The first full, nonpartisan history of the Greek Civil War, the brutal guerrilla conflict that launched the Cold War

The Cold War did not culminate in World War III as so many in the 1950s and 1960s feared, yet it spawned a host of military engagements that affected millions of lives. This book is the first comprehensive, multinational overview of military affairs during the early Cold War, beginning with conflicts during World War II in Warsaw, Athens, and Saigon and ending with the Cuban Missile Crisis. A major theme of this account is the relationship between government policy and military preparedness and strategy. Author Jonathan M. House tells of generals engaging in policy confrontations with their governments’ political leaders—among them Anthony Eden, Nikita Khrushchev, and John F. Kennedy—many of whom made military decisions that hamstrung their own political goals. In the pressure-cooker atmosphere of atomic preparedness, politicians as well as soldiers seemed instinctively to prefer military solutions to political problems. And national security policies had military implications that took on a life of their own. The invasion of South Korea convinced European policy makers that effective deterrence and containment required building up and maintaining credible forces. Desire to strengthen the North Atlantic alliance militarily accelerated the rearmament of West Germany and the drive for its sovereignty. In addition to examining the major confrontations, nuclear and conventional, between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing—including the crises over Berlin and Formosa—House traces often overlooked military operations against the insurgencies of the era, such as French efforts in Indochina and Algeria and British struggles in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, and Aden. Now, more than fifty years after the events House describes, understanding the origins and trajectory of the Cold War is as important as ever. By the late 1950s, the United States had sent forces to Vietnam and the Middle East, setting the stage for future conflicts in both regions. House’s account of the complex relationship between diplomacy and military action directly relates to the insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, and confrontations that now occupy our attention across the globe.

Nineteen forty-six is the year that would signal the beginning of the Cold War, the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the rivalry between the United States and the USSR. Victor Sebestyen reveals the year’s events by chronologically framing what was taking place in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, with seminal decisions made by heads of state that would profoundly change the old order forever. The map of Eastern Europe would be redrawn, Chinese communists would gain decisive victories in their fight for power, and the world would witness the birth of Israel. 1946 was a year of seismic and dramatic events. Drawing on personal testimonies and new archival research, Sebestyen has written a vivid and compelling narrative that brilliantly evokes the beginning of the Cold War set against a devastated landscape of dystopian horrors. (With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.)

This easy-to-use reference explores the people and events that shaped Russian military history—and impacted Europe, Asia, and the world—over the past eight centuries. Russian military history is an often-overlooked field. Yet Russia is and has long been an important player in global politics, and its military exploits have been central to its role on the world stage. This study of Russia's military past provides insights into European and U.S. history, including the conduct of the two World Wars and the Cold War, and will help readers better appreciate the current geopolitical situation. This work covers major events and figures in Russian military history from the end of Mongol domination in the 14th century to the present day. More than 650 entries by scores of expert contributors detail events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that have influenced Russian warfare over 800 years. Two alphabetically arranged volumes explore such conflicts as the Russo-Polish Wars, the Great Northern War, the Russo-Turkish Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Cross references and further readings in each entry serve as jumping-off points for further exploration.

A fascinating look at the insurgencies and counterinsurgencies throughout history with a concentration on the 20th and 21st centuries. This encyclopedia examines insurgencies—and the counterinsurgency efforts they prompt—through history, addressing military actions and the techniques and technologies employed in each conflict, significant insurgency leaders, and the leading theorists, with emphasis on the "small wars" of the 20th century and most recent decades. The clear, concise entries provide a breadth of coverage that ranges from the Maccabean Revolt in 168–143 BCE and the Peasants' Revolt in Germany in the 1500s to the American Revolutionary War and the ongoing insurgency in Syria. Readers will gain a solid understanding of how insurgency warfare and counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy has played a key role in the U.S. conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 21st century, and grasp how this important military strategy has evolved during modern times.

What happens to a family already on the brink of disaster when the world around them crumbles? Dandelions for Dinner presents a memoir set in the sleepy town of Gargaliani, Greece, spanning the last quarter of the nineteenth century through the Greek Civil War of the 1940s. Told through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, it is an epic tale of youth, family, poverty, war, and unjust loss. It is also an uplifting story of how in the midst of calamity, survival is possible by using your head, taking your hits, and maintaining an undying faith. Though it is the tale of a family that is by all standards poor, Dandelions for Dinner demonstrates just how rich the poor can be when they have hope, faith, and love for one another when they maintain the lessons of their parents and forefathers, nurture a love of education, and never let up on their hope for freedom. This memoir is, above all, a story about the importance of America not only for those who live there, but also for all those who reside in the dark corners of faraway lands and dream of a better life. Over the course of their life together, any family will most assuredly experience both want and plenty, suffering and joy. Dandelions for Dinner is the surprising story of what remains when everything else is lost.

Whether in the form of warfare, dispossession, forced migration, or social prejudice, Australia’s sense of nationhood was born from—and continues to be defined by—experiences of violence. Legacies of Violence probes this brutal legacy through case studies that range from the colonial frontier to modern domestic spaces, exploring themes of empathy, isolation, and Australians’ imagined place in the world. Moving beyond the primacy that is typically accorded white accounts of violence, contributors place particular emphasis on the experiences of those perceived to be on the social periphery, repositioning them at the center of Australia’s relationship to global events and debates.

Icaria, a long, craggy and destitute isle in the Aegean Sea is visible from Turkey. The toil and travail of its people symbolizes the journey all Greek People made to achieve a modern society. But unlike other Greeks the Icarians often chose a dead end path. Never in agreement with those around them, the story of the Icariaians shows the best and the worst of Greek society. The Icarians were loyal subjects of the Ottoman Empire who, because of poverty and lack of resources, were not expected to pay heavy taxes while most Ottoman Greeks were dissatisfied with Turkish rule and dreamed of independence. But just before World War I, when the Greek government did not want to annex the island because of international complications, the Icarians expelled the Turks and demanded inclusion in the Greek State. At that time the bulk of the young men were escaping the grinding poverty of the island by immigrating to the United States. Although the majority of these men stayed in America and brought wives from the island to the New World, they maintained local ties. Their influence, both positive and negative, affected many qualities of Icarian life. The Icarians did not find their expectations fulfilled as part of Greece and remained disenchanted with their conditions through the twenties and thirties of the 20th century. The forties brought first, the Italians, then the Germans, and finally the British. After the turmoil, many Icarians supported radical political solutions to their problems, sympathizing with a native a guerrilla movement and rejecting efforts to improve their island, seeing only the great Capitalistic conspiracy at work. In the last decades of the 20th century the Icarians finally entered the modern but at a too rapid rate leaving the people unable to cope with some aspects of modernity. Anthony J. Papalas has assembled a true "peoples" history by bringing together unusual documents such as dowry agreements and Ottoman court records, memoirs, and accounts of Icaria by people who were involved in the events he describes, all interwoven with informative and perceptive descriptions from forty years of interviews with Icarians from all areas and conditions. Here is a history on the social level, not grand politics or great battles, but rather the everyday existence and immediate choices which, once made, shape succeeding events.