THEY'RE SWARMING FOR THE KILL . . . AND WE ARE THE PREY! Everybody knows how despicable the alien Fibians are. Allies of the fanatic Mollie rebels against the human Commonwealth, they show no mercy, they have no remorse, and they find human flesh delectable¾at least when served live. Fielding a gigantic starfleet against Earth and its colonies, they march like the giant spiders they resemble through humanity's nightmares, and soon they will march across its devastated worlds. When the captain of the starship Invincible is incapacitated after a Fibian attack, only Peter Raeder¾former fighter pilot, starship flight engineer, and unorthodox hero of the war against the Mollies¾can be entrusted with command of the ship. His mission: to track down the alien raiders who took out his captain, and then to start hitting the enemy behind the lines. It's a suicide mission, and Raeder knows it . . . until the fortunes of battle drive him deeper into alien space than he'd ever intended to go, the Invincible too damaged ever to return home. There he discovers that the monstrous Fibians may not be monsters after all . . . At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

John A. McClernand was a career politician, and those ambitions and qualities continued during his Civil War service. A member of the Illinois General Assembly and a U.S. Representative for 10 years, McClernard was connected to other prominent figures of the time such as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. However, he is best known for his rivalry with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and this biography balances McClernard's political career with his military leadership and his place in the Union command structure.

Histories of the First World War are often written from a British perspective, ignoring the coalition element of the conflict and the French point of view. In Strategy and Command, Roy Prete offers a major new interpretation supported by in-depth research in French archival sources. In the first of three projected volumes, Prete crafts a behind-the-scenes look at Anglo-French command relations during World War I, from the start of the conflict until 1915, when trench warfare drastically altered the situation. Drawing on extensive archival research, Prete argues that the British government's primary interest lay in the defence of the empire; the small expeditionary force sent to France was progressively enlarged because the French, especially Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre, dragged their British ally into a progressively greater involvement. Several crises in Anglo-French command relations derived from these competing strategic objectives. New information gleaned from French public and private archives - including private diaries - enlarge our understanding of key players in the allied relationship. Prete shows that suspicion and distrust on the part of both sides of the alliance continued to inform relations well after the circumstances creating them had changed. Strategy and Command clearly establishes the fundamental strategic differences between the allies at the start of the war, setting the stage for the next two volumes.

This award-winning classic of WWII military history chronicles the Royal Air Force’s bombing campaign against Germany. RAF Bomber Command’s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. The struggle began meekly in 1939 with only a few aircraft—Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons—flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, blazing whole German cities in a single night. In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the UK, famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize

One thousand years ago, the Byzantine Empire was reaching the height of its revival as a medieval state. The ten contributions to this volume by scholars from six European countries re-assess key aspects of the empire's politics and culture in the long reign of the emperor Basil II, whose name has come to symbolise the greatness of Byzantium in the age before the crusades.

A mammoth volume on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), assembling major accords and protocols that form the institutional framework of the Commonwealth, key political statements by leaders of CIS member states, coverage of CIS responses to internal crises, and a detailed chronology of developments in the early years of the CIS's existence, plus color maps and statistics. Introductory notes to each group of documents supply historical background and highlight the inner dynamics of the CIS. An introduction places the dissolution of the USSR and the development of the CIS in a larger historical and geopolitical context. Includes contacts of CIS embassies and consulates in the US. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR