Major-General Gordon Bennett played a decisive role in the defence of Malaya and Singapore in World War II. A colourful character, known to sport a straw hat with a rainbow scarf tied around it, his officers found him at times abrasive and cocky, but he was also known as an outstanding commander. He is, however, best remembered for his escape by boat from Singapore in the dying days of the Japanese invasion, which led to the imprisonment of 15,000 Australian servicemen. Bennett’s decision to leave his men to their fate is one of the most controversial episodes in the fall of the island. Though he was exonerated by Prime Minister John Curtin on his return to Australia, 8th Division’s commander was never forgiven by the military’s top brass for what many viewed as a clear case of desertion. While Bennett alone cannot be blamed for the defeat – there were many other factors, including Britain’s military failings in both tactics and defence – he was and remains a ready scapegoat. In this vivid and comprehensive history of the 8th Division and its stoic force of fighting men, Roger Maynard investigates their conflicted leader, whose reputation as an outstanding soldier was shattered by war’s end. He also examines Bennett’s legacy through the prism of today’s military standards to establish whether he was, indeed, a hero or deserter.

Major-General Gordon Bennett played a decisive role in the defense of Malaya and Singapore in World War II. A colorful character, known to sport a straw hat with a rainbow scarf tied around it, his officers found him at times abrasive and cocky, but he was also known as an outstanding commander. He is, however, best remembered for his escape by boat from Singapore in the dying days of the Japanese invasion, which led to the imprisonment of 15,000 Australian servicemen. Bennett's decision to leave his men to their fate is one of the most controversial episodes in the fall of the island. In this vivid and comprehensive history of the 8th Division and its stoic force of fighting men, Roger Maynard investigates their conflicted leader, whose reputation as an outstanding soldier was shattered by war's end. He also examines Bennett's legacy through the prism of today's military standards to establish whether he was, indeed, a hero or deserter.Though he was exonerated by Prime Minister John Curtin on his return to Australia, 8th Division's commander was never forgiven by the military's top brass for what many viewed as a clear case of desertion. While Bennett alone cannot be blamed for the defeat - there were many other factors, including Britain's military failings in both tactics and defense - he was and remains a ready scapegoat.

This instant New York Times bestseller and “outstanding” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) thriller features a brilliant and unorthodox Army investigator, his enigmatic female partner, and their hunt for the Army’s most notorious—and dangerous—deserter. When Captain Kyle Mercer of the Army’s elite Delta Force disappeared from his post in Afghanistan, a video released by his Taliban captors made international headlines. But circumstances were murky: did Mercer desert before he was captured? Then a second video sent to Mercer’s Army commanders leaves no doubt: the trained assassin and keeper of classified Army intelligence has disappeared. When Mercer is spotted a year later in Caracas, Venezuela, top military brass task Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor of the Criminal Investigation Division to bring Mercer back to America—preferably alive. Brodie knows this is a difficult mission, made more difficult by his new partner’s inexperience, by their undeniable chemistry, and by Brodie’s suspicion that Maggie Taylor is reporting to the CIA. With ripped-from-the-headlines appeal, an exotic and dangerous locale, and the hairpin twists and inimitable humor that are signature DeMille, The Deserter is the first in a timely and thrilling new series from an unbeatable team of True Masters: the #1 New York Times bestseller Nelson DeMille and his son, award-winning screenwriter Alex DeMille.

The Lesser Declamations, dating perhaps from the second century CE and attributed to Quintilian, might more accurately be described as emanating from "the school of Quintilian." The collection--here made available for the first time in translation--represents classroom materials for budding Roman lawyers. The instructor who composed these specimen speeches for fictitious court cases adds his comments and suggestions concerning presentation and arguing tactics--thereby giving us insight into Roman law and education. A wide range of scenarios is imagined. Some evoke the plots of ancient novels and comedies: pirates, exiles, parents and children in conflict, adulterers, rapists, and wicked stepmothers abound. Other cases deal with such matters as warfare between neighboring cities, smuggling, historical (and quasi-historical) events, tyrants and tyrannicides. Two gems are the speech opposing a proposal to equalize wealth, and the case of a Cynic youth who has forsworn worldly goods but sues his father for cutting off his allowance. Of the original 388 sample cases in the collection, 145 survive. These are now added to the Loeb Classical Library in a two-volume edition, a fluent translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey facing an updated Latin text.

A foremost Russian writer of the Soviet period, Bulgakov (1891-1940) has attracted much critical attention, yet Haber is the first to explore in depth his formative years. Blending biography and literary analysis of motifs, story, and characterization, Haber tracks one writer's answer to the dislocations of revolution, civil war, and Bolshevism.

The 205 new writings by William Hazlitt collected for the first time in this volume provide a fuller picture than has hitherto been available of his career as journalist, particularly his work for the Morning Chronicle, The Times and The Atlas. Newly discovered works include major essays on the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, a defence of Byron and Shelley against charges of immorality, an analysis of the three trials of the Regency publisher and writer William Hone, and a series of reminiscences and anecdotes from Hazlitt's last years. In addition, there are important essays on Napoleon, the Vienna Congress, and on Southey's appointment as Poet Laureate; notices of Edmund Kean, Dora Jordan and Fanny Kemble; reviews of Coleridge's Christabel, Byron's Sardanapalus and Hunt's Rimini; and essays on the fine arts, including exhibitions at the British Institution. Duncan Wu has surveyed all the publications for which Hazlitt wrote, as well as many for which he didn't, to find these neglected works. Each one is edited from its original printed source, prefaced with a detailed explanation of its attribution, and annotations providing information necessary to a full understanding of context and content. The volume also provides a partial bibliography of Hazlitt's journalism.

In an age when engraving and photography were making artistic images available to a much wider public, artists were able to influence public attitudes more powerfully than ever before. This book examines works of art on military themes in relation to ruling-class ideologies about the army, war and the empire. The first part of the book is devoted to a chronological survey of battle painting, integrated with a study of contemporary military and political history. The chapters link the debate over the status and importance of battle painting to contemporary debates over the role of the army and its function at home and abroad. The second part discusses the intersection of ideologies about the army and military art, but is concerned with an examination of genre representations of soldiers. Another important theme which runs through the book is the relation of English to French military art. During the first eighty years of the period under review France was the cynosure of military artists, the school against which British critics measured their own, and the place from which innovations were imported and modified. In every generation after Waterloo battle painters visited France and often trained there. The book shows that military art, or the 'absence' of it, was one of the ways in which nationalist commentators articulated Britain's moral superiority. The final theme which underlies much of the book is the shifts which took place in the perception of heroes and hero-worship.