They helped conquer the greatest armies ever assembled. Yet no sooner had they tasted victory after World War II than American generals suddenly found themselves governing their former enemies, devising domestic policy and making critical economic decisions for people they had just defeated in battle. In postwar Germany and Japan, this authority fell into the hands of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, along with a cadre of military officials like Lucius Clay and the Detroit banker Joseph Dodge. In Sovereign Soldiers, Grant Madsen tells the story of how this cast of characters assumed an unfamiliar and often untold policymaking role. Seeking to avoid the harsh punishments meted out after World War I, military leaders believed they had to rebuild and rehabilitate their former enemies; if they failed they might cause an even deadlier World War III. Although they knew economic recovery would be critical in their effort, none was schooled in economics. Beyond their hopes, they managed to rebuild not only their former enemies but the entire western economy during the early Cold War. Madsen shows how army leaders learned from the people they governed, drawing expertise that they ultimately brought back to the United States during the Eisenhower Administration in 1953. Sovereign Soldiers thus traces the circulation of economic ideas around the globe and back to the United States, with the American military at the helm.

In The Soldier’s Two Bodies, James M. Greene investigates an overlooked genre of early American literature—the Revolutionary War veteran narrative—showing that it by turns both promotes and critiques a notion of military heroism as the source of U.S. sovereignty. Personal narratives by veterans of the American Revolution indicate that soldiers in the United States have been represented in two contrasting ways from the nation’s first days: as heroic symbols of the body politic and as human beings whose sufferings are neglected by their country. Published from 1779 through the late 1850s, narrative accounts of Revolutionary War veterans’ past service called for recognition from contemporary audiences, inviting readers to understand the war as a moment of violence central to the founding of the nation. Yet, as Greene reveals, these calls for recognition at the same time underscored how many veterans felt overlooked and excluded from the sovereign power they fought to establish. Although such narratives stem from a discourse that supports centralized, continental nationalism, they disrupt stable notions of a unified American people by highlighting those left behind. Greene discusses several well-known examples of the genre, including narratives from Ethan Allen, Joseph Plumb Martin, and Deborah Sampson, along with Herman Melville's fictional adaptation of the life of Israel Potter. Additional chapters focus on accounts of postwar frontier actions, including narratives collected by Hugh Henry Brackenridge that voice concerns over populist violence, along with stranger narratives like those of Isaac Hubbell and James Roberts, which register as fantastic imitations of the genre commenting on antebellum racial politics. With attention to questions of historical context and political ideology, Greene charts the process by which veteran narratives promote exception, violence, and autonomy, while also encouraging restraint, sacrifice, and collectivity. Revolutionary War veteran narratives offer no easy solutions to the appropriation of veterans’ lives within military nationalism and sovereign violence. But by bringing forward the paradox inherent in the figure of the U.S. soldier, the genre invites considerations of how to reimagine those representations. Drawing attention to paradoxes presented by the memory of the American Revolution, The Soldier’s Two Bodies locates the origins of a complicated history surrounding the representation of veterans in U.S. politics and culture.

A young prince, a mad king, a dying dragon, and a bandit lord. All hurling towards a fateful conclusion. It is here that we join Perceval, the crown prince of Arcadia, as he is given responsibilities no one would cherish and he is not sure he can fulfill. Together we enter the magical land of Arcadia and are swept along in a stream of events be they combat with ogres and marsh hags, a journey through the ocean’s depths, or enemy forces landing their longships. However, it’s not all war and impending chaos as Perceval is sent to Littlefair, where he lives and trains and where he prepares his forces, and himself, for war. It is in Littlefair, while training under the local lord, where he discovers something that no one can prevent, and no armour can guard against; some call it love. What will happen to Perceval, and those he loves, in this looming war?

Sovereign Attachments rethinks sovereignty by moving it out of the exclusive domain of geopolitics and legality and into cultural, religious, and gender studies. Through a close reading of a stunning array of cultural texts produced by the Pakistani state and the Pakistan-based Taliban, Shenila Khoja-Moolji theorizes sovereignty as an ongoing attachment that is negotiated in public culture. Both the state and the Taliban recruit publics into relationships of trust, protection, and fraternity by summoning models of Islamic masculinity, mobilizing kinship metaphors, and marshalling affect. In particular, masculinity and Muslimness emerge as salient performances through which sovereign attachments are harnessed. The book shifts the discussion of sovereignty away from questions about absolute dominance to ones about shared repertoires, entanglements, and co-constitution.

The former commander of coalition forces in Iraq reports back from the front lines of the global war on terror to provide a comprehensive and chilling exploration of America's historic military and foreign-policy blunder. With unflinching candor, Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez describes the chaos on the Iraqi battlefield caused by the Bush administration's misguided command of the military, as well as his own struggle to set the coalition on the path toward victory. Sanchez shows how minor insurgent attacks grew into synchronized operations that finally ignited into a major insurgency and all-out civil war. He provides an insider's account of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, explaining the circumstances that led to the abuses, who perpetrated them, and what the formal investigations revealed. Sanchez also details the cynical use of the Iraq War for political gain in Washington and shows how the pressure of an around-the-clock news cycle drove and distorted critical battle decisions. The first book written by a former on-site commander in Iraq, Wiser in Battle is essential reading for all who wish to understand the Iraqi incursion and the role of America's military in the new century.

Aleksei Ziuzin's embassy to London in November 1613 added a new dimension to James I's schemes for an alliance with the Protestant kingdoms of the north. Editors Jansson, Bushkovitch, and Rogozhin have divided their study into 3 sections -- a long historical introduction, Ziuzin's account of the embassy, and appendices. The introduction analyzes England's later 16th and early 17th century relations with Denmark, Poland, the Empire, Sweden and Russia. By treating relations with Russia as integral to English foreign policy, the work challenges the usual linking of English interests with that of the Muscovy Company of English merchants. For the first time, documents heretofore inaccessible in the West are made available in English translation -- producing a valuable addition to English and Russian history. Now scholars can begin to understand Russian political objectives in conjunction with English foreign policy aims in the early 17th century. Besides appendices of correspondence, the book includes extensive notes, brief introductory essays by V.I. Buganov and N. Rogozhin, and a select bibliogaphy. Under the Direction of Victor Buganov, Institute of the History of Russia.