social dimensions into the picture, offering snapshots of metaphor use in real language and in real lives across the very different cultures of Europe and Brazil and contributing to the theorizing of metaphor in discourse.

The United States has the most expensive and seemingly unstoppable military in the world. Yet, since World War II the nation’s military success rate has been meager. The Korean War was a draw, while Vietnam, Mogadishu, Afghanistan, and Iraq were clear losses. Successes include Iraq in 1991, the Balkans (Croatia and Kosovo), Panama, the initial takedowns of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and Libya. What differentiates the failures from the successes? Failures have been marked by the introduction of large numbers of conventional American ground troops, while successes have been characterized by the use of airpower, special operations forces, robust intelligence and sensor platforms, and the use of indigenous ground troops. Phillip S. Meilinger’s new book advocates strategies that limit risks in war as well as achieve measurable goals. Instead of large numbers of conventional ground troops, the author argues in favor of a focus on asymmetric capabilities—a combination of airpower, special operation forces, intelligence, and indigenous ground troops—to achieve the desired political outcomes.

This book is a comprehensive study of the Iraq Wars in the context of the revolution in military affairs debate.