PAUL HAM

In this searing indictment of the rationale behind the First World War, Paul Ham argues that European leaders did not sleepwalk into war, but that they fully accepted and understood the consequences of the decisions they were making.In August 1914, the European powers plunged the world into a war that would kill or wound 37 million people, tear down the fabric of society, uproot ancient political systems and set the world on course for the bloodiest century in human history.On the eve of the 100th anniversary of that terrible year, Ham takes the reader on a journey into the labyrinth, to reveal the complexity, the layered motives, the flawed and disturbed minds that drove the world to war. What emerges is a clear sense of whathappened and why. To understand the past, Ham concludes, and share that understanding, is the chief role of the historian. To understand the past is to liberate ourselves from its awful shadow and steel ourselves against it happening again.

After the fall of Singapore in 1942, the conquering Japanese Army transferred some 2500 British and Australian prisoners to a jungle camp at Sandakan, on the east coast of North Borneo. There they were beaten, broken, worked to death, thrown into bamboo cages on the slightest pretext and subjected to tortures so ingenious and hideous that the victims were driven to the brink of madness. But it was only to be the beginning of the nightmare. In late 1944 when Allied aircraft began bombing the coastal towns of Sandakan and Jesselton, the Japanese resolved to abandon the prison camp and move the prisoners 250 miles inland to Ranau. The journey there became known as the Sandakan Death marches. Of the thousand plus prisoners who set out on the epic marches, only six survived. This is both their story and the story of the fallen.

Japan 1945. In one of the defining moments of the twentieth century, more than 100,000 people were killed instantly by two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US Air Force B29s. Hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness. Hiroshima Nagasaki tells the story of the tragedy through the eyes of the survivors, from the twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to the wives and children who faced it alone. Through their harrowing personal testimonies, we are reminded that these were ordinary people, given no warning and no chance to escape the horror.American leaders claimed that the bombings were our least abhorrent choice and fell strictly on military targets. Even today, most people believe they ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Hiroshima Nagasaki challenges this deep-set perception, revealing that the atomic bombings were the final crippling blow to the Japanese in a stratgic air war waged primarily against civilians.

A concise study of one of the most fascinating and evil men in history... Essential for anyone interested in military history - SoldierMillions of words have been spent and misspent on Adolf Hitler. But there remains one aspect as yet insufficiently explored: the impact of the First World War on the man who would go on to indelibly shape the Second.Hitler fought at First Ypres and he saw something on the battlefields that eluded his fellow soldiers, something that would become the cornerstone of his later life. He saw this war as heroic, noble and natural the last act of the fittest in the great drama of the human race.Where did it all start? This is the story of how Hitler became the Fuhrer.

Outstanding . . . thought-provoking, readable and informativeSoldierOne hundred years on...On 18 July 1917, a heavy artillery barrage was unleashed by the Allied forces against an entrenched German army outside the town of Ypres. it was to be the opening salvo of one of the most ferociously fought and debilitating encounters of the First World War.Few battles would encapsulate the utter futility of the war better that what became known as the Battle of Passchendaele. By the time the British and Canadian forces finally captured Passchendaele village on 6 November, the Allies had suffered over 271,000 casualties and the German army over 217,000.Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth shows how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately felled. Here, Paul Ham tells the story of an army caught in the grip of an extraordinary power struggle both global and national. As Prime Minister Lloyd George and Commander Haigs relationship deteriorated beyond repair, so a terrible battle of attrition was needlessly and painfully prolonged.Ham lays down a powerful challenge to the ways in which we have previously seen this monumental battle. Through an examination of the culpability of governments and military commanders in a catastrophe that destroyed the best part of a generation, Paul Ham argues that Passchendaele, far from being a breakthrough moment, was the battle that nearly lost the Allies the war.Paul Ham brings new tools to the job, unearthing fresh evidence of a deeply disturbing sort. He has a magpie eye for the telling detail. Ben Macintyre, The Times

Investigando a juventude de Hitler, seus diários de guerra e o início de sua carreira política, Paul Ham desvenda o homem por trás do mito. Biógrafos normalmente deixam em segundo plano a história de Hitler na Primeira Guerra Mundial. Censores nazistas fizeram de tudo para suprimir os fatos de sua juventude, e, para a maioria das pessoas, seu papel na Grande Guerra permanece obscuro.Quando jovem, ninguem diria que Adolf Hitler seria o futuro lider da Alemanha, conquistador da Europa e exterminador dos judeus. Sem ambiçes academicas e com poucos amigos, ele era teimoso e obstinado, considerado excentrico e sem habilidades sociais. Ento, quais combinaçes de traços, circunstancias e eventos o moldaram para que se tornasse quem se tornou? As respostas esto nas experiencias de sua juventude, em Linz, Viena e Munique, e como um jovem soldado na Grande Guerra. Quando Hitler foi para a guerra, em 1914, com 25 anos, embarcou no que mais tarde definiria como "a experiencia mais estupenda da vida". Ao fim da guerra, na cama de um hospital e temporariamente cego pelo gas de mostarda, ele abriu os olhos em um novo e terrivel mundo: a Alemanha havia sido derrotada e o Kaiser estava foragido.Hitler, porem, nunca aceitou esses eventos. A guerra foi uma marca dolorosa em sua personalidade, e dela nasceu a determinaço para a vingança contra os "criminosos" que assinaram o armisticio, contra os socialistas que ele acusava de esfaquear o exercito pelas costas e, mais violentamente, contra os judeus."Um estudo conciso de um dos homens mais fascinantes e crueis da historia Essencial para qualquer um interessado em historia militar." Soldier

Desde las guerras a pequeña escala en tiempos antiguos hasta las devastadoras batallas de nuestros días, este libro ofrece una cuidada selección, profusamente ilustrada y documentada, de los conflictos armados que han influido tanto politica como culturalmente en el devenir de las civilizaciones.Una guia imprescindible para cualquier aficionado a la historia.Desde los primeros conflictos documentados en la Sumeria de 2500 a.C., las batallas se han librado para ampliar territorios o por motivos politicos. En los primeros combates a pequeña escala participaban unos pocos miles de soldados de infanteria y primitivos carros de combate, pero en sucesivas campañas, ciudades-estado como las de Babilonia y Agade fueron ganando un enorme poder.1001 batallas que cambiaron el curso de la historia recorre 5000 años de historia de la humanidad a traves de las batallas que cambiaron significativamente el transcurso de una campaña belica y que, en un sentido mas amplio, tuvieron un impacto social, politico o economico en las regiones o paises enfrentados.Relieves antiguos, tapices detallados, pinturas dramaticas o evocativas fotografias ilustran las paginas de1001 batallas que cambiaron el curso de la historia y enriquecen el esclarecedor texto de este libro imprescindible para cualquier aficionado a la historia.El premiado historiador R.G. Grant ha reunido un equipo de expertos para proveer cada una de las entradas de incisivas e intuitivas descripciones de la naturaleza y evolucion de cada batalla. Desde la miticaguerra de Troya hastael desembarco en Normandia por parte de los aliados en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pasando porel bombardeo de Guernica, este libro describe el cambiante rostro de la guerra a traves de la historia y remarca las consecuencias -a menudo fascinantes y sorprendentes-, que determinados conflictos tuvieron y tienen en la historia mundial.