It was March 18, 1944. Aimo Koivunen, the Finnish soldier was on patrol with his troop. The winter was at its peak and the squad was skiing through the snowy mountains. As Aimo was weary, he picked his drug bottle and took the pills. Since he was wearing mitts, and they were in a hurry to escape from the Red Army, he swallowed the entire set of Pervitin. He took 30 tablets and got overdosed where he was supposed to take one. The use of drugs in war is not a new thing. In the Second World War, the Germans employed methamphetamine to enhance their strength and capacity to resist in the battle. Speed was popular and available just like biscuits in the market. However, the meth-fuelled soldier loses his senses. Aimo and his troop escaped from their enemy army, but Aimo did not get back to his senses. He was hallucinating and delusions were affecting him. The team tried to get Aimo, but he was a threat to them as well. They feared that he might attack them. Finally, he was left alone in the woods. Aimo’s rest of the days in the forest was miserable. He could not distinguish the real and unreal things. He fought imaginary attacks and was injured from the mines. Without food and no ammunition, Aimo continued his skiing and finally stayed there as his left leg was severely injured. Finally, he caught the attention of a pilot circling above him and a team rescued him. The effect of the drug indeed helped him survive.

Named one of Foreign Affairs' Best Books of 2016 In his magisterial 1,208 page narrative of the Pacific War, Francis Pike's Hirohito's War offers an original interpretation, balancing the existing Western-centric view with attention to the Japanese perspective on the conflict. As well as giving a 'blow-by-blow' account of campaigns and battles, Francis Pike offers many challenges to the standard interpretations with regards to the causes of the war; Emperor Hirohito's war guilt; the inevitability of US Victory; the abilities of General MacArthur and Admiral Yamamoto; the role of China, Great Britain and Australia; military and naval technology; and the need for the fire-bombing of Japan and the eventual use of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hirohito's War is accompanied by additional online resources, including more details on logistics, economics, POWs, submarines and kamikaze, as well as a 1930-1945 timeline and over 200 maps.

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.

Were World Wars I and II inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen– Winston Churchill first among them–the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations. Among the British and Churchillian errors were: • The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France • The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that mutilated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler • Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo-Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest • The greatest mistake in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939, ensuring the Second World War Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “the Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.

Cuisine and Culture presents a multicultural and multiethnic approach that draws connections between major historical events and how and why these events affected and defined the culinary traditions of different societies. Witty and engaging, Civitello shows how history has shaped our diet--and how food has affected history. Prehistoric societies are explored all the way to present day issues such as genetically modified foods and the rise of celebrity chefs. Civitello's humorous tone and deep knowledge are the perfect antidote to the usual scholarly and academic treatment of this universally important subject.

A witty, thrilling, and “effortlessly poetic” account of the Cretan resistance during World War II—with a map and 32 black-and-white photographs (The Guardian) George Psychoundakis was a 21-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when the battle of Crete began: “It was in May 1941 that, all of a sudden, high in the sky, we heard the drone of many aeroplanes growing steadily closer.” The German parachutists soon outnumbered the British troops who were forced first to retreat, then to evacuate, before Crete fell to the Germans. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor.

"U.S. Army Survival Handbook" covers all survival skills and techniques that a person can use in order to sustain life in any type of natural environment. The techniques are meant to provide basic necessities like water, food and shelter... Nevertheless, it takes much more than the knowledge to build a shelter, get food and make fire in order to survive successfully. A key ingredient in any survival situation is the mental attitude. It will help you develop your survival skills, as well as the will to survive. It will prepare you for any type of situation, either physical or psychological ordeal. Contents: Psychology of Survival Survival Planning and Survival Kits Basic Survival Medicine Shelters Water Procurement Firecraft Food Procurement Field-Expedient Weapons, Tools, and Equipment Desert Survival Tropical Survival Cold Weather Survival Sea Survival Expedient Water Crossings Field-Expedient Direction Finding Signaling Techniques Survival Movement in Hostile Areas Camouflage Contact With People Survival in Man-Made Hazards