We asked author Richard Hammond the questions you wanted to know about his new book Strangling the Axis! Here are his answers: Was the @RoyalAirForce level of effort in the Mediterranean appropriate or should it have done more? Good question! As the book demonstrates, aircraft (RAF, Fleet Air Arm and later USAAF assets) played an […]
Read More‘My illness has a name: convoys’ was the gloomy remark from the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943, as the Axis powers’ war in North Africa neared its disastrous conclusion. It is hardly surprising that he reached such a verdict: over the near three-year course of the war in North Africa, 1,350 merchant ships […]
Read MoreBritish intelligence, the IRA and the Northern Ireland Peace Process After 29 years and over 3,700 deaths, the Good Friday Agreement ended the Northern Ireland conflict in 1998. Commentators and academics initially concluded a stalemate situation explained why peace emerged. Revelations of senior Irish Republican Army (IRA) informers by 2005 encouraged various authors to revise […]
Read More"War and Childhood in the Era of the Two World Wars" takes a global look at how modern societies imagined childhood as a space of sheltered existence, while at the same time mobilizing their children to help fight their wars and turning them into both victims and actors in the twentieth century's greatest conflicts.
Read MoreWhile accessing oral histories and autobiographical writings about Indigenous participation in the Second World War, I had a strange epiphany: very few firsthand accounts ever explicitly explained why they got involved in the war effort. There were some hints here and there about the economy or tradition, but many Indigenous men and women who enlisted […]
Read MoreGambling on War: Confidence, Fear, and the Tragedy of the First World War is available now. This episode is also available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify.
Read MoreInnovation is big business. Whether we’re talking about blue chip companies like Apple, multinationals like Google, or the Defence community, the ability to innovate is associated with greater competitive advantage and versatility. Yet, for the military, in an era marked by tightening budgets, constant confrontation, and the blurred distinction between war and peace, armed forces […]
Read MoreOne hundred years after the United States’ entry into the 1914–18 world war, what aspects of this vast global conflict, and of America’s role in it, are worthy of commemoration? First and foremost, we remember the ten million men all over the world who lost their lives in the war. Indeed, remembering this “Lost Generation” is […]
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