This book (Volume One) gives an historical overview of 36 countries whose armed forces served in Europe 1900-2000, together with uniform descriptions. Includes 200 full colour paintings of the regular armies, marines, airforce and para-military troops engaged in land exercises, operations and warfare in Europe, including non-European troops serving in Europe. Each entry is accompanied by a history and description of the uniforms illustrated. The author and illustrator Ron Kidd, has been interested in both police and military history, uniforms and insignia since he was a school boy in the 1950's. He has visited over 300 police and military museums world-wide, and has written and illustrated a number of magazine articles on both police and military history and uniforms. He is a member of both the Military Heraldry Society and the Military Historical Society. It is anticipated that Volume Two will be published in 2013.

This book (Volume Two) gives an historical overview of 51 countries whose armed forces served in Europe 1900-2000, together with uniform descriptions. Includes 204 full colour paintings of the regular armies, marines, airforce and para-military troops engaged in land exercises, operations and warfare in Europe, including non-European troops serving in Europe. Each entry is accompanied by a history and description of the uniforms illustrated. The author and illustrator Ron Kidd, has been interested in both police and military history, uniforms and insignia since he was a school boy in the 1950's. He has visited over 300 police and military museums world-wide, and has written and illustrated a number of magazine articles on both police and military history and uniforms. He is a member of both the Military Heraldry Society and the Military Historical Society.

A comprehensive record of the police uniforms worn in Europe from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-first Century. Each country has an overview history of the police force, badges, current ranks and insignia. 212 full colour paintings illustrating uniforms and badges of France, Monaco, Belgium and the Netherlands. Each entry is accompanied by a history and description.

American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.

Provides a comprehensive survey of the key events and personalities of this period.

Updated to include a new chapter about the influence of social media and the Internet—the 20th anniversary edition of Bowling Alone remains a seminal work of social analysis, and its examination of what happened to our sense of community remains more relevant than ever in today’s fractured America. Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolized a significant social change that became the basis of the acclaimed bestseller, Bowling Alone, which The Washington Post called “a very important book” and Putnam, “the de Tocqueville of our generation.” Bowling Alone surveyed in detail Americans’ changing behavior over the decades, showing how we had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether it’s with the PTA, church, clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues. In the revised edition of his classic work, Putnam shows how our shrinking access to the “social capital” that is the reward of communal activity and community sharing still poses a serious threat to our civic and personal health, and how these consequences have a new resonance for our divided country today. He includes critical new material on the pervasive influence of social media and the internet, which has introduced previously unthinkable opportunities for social connection—as well as unprecedented levels of alienation and isolation. At the time of its publication, Putnam’s then-groundbreaking work showed how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction, and how the loss of social capital is felt in critical ways, acting as a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, and affecting our health in other ways. While the ways in which we connect, or become disconnected, have changed over the decades, his central argument remains as powerful and urgent as ever: mending our frayed social capital is key to preserving the very fabric of our society.

An attempt to write a global history of warfare in the modern era. Jeremy Black, here presents a wide-ranging account of the nature, purpose and experience of war over the last half millennium.