Asian War

On the face of it, the three characters in this book seem to have little in common—aside from the fact that each committed wartime acts that led some to see them as national heroes, and others as villains. All three were mythmakers, larger-than-life storytellers, for whom the truth was beside the point. Felix Kersten was a plump Finnish pleasure-seeker who became Heinrich Himmler’s indispensable personal masseur—Himmler calling him his “magic Buddha.”

In 1971, while US ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with US air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army's main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war. Hastening the withdrawal of US forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam.

LA Times Book Award winner and expert on the past and present Japan, Ian Buruma examines the transformation of a country. Following Japan's history from its opening to the West in 1853 to its hosting of the 1964 Olympics, Buruma focuses on how figures such as Commodore Matthew Perry, Douglas MacArthur, and Emperor Mitsushito helped shape this complex country.

The Soviet invasion of its neighbour Afghanistan in December 1979 sparked a nine-year conflict until Soviet forces withdrew in 1988–89, dooming the communist Afghanistan government to defeat at the hands of the Mujahideen, the Afghan popular resistance backed by the USA and other powers. Gregory Fremont-Barnes reveals how the Soviet invasion had enormous implications on the global stage; it prompted the US Senate to refuse to ratify the hard-won SALT II arms-limitation treaty, and the USA and 64 other countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics.

This new and meticulously researched biography of the controversial American commander Joe Stilwell presents an admirably lucid account of his career and the complex story of the Burma campaign. Stilwell spent most of World War II as Chiang Kai-Shek's chief of staff in China. He was often at odds with the British Generals Wavell, Slim, and Wingate, men with whom he was to co-operate in Burma. These arguments earned him the nickname of 'Vinegar' Joe.

Dead Men Risen, winner of the prestigious Orwell Prize for books, is the epic story of a beleaguered British battle group fighting desperately to prevent the Taliban from seizing Afghanistan's Helmand province just as the US Marines arrive to take over. Best-selling author Toby Harnden describes how men from the coal mining valleys and slate quarry villages of Wales found themselves in the most intense combat faced by British troops for a generation.

December 8, 1941, marked the start of the full-scale invasion of the Philippines. With the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula and the fortified island, Corregidor, in the spring of 1942, all hope seemed lost. But, almost overnight, the Philippine underground resistance began to take shape. Units made up of guerrilla volunteers from all walks of life participated in the liberation of the Philippines.

The narrative of the Korean War in the West, and particularly in the United States, tells the tale of a conflict between two global superpowers and competing ideologies in a far-flung corner of the globe. The reality is that the wheels of motion that drove the country to war in 1950 began turning long before American boots set foot on Korean soil. The heart of the conflict was a civil war between a population arbitrarily divided by colonization and the global geopolitics at the end of the Second World War.

At the core of this ancient strategy manual is the understanding that conflict is an inescapable part of human life. Since, as Sun Tzu teaches, aggression and response in kind can lead only to destruction, we must learn to work with conflict in a more profound and effective way. Crucial to this strategic vision is knowledge - especially self-knowledge - and a view of the whole that seeks to bring conflicting views into a larger perspective.

The Art of War is one of the oldest and most successful books on military strategy. It has had an immence influence on eastern military thinking, business tactics and beyond. Sun Tzu suggested the importance of positioning in strategy and that position is affected both by objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions of competitive actors in that particular environment.

You may not have heard as much about the Korean War as you have about the American Civil War, World War II, or the Vietnam War. It’s not the topic of dozens of movies every year, and many Americans never learned about it, even once, in school. The Korean War was part of the Cold War - a more familiar subject - but while Sputnik, the Berlin Wall, and MAD have faded from our collective memory of what the Cold War was, the Korean War remains the one part of the Cold War that’s still active. With this audiobook, you’ll finally learn the ins and outs of the Korean War.

Hoy en día la península de Corea se divide en dos, pero hubo una época en la que esta península estaba dividida en muchos estados. Con el paso del tiempo, y el asedio de grandes dinastías extranjeras, estas tierras fueron invadidas por diversos clanes y tribus. Ninguno de todos esos poderosos y codiciosos caciques logró prevalecer.

From the author of Pacific Payback comes the gripping true story of the Cactus Air Force and how this rugged crew of dive bombers helped save Guadalcanal and won the war. November 1942: Japanese and American forces have been fighting for control of Guadalcanal, a small but pivotal island in Japan's expansion through the South Pacific.

After the shock and devastation of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Americans were determined to take their revenge on the Empire of Japan. The Japanese were just as determined to become the dominant power in the Pacific, a goal they were well on their way to achieving as they occupied China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaya, Burma, Northern Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.

What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.

One by one, things that Norm and his Japanese American family took for granted are taken away. In a matter of months, they, along with everyone else of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, are forced by the government to move to internment camps, leaving everything they have known behind.

On the eve of WWII, the foreign-controlled port of Shanghai was the rendezvous for the 20th century's most outlandish adventurers, all under the watchful eye of the fabulously wealthy Sir Victor Sassoon. Emily Hahn was a legendary New Yorker writer who would cover China for nearly 50 years, and play an integral part in opening Asia up to the West. But at the height of the Depression, "Mickey" Hahn, had just arrived in Shanghai nursing a broken heart after a disappointing affair.

After the furious battles around Dak To and the horrific fight for Hill 875, Youth in Asia is a new novella of young Americans trapped in the jungles of Vietnam's Central Highlands in a war they did not understand. Youth In Asia relives the friendships, loyalties and betrayals of young men in combat, and for those that survive, the memories they carried home.

The Cambodian genocide was the methodical abuse and death of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who pushed Cambodia toward being an entirely self-dependent agrarian socialist state. Between 1975 and 1979, 1.5 to two million people were murdered, representing about a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975. Through a high number of propaganda resources and sheer force, the coup forced millions of people from the cities to farmlands, leaving them there to die.

Thom Ngoh thought the Monkey King was her friend - he taught her to control her super strength and to stand up for herself. But really he was just using her. He tricked her into stealing from the Heavens and releasing him from his 500-year prison. Now the Monkey King is waging a war against the Heavens, and Thom must do everything in her power to fix the mess she made. Determined to prevent a war, Thom and her dragon friend Kha set off on an adventure across the Heavens to search for allies.