Cutting-edge case studies examine the partisan and anti-partisan warfare which broke out across German-occupied eastern Europe during World War Two, showing how it was shaped in varied ways by factors including fighting power, political and economic structures, ideological and psychological influences, and the attitude of the wider population.

In his first novel, Werner Herzog tells a hypnotic tale inspired by the true story of a Japanese soldier who defended a small island for twenty-nine years after the end of WWII 1944: Lubang Island, the Philippines. With Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs. So began Onoda's long campaign. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades - until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making. . . 'An enthralling novel that explores the nature of time and warfare with great mastery' Mail on Sunday 'Herzog. . .brilliantly blends fact and fiction in this fever dream of a novel' Daily Mail 'A literary jewel set to sparkle against the backdrop of his monumental career in cinema' i

Another war, the most terrible nuclear disaster in the history of man has scorched and crippled all life on the surface of earth. In a few isolated zones human survival has occurred. Among these groups the birth rate is said to be phenomenal. There are reports of strange mutations of the human species appearing as frequently as fifty or sixty in a hundred births. Only a few of these strange mutations have been strong enough to survive, but some are reported to be reproducing their kind. A physical and mental examination of these freaks is being undertaken at the present time.

This book provides a historical study of the theory and praxis of modern insurgencies and counterinsurgencies (COIN). Modern Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies: A Global History shows that the insurgents can wage a variety of conflicts: at times conventional war which lies at the high end of their spectrum, and terrorism which is located at the lowest end of their scale. When insurgencies reach a certain critical threshold, the insurgents shift their strategy from guerrilla (irregular) war to conventional (regular) war, and at that point the level of conflict escalates to the level of civil war. When the insurgents face intense state repression, they revert to terrorist activities. When the insurgents wage guerrilla war, they can be called guerrillas. The variety of wars conducted by the insurgents is termed as unconventional war. This volume demonstrates that the insurgents in the modern world had been motivated by a trinity: greed, grievances and ideology. Kaushik Roy traces the origin of modern insurgencies and COIN from the sixteenth century by focusing on regions outside Western Eurasia. He also touches on the twin interrelated phenomena of modern insurgencies and COIN metastasising into something new at the beginning of the Information Revolution at the end of the twentieth century. This volume will be of interest to researchers and research students of history, British Empire, imperial studies, Asian studies, security studies, strategic studies, and war and conflict studies.

At the end of World War II the Allies faced a threefold challenge: how to punish perpetrators of appalling crimes for which the categories of 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity' had to be coined; how to explain that these had been committed by Germany, of all nations; and how to reform Germans. The Allied answer to this conundrum was the application of historical reasoning to legal procedure. In the thirteen Nuremberg trials held between 1945 and 1949, and in corresponding cases elsewhere, a concerted effort was made to punish key perpetrators while at the same time providing a complex analysis of the Nazi state and German history. Building on a long debate about Germany's divergence from a presumed Western path of development, Allied prosecutors sketched a historical trajectory which had led Germany to betray the Western model. Historical reasoning both accounted for the moral breakdown of a 'civilised' nation and rendered plausible arguments that this had indeed been a collective failure rather than one of a small criminal clique. The prosecutors therefore carefully laid out how institutions such as private enterprise, academic science, the military, or bureaucracy, which looked ostensibly similar to their opposite numbers in the Allied nations, had been corrupted in Germany even before Hitler's rise to power. While the argument, depending on individual protagonists, subject matters, and contexts, met with uneven success in court, it offered a final twist which was of obvious appeal in the Cold War to come: if Germany had lost its way, it could still be brought back into the Western fold. The first comprehensive study of the Nuremberg trials, The Betrayal thus also explores how history underpins transitional trials as we encounter them in today's courtrooms from Arusha to The Hague.

Belarus is often regarded as "Europe’s last dictatorship", a sort-of fossilized leftover from the Soviet Union. However, a key factor in determining Belarus’s development, including its likely future development, is its own sense of identity. This book explores the complex debates and competing narratives surrounding Belarus’s identity, revealing a far more diverse picture than the widely accepted monolithic post-Soviet nation. It examines in a range of media including historiography, films and literature how visions of Belarus as a nation have been constructed from the nineteenth century to the present day. It outlines a complex picture of contested myths – the "peasant nation" of the nineteenth century, the devoted Soviet republic of the late twentieth century and the revisionist Belarusian nationalism of the present. The author shows that Belarus is characterized by immense cultural, linguistic and ethnic polyphony, both in its lived history and in its cultural imaginary. The book analyses important examples of writing in and about Belarus, in Belarusian, Polish and Russian, revealing how different modes of rooted cosmopolitanism have been articulated.

This study of the Polish resistance movement chronicles the operations of various factions from WWII through the postwar battle for power. The Polish partisan army famously fought with tenacity against the Wehrmacht during World War II. Yet the wider story of the Polish underground movement, which opposed both the Nazi and Soviet occupying powers, has rarely been told. In this concise and authoritative study, historian David Williamson presents a major reassessment of the actions, impact and legacy of Polish resistance. The Polish resistance movement sprang up after the German invasion of 1939. As the war progressed, it took many forms, including propaganda, spying, assassination, disruption, sabotage and guerrilla warfare. Many groups were involved, including isolated partisan bands, the Jewish resistance, and the Home Army which confronted the Germans in the disastrous Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Going beyond the Second World War, Williamson's graphic account chronicles the clandestine civil war between the Communists and former members of the Home Army that continued until the Communist regime took power in 1947.

The Second World War in Eastern Europe is far from a neglected topic, especially since social, cultural, and diplomatic historians have entered a field previously dominated by operational histories, and produced a cornucopia of new scholarship offering a more nuanced picture from both sides of the front. However, until now, the story has still been disjointed and specialized, whereby military, social, economic, and diplomatic histories continue to give their own separate accounts. This collection of essays attempts to bring these themes into a more cohesive whole that tells a complex, multifaceted story of war on the Eastern Front as it truly was. This is one of the few critical examinations that includes both perspectives and looks at the war as a multi‐front effort. It also reveals how myths are created around military conflicts and have direct relevance to current developments in Europe, linking them to a broader discussion of the Second World War, its impact and utility today. It gives a historical dimension to pressing issues and will be of interest and relevance to history students, policymakers, political scientists, diplomats, and foreign policy experts. The Eastern Front will be a useful reference source, since some chapters rely on extensive new archival research and materials, ego sources, as well as extensive findings of non‐Western scholars, thereby bringing their work to the attention of a broader audience.

Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History is a brief but comprehensive survey of the Third Reich based on current research findings that provides a balanced approach to the study of Hitler’s role in the history of the Third Reich. The book considers the economic, social, and political forces that made possible the rise and development of Nazism; the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; World War II; and the Holocaust. World War II and the Holocaust are presented as logical outcomes of the ideology of Hitler and the Nazi movement. This new edition contains more information on the Kaiserreich (Imperial Germany), as well as Nazi complicity in the Reichstag Fire and increased discussion of consent and dissent during the Nazi attempt to create the ideal Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community). It takes a greater focus on the experiences of ordinary bystanders, perpetrators, and victims throughout the text, includes more discussion of race and space, and the final chapter has been completely revised. Fully updated, the book ensures that students gain a complete and thorough picture of the period and issues. Supported by maps, images, and thoroughly updated bibliographies that offer further reading suggestions for students to take their study further, the book offers the perfect overview of Hitler and the Third Reich.

A major new account of Germany's drive on Moscow in November 1941, one of the key battles of World War II.