5 History / Military Related eBooks

Kristin A. Seaver, "The Last Vikings: The Epic Story of the Great Norse Voyagers"
James L. Huffman, "Japan in World History (The New World History)"
Brian Joseph Martin, "Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century France"
Robert N. Bellah, Hans Joas, "The Axial Age and Its Consequences"
Andrzej Pleszczyski, "The Birth of a Stereotype"

Kristin A. Seaver, "The Last Vikings: The Epic Story of the Great Norse Voyagers"
2010 | pages: 305 | ISBN: 1845118693 | PDF | 2,3 mb
Late in the tenth century, the Norse Vikings embarked on a voyage of no return. Leaving Iceland first for Greenland, from there they sailed onwards to North America, setting foot on its shores five hundred years before Columbus’s first journeys of discovery. But by about AD 1500 their settlements were abandoned and the Norse Greenlanders and their explorations of the New World receded into the realms of myth. What happened between these momentous events? How did the Vikings really live – and die – and why have so many myths and legends grown up around this mysterious people of the sea?
Drawing on her deep knowledge of the culture and history of the region as well as the most up-to-date evidence from archaeology, medieval history and the evocative Sagas, Seaver weaves together a compelling and authoritative history. Alongside their spectacular achievements and discoveries, she also vividly evokes the last Vikings’ daily lives and explains why their apparent departure from Greenland in 1500 was not quite such a dramatic schism in the historical record as is often assumed. This compelling history of a people living at the fringes of the known world offers an illuminating entree into the world of the Norse Greenlanders which will captivate all who have ever wondered about the fate of the Vikings and will stand as the definitive work for years to come.

James L. Huffman, "Japan in World History (The New World History)"
2010 | ISBN 0195368096 | PDF | 176 pages | 3,6 MB
Japan in World History ranges from Japan's prehistoric interactions with Korea and China, to the Western challenge of the late 1500s, the partial isolation under the Tokugawa family (1600-1868), and the tumultuous interactions of more recent times, when Japan modernized ferociously, turned imperialist, lost a world war, then became the world's second largest economy–and its greatest foreign aid donor.
Writing in a lively fashion, Huffman makes rich use of primary sources, illustrating events with comments by the people who lived through them: tellers of ancient myths, court women who dominated the early literary world, cynical priests who damned medieval materialism, travelers who marveled at "indecent" Western ballroom dancers in the mid-1800s, and the emperor who justified Pearl Harbor. Without ignoring standard political and military events, the book illuminates economic, social, and cultural factors; it also examines issues of gender as well as the roles of commoners, samurai, business leaders, novelists, and priests.

Brian Joseph Martin, "Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century France"
English | ISBN: 1584659238 | 2011 | PDF | 400 pages | 3 MB
Following the French Revolution, radical military reforms created conditions for new physical and emotional intimacy between soldiers, establishing a model of fraternal affection that would persist from the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars through the Franco-Prussian War and World War I.
Based on extensive research in French and American archives, and enriched by his reading of Napoleonic military memoirs and French military fiction from Hugo and Balzac to Zola and Proust, Brian Joseph Martin's view encompasses a broad range of emotional and erotic relationships in French armies from 1789 to 1916. He argues that the French Revolution's emphasis on military fraternity evolved into an unprecedented sense of camaraderie among soldiers in the armies of Napoleon. For many soldiers, the hardships of combat led to intimate friendships. For some, the homosociality of military life inspired mutual affection, lifelong commitment, and homoerotic desire.

Robert N. Bellah, Hans Joas, "The Axial Age and Its Consequences"
2012 | pages: 561 | ISBN: 0674066499 | PDF | 4,9 mb
The first classics in human history—the early works of literature, philosophy, and theology to which we have returned throughout the ages—appeared in the middle centuries of the first millennium bce. The canonical texts of the Hebrew scriptures, the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle, the Analects of Confucius and the Daodejing, the Bhagavad Gita and the teachings of the Buddha—all of these works came down to us from the compressed period of history that Karl Jaspers memorably named the Axial Age.
In The Axial Age and Its Consequences, Robert Bellah and Hans Joas make the bold claim that intellectual sophistication itself was born worldwide during this critical time. Across Eurasia, a new self-reflective attitude toward human existence emerged, and with it an awakening to the concept of transcendence. From Axial Age thinkers we inherited a sense of the world as a place not just to experience but to investigate, envision, and alter through human thought and action.
Bellah and Joas have assembled diverse scholars to guide us through this astonishing efflorescence of religious and philosophical creativity. As they explore the varieties of theorizing that arose during the period, they consider how these in turn led to utopian visions that brought with them the possibility of both societal reform and repression. The roots of our continuing discourse on religion, secularization, inequality, education, and the environment all lie in Axial Age developments. Understanding this transitional era, the authors contend, is not just an academic project but a humanistic endeavor.

Andrzej Pleszczyski, "The Birth of a Stereotype"
English | 2011 | ISBN: 9004185542 | PDF | pages: 365 | 4,8 mb
In early Medieval Western Europe intellectuals were used to indicate the external location of Slavic countries, as though outside civilization, with the term the North. The problem did not only concern nomenclature. The stereotype associated with the North pointed at the obvious cold weather, but also the primeval nature of the land and people. This study shows the detailed image of Poland created by German authors in the earliest period of existence of the Piast state (963-1034). An important aim of this work was also to identify the wider context of written opinions. Another purpose was to gather information illustrating actions taken by the Polish rulers aimed at creating an image of themselves as civilized men and true Christians.