Asian War

The Chinese city of Shunkien is under siege, the Japanese military laying it to waste. In the middle of the city sits the American consulate, a fragile sanctuary packed with refugees, threatened not only by artillery, but by the ravages of starvation and cholera. 200 miles away, on the USS Miami, stands their only hope - Marine Gunnery Sergeant James Mitchell. As tough as Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan - and just as stubborn - if anybody can negotiate a crucial supply of gold and medicine through 200 miles of bullets, bombs and butchery, it’s Sergeant Mitchell.

Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte. Some People Need Killing is Evangelista's meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines' drug war.

Louis Thorn and Haruto "Harry" Yamada - Eagle and Crane - are the star attractions of Earl Shaw's Flying Circus, a daredevil (and not exactly legal) flying act that traverses Depression-era California. The young men have a complicated relationship, thanks to the Thorn family's belief that the Yamadas - Japanese immigrants - stole land that should have stayed in the Thorn family.

After being captured in Singapore and transported to the infamous Burma railway, Colonel Owtram was appointed the British Camp Commandant at Chungkai, one of the largest POW camps. Many ex-prisoners testified to the mental and physical courage that he showed protecting POWs from the worst excesses of their captors. Of course his account does not admit to this, but what is clear is that in addition to the deprivation and hardship suffered by all POWs, the author bore heavy responsibility for those under his charge and the daily trauma of dealing with the unpredictable Japanese.

"Wars, an embargo, and forbidden love in this once peaceful city..." With the drums of war just weeks away, Omar invites all those closest to his heart for lunch at his lavish villa overlooking the Tigris River of Baghdad. He can't help but smile at the faces that have graced his eventful life that spans from an interesting childhood, the two Gulf Wars, and the inhumane embargo that crippled the nation. Loved ones come together, probably for the last time, in the city their ancestors called Baghdad or Baghdadu, "God’s Gift." Memories upon memories linger in Omar's head. He has survived ...

America entered the Vietnam War certain of its Cold War doctrines and convinced of its moral mission to save the world from the advance of communism. However, the war was not at all what the United States expected. Dr Andrew Wiest examines how, outnumbered and outgunned, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces resorted to a guerrilla war based on the theories of Mao Zedong of China, while the US responded with firepower and overwhelming force.

It has been over ten years since the War of Earth. The war was the bloodiest conflict in Earth’s history. The loss of life was one sided for the humans of the planet due to the knoi superior physical traits. In the end, the entire plant of Earth surrendered to the knoi. Each remaining human took the knee and pledged their life to King Odolf. For ten years, humans worked as slaves and lived underneath the thumb of their new masters. The knoi are similar to the earthlings they have captured, and believe in honor and the gods above nothing else. Knoi honors the gods through combat and blood ...

The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother's house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line.

Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma explores the relationship between American General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell and British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten in the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI) and the South East Asia Command (SEAC) between October 1943 and October 1944, within the wider context of Anglo-American relations during World War II. Jonathan Templin Ritter discusses the military, political, and diplomatic aspects of Anglo-American cooperation, the personalities involved, and where British and American policies both converged and diverged over Southeast Asia.

Prior to December 1941, Great Britain commanded an empire that stretched across the globe. However, after the Malayan Campaign, which began on December 8, 1941 and ended on January 31, 1942, the world order was up for grabs as the Empire of Japan contested British rule and American military might in the Pacific in the early years of World War II.

There was a place far worse than Changi - Singapore's Outram Road Gaol. Deprivation here was so extreme that there really was a fate worse than death. Stubborn Buggers is the story of 12 Australian POWs who fought and survived the battle for Malaya, then captivity and slave labour, followed by the unimaginable hardships of Outram Road Gaol.

It is a story of how they dealt with the brutality of the Japanese military police, the feared Kempeitai.

The Chinese Civil War was a decades-long struggle between the Nationalists and Communists that reshaped China and reverberated across the globe. This concise yet comprehensive book covers the war’s early battles, the impact of the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the final showdown that saw Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat to Taiwan. Listen about the ideologies and strategies of both sides and explore the global consequences of this war, which marked a pivotal moment in Cold War history.

Few images in history have managed to capture and hold the popular imagination quite like that of Hannibal, the fearless North African, perched on a monstrous elephant, leading his mercenaries over the Alps and then, against all odds, descending the ice-covered peaks to challenge Rome in her own backyard for mastery of the ancient world. It was a bold move, and it established Hannibal as one of history's greatest commanders. But this same brilliant tactician is also one of history's most tragic figures; fate condemned him to win his battles but not his war.

China loomed large on the world stage. Wealth, power, and hundreds of years of rule by the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty catapulted them to new heights, but with power and prestige came those who would do anything to usurp their authority and undermine their sense of stability. The British Empire and its faithful allies devised a masterful plan and executed it with stark precision. Vicious lies, cheating, and stealing were only the beginning of what they had in store for the nation.

In the late hours of 15th May 1945, the radar operator aboard the destroyer Venus identified a spot of light on his screen. Captain Power was in no doubt that this was the heavy cruiser, Haguro, that they had been searching for, but how could he stop this formidable enemy ship as it steamed hard for Singapore? A trap of torpedo and naval artillery was set by the 26th Destroyer Flotilla, there was no escape for the Haguro.

Most Americans think of the Taliban and al Qaeda as a bunch of bearded fanatics fighting an Islamic crusade from caves in Afghanistan. But that doesn't explain their astonishing comeback along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Why is it that eight years after we invaded Afghanistan, the CIA says that these groups are better armed and better funded than ever? Seeds of Terror will reshape the way you think about America's enemies, revealing them less as ideologues and more as criminals.

The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlife - and a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.

By the summer of 1945, Adm. Bull Halsey's US Third Fleet had fought its way far enough in the Pacific that its carrier-based fighters could launch attacks on Japan itself in preparation for the invasion of the home islands, planned for the fall of 1945. This mission US Navy fighters, fighter-bombers, dive-bombers, and torpedo-bombers - Hellcats, Avengers, Helldivers, and more - carried out with a vengeance, striking airfields, industrial targets, and coastal facilities while flying into the teeth of Japanese air defenses.

Many people in the West look upon the Second Sino-Japanese War, which took place in the 1930s and 1940s, as a sort of sideshow to the larger Second World War, but there is no separating the two. Imagine the Pacific War, the theater of World War II that took place in the Pacific. If the Japanese were not busy fighting on another front, they would have had millions of more troops available to fight the Americans and the British. In all likelihood, World War II would have ended the same way, but it would have taken much longer and cost that many more lives.

From Middle Eastern storyteller, Hussin Alkheder, comes a collection of short stories influenced by the four major cities he’s lived in: Damascus, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, and Shanghai. These four grand ladies have played important roles in his life journey. In the Four Ladies, we find three stories based in Damascus, the cradle of history: Hand Made Crutches makes us feel the suffering of a mother with four daughters and a disabled son; The Green Bus gives a glimpse of Damascus both before and after the war; Love in the Time of Corona portrays the way some Middle Eastern deal with the virus....