The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.

The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small.Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price.Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.

This intriguing study examines Western perceptions of war in and beyond the nineteenth century, surveying the writings of novelists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, poets, natural scientists, and journalists to trace the terms of modern thought on the nature of military conflict. Daniel Pick brings together philosophical and historical models of war with fictions of invasion, propaganda from the Great War, interpretations of shellshock and speculations about the biological value of conquest. He discusses the work of such familiar commentators as Clausewitz, Engels, and Treitschke, and examines little-known writings by Proudhon, De Quincey, Ruskin, Valery, and many others, culminating in the extraordinary dialogue between Freud and Einstein, Why War? He analyses Victorian fears of French contamination through the Channel Tunnel as well as the widespread continuing dread of German domination. And he charts the history of the pervasive European belief that war is beneficial or at least functionally necessary. A central theme of the book is the disturbing relationship between machinery and destruction. Visions of relentless technological 'progress' and the inexorable advance of the military-industrial complex often seem to distort our understanding of war, even to reduce it to a sophisticated game played out by high-precision automata. Pick explores both the reassuring and troubling aspects of such representations. Shorn of human agency or responsibility, war apparently threatens to become technologically unstoppable, the remorseless 'perfect abattoir' of the industrial age. War Machine explores the enduring historical fascination with - and recoil from -brutal mechanical slaughter, and the modern aquiescence in, and enthusiasm for (in Rilke's phrase), 'these days of monstrously accelerated dying'.

Blenheim, Ramilles , Oudenarde, Malplaquet _ much has been written about the brilliant victories of the Duke of Marlborough's Anglo-Dutch army over the armies of Louis XIV of France during the War of the Spanish Succession. Less attention has been focused on the men and the military organization that made these achievements possible - the soldiers, the commanders, the army structure and administration, the logistics, engineering, weapons and finance. That is why James Falkner's penetrating account of the composition and operation of Marlborough's army is of such value. His clear analysis gives a fascinating insight into Marlborough's war machine and into the conduct of war in Europe 300 years ago.

THROUGHOUT my life I have sought adventure over the face of the world and its waters as other men have hunted and fought for gold or struggled for fame. The love of it, whether through the outcropping of a strain of buccaneer blood that had been held in subjection by generations of placid propriety or as a result of some freak of prenatal suggestion, was born in me, deep-planted and long-rooted. Excitement is as essential to my existence as air and food. Through it my life has been prolonged in activity and my soul perpetuated in youth; when I can no longer enjoy its electrification, Death, as it is so spoken of, will, I hope, come quickly. To get away from the flat, tiresome, beaten path and find conditions or create situations to gratify the clamorous demand within me has ever been my compelling passion. I have served, all told, under eighteen flags and to each I gave the best that was in me, even though some of them were disappointing in their failure to produce a pleasing amount of excitement. In following my natural bent, which I was powerless, as well as disinclined, to interfere with or alter, to the full length of my capabilities, it perhaps will be considered by some people that I have gone outside of written laws. To such a contention my answer is that I have always been true to my own conscience, which is the known and yet the unknown quantity we all must reckon with, and to my country. In the transportation of arms with which to further fights for freedom or fortune I have flown many flags I had no strictly legal right to fly, over ships that were not what they pretended to be nor what their papers indicated them to be, but never have I taken refuge behind the Stars and Stripes, nor have I ever called on an American minister or consular officer to get me out of the successive scrapes with governments, but most often with misgovernments, into which my warring wanderings have carried me. Red-blooded love of adventure, free from any wanton spirit and with the prospect of financial reward always subordinated, has been the driving force in all of my encounters with good men and bad, with the latter class much in the majority. Therefore I have only scorn for sympathy and contempt for criticism, nor am I troubled with uncanny visions by night nor haunting recollections by day. There is just one point in my philosophy which I wish to make clear before the Blue Peter is hoisted, and that is that most of the so-called impossibilities we encounter are simply disguised opportunities. Because they are regarded as impossible they are not guarded against and are therefore comparatively easy of accomplishment when they really are possible, as most of them are. Acceptance of this theory, with which every student of the history of warfare will agree, will help to explain my ability to do some of the things which will be told of, that the thoughtless would promptly put down as impossible. The name by which I am known is one of the contradictions of my life. Save only for my father, who sympathized with my adventurous disposition at the same time that he tried to curb it, I was at war with my family almost from the time I could talk. I am a Republican in politics from the fact that they were active supporters of James Buchanan, and I became a Southern sympathizer simply because they were bitterly opposed to slavery. When I left home to become an adventurer around the globe I buried my real name and I do not propose to uncover it, here or hereafter. I am proud, though, of the fact that my family is descended from a King of Burgundy; for since reaching years of discretion, though I have been as loyal to the United States as any man since 1865, I never have believed in a republican form of government. In the course of my activities I have used many names in many lands, but that of Boynton, which had been in the family for years, stuck to me until I finally adopted it, prefixing a “George” and a “B.,” which really stands for “Boynton.” I made it my business to forget, as soon as they had served my purpose, the different names I took in response to the demand of expediency, but I remember that Kinnear and Henderson were two under which I created some comment on opposite sides of the world.

This invaluable resource offers students a comprehensive overview of the German war machine that overran much of Europe during World War II, with close to 300 entries on a variety of topics and a number of key primary source documents. This book provides everything the reader needs to know about the German war machine that developed into the potent armed force under Adolf Hitler. This expansive encyclopedia covers the period of the German Third Reich, from January 1933 to the end of World War II in Europe, in May 1945. Dozens of entries on key battles and military campaigns, military and political leaders, military and intelligence organizations, and social and political topics that shaped German military conduct during World War II are followed by an illuminating epilogue that outlines why Germany lost World War II. A documents section includes more than a dozen fascinating primary sources on such significant events as the Tripartite Pact among Germany, Italy, and Japan; the Battle of Stalingrad; the Normandy Invasion; the Ardennes Offensive; and Germany's surrender. In addition, six appendices provide detailed information on a variety of topics such as German aces, military commanders, and military medals and decorations. The book ends with a chronology and a bibliography of print resources.