The Armchair General

by John Buckley
The Armchair General
Author: John Buckley
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2021-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473581958
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A ground-breaking approach to history where YOU choose the fate of WWII - perfect for readers of Bletchley Park Brainteasers and The GCHQ Puzzle Book. ''An original and exciting approach . . . Buckley is one of our very finest historians.' JAMES HOLLAND ________________________ TAKE THE HOTSEAT Assume the role of real Generals, Leaders, Soldiers and Intelligence Officers in the Allied Forces during WWII, including Winston Churchill and President Eisenhower. EXAMINE THE INTELLIGENCE Explore eight key moments of the war with real contemporaneous intelligence: Britain's Darkest Hour, 1940; The War in North Africa; Stalin's War on the Eastern Front; The Pacific Battle of Midway; The Dresden Bomber Offensive; Casablanca; Arnhem and Operation Market Garden; The Bomb and Hiroshima. CONSIDER THE SCENARIO & MAKE YOUR DECISION From battlefields to war cabinets, each tactical and strategic decision you make leads to a different outcome. Will you follow the path of the past - or shape a new history? ________________________ 'Wonderfully original . . . putting readers at the heart of the decision-making process and allowing them, literally, to change the course of history. This is counterfactual history at its best.' SAUL DAVID 'A reminder that history is a never ending now, a relentless and endless present that comes without the luxury of hindsight.' AL MURRAY 'An original and exciting approach . . . Buckley is one of our very finest historians. The Armchair General adds enormously to our understanding of the conflicts.' JAMES HOLLAND 'A unique, enjoyable approach to evaluating military decision-making.' HISTORY OF WAR

Guests of the Ayatollah

by Mark Bowden
Guests of the Ayatollah
Author: Mark Bowden
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 710
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1555846084
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The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

The Armchair Economist

by Steven E. Landsburg
The Armchair Economist
Author: Steven E. Landsburg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2012-05-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1471112233
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Air bags cause accidents, because well-protected drivers take more risks. This well-documented truth comes as a surprise to most people, but not to economists, who have learned to take seriously the proposition that people respond to incentives. In The Armchair Economist, Steven E. Landsburg shows how the laws of economics reveal themselves in everyday experience and illuminate the entire range of human behavior. Why does popcorn cost so much at the cinema? The 'obvious' answer is that the owner has a monopoly, but if that were the whole story, there would also be a monopoly price to use the toilet. When a sudden frost destroys much of the Florida orange crop and prices skyrocket, journalists point to the 'obvious' exercise of monopoly power. Economists see just the opposite: If growers had monopoly power, they'd have raised prices before the frost. Why don't concert promoters raise ticket prices even when they are sure they will sell out months in advance? Why are some goods sold at auction and others at pre-announced prices? Why do boxes at the football sell out before the standard seats do? Why are bank buildings fancier than supermarkets? Why do corporations confer huge pensions on failed executives? Why don't firms require workers to buy their jobs? Landsburg explains why the obvious answers are wrong, reveals better answers, and illuminates the fundamental laws of human behavior along the way. This is a book of surprises: a guided tour of the familiar, filtered through a decidedly unfamiliar lens. This is economics for the sheer intellectual joy of it.

Hitler's War

by Harry Turtledove
Hitler's War
Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2009-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 034551565X
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A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War that Came Early: West and East.

The Armchair General

by K Mike Hill
The Armchair General
Author: K Mike Hill
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2007-06
Genre: Battles
ISBN: 9780595448975
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Armchair Generals sit with their morning newspapers evaluating their country's military actions; past, present and proposed. It is Monday morning quarterbacking from the safe distance of the 21st century. The Armchair General includes seven sets of simplified rules from ancient armies to mechanized and insurgent wars; even campaign supplements for extended play. The historical simulation rules cover: - Ancient Warfare by Land & Sea - Dark Age & Medieval Warfare - Flintlock & Bow - Musket & Cannon - The Age of Sail - Colonialism - Mechanized & Insurgent Warfare This book allows even a novice to testing various strategies and tactics. There is something satisfying; tangible; three dimensional about battles with miniatures. Moving through real space and time; recreating scenarios from Hannibal, Caesar and the Vikings to American 3rd World Wars; from individual warriors to armies. The rules are guided by the "Paperless Principle". The generaling lies in the deployment of the miniature forces and the contest, not in note-taking and paper-shuffling.

The Flutist of Arnhem

by Antonio L. Gil
The Flutist of Arnhem
Author: Antonio L. Gil
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2021-05-19
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1682476405
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In October 1943, all the Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents in Holland are captured by the Germans . . . except one. John Hewson, a.k.a. "Boekman," is the most dangerous agent to the German occupiers, with vital information about the German army, Boekman escapes the clutches of the S.S. and stays hidden until the start of the largest airborne operation in World War II: Operation Market Garden. When the SOE learn that Boekman is still alive, and that his estranged son, Harry, is on the ground fighting in Market Garden, Harry is tasked with organizing a small commando unit to rescue Boekman and try to escape through the German siege. The Battle of Arnhem unfolds day by day as father and son search for each other amidst the chaos of war and the dogged pursuits of a cruel Gestapo agent.

D-Day, 75th Anniversary

by Jay Wertz
D-Day, 75th Anniversary
Author: Jay Wertz
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-05-19
Genre:
ISBN: 9781732631502
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Don't know D-Day? Don't stress surfing the web. We've got all the data here! The biggest WWII party in five years is about to begin and you don't want to be left out! Which celebs will be in Normandy for THE EVENT. American fliers' England pub crawl. French coffee houses. How to find a D-Day veteran in your family tree. Band of Brothers update.

Swords and Swordsmen

by Mike Loades
Swords and Swordsmen
Author: Mike Loades
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Swords
ISBN: 9781848841338
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Swords and Swordsmen chronicles the major developments in the sword's design, manufacture and use from Ancient Egypt to the American Civil War. Author Mike Loades traces the history of the sword in war and the evolution of the private duel. The book takes certain surviving swords as landmarks on this journey of discovery. Each can be linked to a specific individual, allowing each sword to be discussed in the social and military context of its time and forming the starting point for detours through other types of sword and contemporary developments in their design, manufacture and use. From Tutankhamun to General Custer, and including a chapter on the legendary samurai Uesugi Kenshin, this book charts the lives of warriors from many ages and cultures; men whose lives often depended on their skill with the sword. Illustrated with line drawings (many derived from old fight manuals) and dozens of photographs of surviving swords, Swords and Swordsmen celebrates these weapons as iconic works of art and powerful cultural symbols as well as examining the lethal practicality of their sue.

The SS Officer's Armchair

by Daniel Lee
The SS Officer's Armchair
Author: Daniel Lee
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-06-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781784706654
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The gripping account of one historian's hunt for answers as he delves into the surprising life of an ordinary Nazi officer. 'Totally exhilarating' Philippe Sands It began with an armchair. It began with the surprise discovery of a stash of personal documents covered in swastikas sewn into its cushion. The SS Officer's Armchair is the story of what happened next, as Daniel Lee follows the trail of cold calls, documents, coincidences and family secrets, to uncover the life of one Dr Robert Griesinger from Stuttgart. As Lee delves deeper, Griesinger emerges as at once an ordinary man with a family and ambitions, and an active participant in the Nazi machinery of terror whose choices continue to reverberate today. 'Gripping, it unfolds like a detective story as an obscured past emerges into the light' Hadley Freeman, author of House of Glass 'An absorbing work of historical detection... Riveting' Evening Standard