Rebel McKenzie is an expert on all things prehistoric. How hard could winning some beauty pageant be?

When feisty 12-year-old Rebel McKenzie, an aspiring paleontologist, goes to spend the summer taking care of her older sister's seven-year-old son at the mobile home park in Frog Level, Virginia, she never expects to enter a beauty pageant or meet a h

By 1864 neither the Union’s survival nor the South’s independence was any more apparent than at the beginning of the war. The grand strategies of both sides were still evolving, and Tennessee and Kentucky were often at the cusp of that work. The author examines the heartland conflict in all its aspects: the Confederate cavalry raids and Union counter-offensives; the harsh and punitive Reconstruction policies that were met with banditry and brutal guerrilla actions; the disparate political, economic, and socio-cultural upheavals; the ever-growing war weariness of the divided populations; and the climactic battles of Franklin and Nashville that ended the Confederacy’s hopes in the Western Theater.

The essays in this volume concentrate on imperial conflict. Until recently, most historians of empire have concerned themselves with economic issues. More recently, scholarship has turned to social and cultural aspects of Empire. The role of the military, however, continues to be largely ignored. Historians have traditionally viewed the military as an arm of the civil power, an institution which did not create policy but faithfully obeyed the directives given to it. These essays show that indeed the military thought for itself: its officers made policy, introduced new strategies and tactics, and utilized the services of local settlers and indigenes to pursue the interests of empire, and the rank and file informed ideas in Great Britain concerning Africa and Africans. Contributors are Edward M. Spiers, Ian F.W. Beckett, Bill Nasson, John Laband, Paul Thompson, Fransjohan Pretorius, Tim Stapleton, Ian van der Waag, James Thomas, Jeffrey Meriwether, and Bruce Vandervort.

Covering nearly one hundred years of Zulu military history, this book focuses on the creation, maintenance, development, tactics and ultimate destruction of the Zulu army. It studies the armies, weapons and tactics under the rule of the five Zulu kings from Shaka to Dinizulu. The rule of each of the five kings is examined in terms of their relationships with the army and how they raised regiments to expand their influence in the region. All the major battles and campaigns are discussed with reference to the development of the weapons and tactics of the army.