A Most Damnable Invention - Dynamites, Nitrates and the Making of the Modern World by Stephen Brown

$15.00 NZD

Category: Science | Reading Level: very good

Humanity's desire to harness the destructive capacity of fire extends back to the dawn of civilization. But the true age of explosives began in the 1860's with the remarkable intuition of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel. His discovery of dynamite made possible the industrial mega-projects that defined th e era, including the St Gothard rail tunnel and the Panama Canal. Dynamite also caused great loss of life and incalculable environmental damage. With a troubled conscience, Nobel left his cast estate to the establishment of the world-famous prizes that bear his name. As the use of explosives and fertilisers soared, nations scrambled for the scarce yet vital ingredient: nitrates. The 'nitrogen problem' was solved by enigmatic German scientist Fritz Haber. But his breakthrough prolonged the First World War, and when he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work it sparked international condemnation. A Most Damnable Invention deftly blends popular science, history and biography in a vivid account of the incendiary substance that truly made our world. ...Show more

Armageddon : The battle for Germany 1944-1945 by Max Hastings

$10.00 NZD

Category: World War II | Reading Level: good

A stunning new book from one of Britain's most highly regarded military historians - destined to be the Keegan of his generation.One of the greatest military feats during the Second World War was the transformation of the German force's activities in the weeks following the battles in Holland and the Ge rman border, where the Allies had finally inflicted the greatest catastrophes of modern war on them.Somehow the Germans found the strength to halt the Allied advance in its tracks and to prolong the war to 1945. This book is the epic story of those last eight months of the war in northern Europe. ...Show more

No Empty Chairs - The Short and Heroic Lives of the Young Aviators Who Fought and Died in the First World War by Ian Mackersey

$12.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

The empty chairs belonged, all too briefly, to the doomed young First World War airmen who failed to return from the terrifying daily aerial combats above the trenches of the Western Front. The edict of their commander-in-chief was the missing aviators were to be immediately replaced. Before the new fac es could arrive, the departed men's vacant seats at the squadron dinner table were sometimes poignantly occupied by their caps and boots, placed there in a sad ritual by their surviving colleagues as they drank to their memory. Life for most of the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps was appallingly short. If they graduated alive and unmaimed from the flying training that killed more than half of them before they reached the front line, only a few would for very long survive the daily battles they fought over the ravaged moonscape of no-man's-land. Their average life expectancy at the height of the war was measured only in weeks. Parachutes that began to save their German enemies were denied them. Fear of incarceration, and the daily spectacle of watching close colleagues die in burning aircraft, took a devastating toll on the nerves of the world's first fighter pilots. Many became mentally ill. As they waited for death, or with luck the survivable wound that would send them back to 'Blighty', they poured their emotions into their diaries and streams of letters to their loved ones at home. Drawing on these remarkable testimonies and pilots' memoirs, Ian Mackersey has brilliantly reconstructed the First Great Air War through the lives of its participants. As they waited to die, the men shared their loneliness, their fears, triumphs - and squadron gossip - with the families who lived in daily dread of the knock on the door that would bring the War Office telegram in its fateful green envelope. ...Show more

With the Old Breed - The World War Two Pacific Classic by E B Sledge

$12.00 NZD

Category: World War II | Reading Level: very good

This was a brutish, primitive hatred, as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands... Landing on the beach at Peleliu in 1944 as twenty-year-old new recruit to the US Marines, Eugene Sledge can only try desperately to survive. At Peleliu and Okinawa - two of t he fiercest and filthiest Pacific battles of WWII - he witnesses the dehumanising brutality displayed by both sides and the animal hatred that each soldier has for his enemy. During temporary lapses in the fighting, conditions on the islands mean that the Marines often can't wash, stay dry, dig latrines, or even find time to eat. Suffering from constant fear, fatigue, and filth, the struggle of simply living in a combat zone is utterly debilitating. Yet despite horrendous conditions Sledge finds time to keep notes that he would later turn into a book. Described as one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war, With the Old Breed tells with compassion and honesty of the cruelty, bravery and deaths of the men he fought alongside, and of his own journey from patriotic innocence to batte-scarred veteran. ...Show more

Little America - The War Within the War for Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

$12.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: very good

The American Government invested millions in Helmand, Afghanistan in the 1950s and 1960s to transform the barren desert into a veritable oasis. It became the largest international development effort after the Marshall Plan. 'Little America' was the name for this specific region, first used in the 1940s by Afghanis themselves. Four decades later in 2009, the region was again the focus of the US efforts in the country, as waves of Marines descended upon the Helmand River Valley. In this extraordinarily insightful, illuminating book, Rajiv Chandrasekaran focuses on southern Afghanistan in the year of Obama's surge. Little America is a story of the long arc of American involvement, and of the campaign to salvage a victory in southern Afghanistan on Obama's watch., and reveals the epic tug of war that occurred between the president and a military that, once on the ground, increasingly went its own way. This political battle's profound ramifications for the region and the world are laid bare through a cast of fascinating characters - disillusioned and inept diplomats, frustrated soldiers, headstrong officers - who played a part in the process of pumping millions of dollars of American money and soldiers into Afghan nation-building. He addresses the British involvement around Kandahar prior to the arrival of the US Marines, and reveals the uneasy - and, at times, openly hostile - relationship between the United States and Britain as they began in 2009 to share responsibility for Helmand. What emerges is a detailed picture of unsavoury compromise - warlords who were to be marginalised were suddenly embraced, the Karzai family transformed from foe to friend, fighting corruption no longer a top priority - and a venture that has become unsustainable in every way- politically, financially, and strategically. As in his award-winning Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by bringing to life a corner of a conflict and Chandrasekaran reveals the bigger story of the war. Has the war in Afghanistan been worth the money spent and bloodshed? Through vivid, on-the-ground storytelling, Little America takes readers toward an answer in a way no other book on Afghanistan has. ...Show more

A Savage War of Peace - Algeria, 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne

$15.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: good-very good

The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It brought down six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, returned de Gaulle to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers wer e driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and repressive torture. Nearly half a century has passed since this savagely fought war ended in Algeria's independence, and yet its repercussions continue to be felt not only in Algeria and France but throughout the world. Indeed, from today's vantage point the Algerian War looks like a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that now ravages the Middle East, from Beirut to Baghdad--struggles in which questions of religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism take on a new and increasingly lethal intensity. A Savage War of Peace is the definitive history of the Algerian War, a book that brings that terrible and complicated struggle to life with intelligence, assurance, and unflagging momentum. It is essential reading for our own violent times as well as a lasting monument to the historian's art. ...Show more

The Unforgettable Army - Slim's XIVth Army in Burma by Michael Hickey

$25.00 NZD

Category: World War II | Reading Level: very good

Secret SAS Missions in Africa - C Squadrons Counter-Terrorist Operations 1968 1980 by Michael Graham

$15.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: very good

This fascinating book is the first to cover the little known C Squadron of the Special Air Service. Operating in East Africa, the Squadron was involved in almost continuous counter communist terrorist operations over the period 1968 to 1980. In the unstable final stages of British colonial and white rul e, the Squadron was never short of action. African nationalist movements, backed by Russia's and China's direct and indirect support posed a constant and deadly threat to the existing regimes. Small highly trained detachments of the SAS with highly developed bush warfare skills proved devastatingly effective and achieved results out of all proportion to their size. Often their enemies believed that they were facing rival factions and turned on each other. The inevitable involvement of African wildlife adds an extra dimension of excitement Written by a seasoned former senior member of C Squadron, Secret SAS Missions in East Africa paints a graphic and thrilling account of their covert operations and the colorful characters that undertook them. ...Show more

They Gave Me a Seafire by Mike Crosley

$20.00 NZD

Category: Aviation | Reading Level: very good

A classic in every sense of the word, the re-issuing of this book is sure to provoke an enthusiastic response. First published in 1986 by Airlife, its publishing history has seen a great number of glowing reviews generated, coming from both historians and participants in the proceedings that the author so eloquently relays. The book charts Crosley's service career in the Fleet Air Arm during the entire period of the Second World War. Part of his service saw him in action aboard HMS Eagle, flying Sea Hurricanes on the Harpoon and Pedestal Malta convoys of June and August 1942. It was during this time that he shot down his first enemy aircraft and survived the dramatic sinking of HMS Eagle. From there he graduated on to Seafires, (the Naval equivalent of the Spitfire), and flew this type in Combat Air Patrols over Norway and ramrod strikes from Operation Torch (the invasion of French North Africa in November 1942), through to D-Day in June 1944 in the European Theatre of Operations, and then in the Pacific abroad HMS Implacable as part of the British Pacific Fleet in 1945 until the end of the Pacific War, by which time he had command of his own combined squadron, 801 and 880. The narrative is well written in a frank and often scathingly critical way of Fleet Air Arm operations during the Second World War and beyond. The book looks set to bring the endeavours of Crosley to a whole new generation of enthusiasts, and it should appeal across the board to fans of aviation, naval history and families and friends of Armed Forces, past and present. ...Show more

The Atlantic Star 1939-45 by David A Thomas

$20.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

Monte Cassino - The story of the most controversial battle of World War II by David Hapgood; David Richardson

$14.00 NZD

Category: World War II | Reading Level: very good

Imperial Warriors - Britain and the Gurkhas by Tony Gould

$12.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: good-very good

Gurkhas have been recruited into the British and Indian armies since 1814-15 the year the East India Company went to war with Nepal and this study examines the many legends that have grown up around them. It puts the story of the expansion and contraction of Britain's Gurkha force into the context of Ne palese history, as well as that of the Indian and British Armies. ...Show more