David Hosaflook (trans.), "The Siege of Shkodra: Albania's Courageous Stand Against Ottoman Conquest, 1478" (2017)
Mehmet the Conqueror shook Europe to its foundations when he captured Constantinople in 1453 and, over the next decades, the Ottoman sultan continued his westward advance through the Balkans and the M...
15 Apr 202158min
Stefano Marcuzzi, "Britain and Italy in the Era of the First World War: Defending and Forging Empires" (Cambridge UP, 2020).
This is a reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, tries to shed new light on a hit...
14 Apr 20211h
Bing West, "The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War" (Bombardier Books, 2020)
The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War (Bombardier Books, 2020) is a riveting book of infantry ground combat. As a work of fiction it is superb, showing the personal drama, drives and experi...
9 Apr 202156min
Michael Kluger and Richard Evans, "Roosevelt's and Churchill's Atlantic Charter: A Risky Meeting at Sea that Saved Democracy" (Naval Institute Press, 2021)
Winston Churchill was no stranger to storms. They had engulfed him in various ways throughout his long career and he had always turned to face them with jutting jaw and indomitable spirit. Dark clouds...
24 Mar 202140min
Sarah Kovner, "Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps" (Harvard UP, 2020)
Sarah Kovner’s Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps (Harvard UP, 2020) is a nuanced look at the experiences, narratives―and the popular/historical memories of those experiences and narra...
24 Mar 202151min
Richard V. Barbuto, "New York's War of 1812: Politics, Society, and Combat" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)
From its use as a staging ground for invasions of Canada to the blockading of its ports, New York found itself at the forefront of America’s war with Great Britain in 1812. In New York’s War of 1812: ...
23 Mar 20211h 20min
Elizabeth Thompson, "How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020)
When Europe’s Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on the promise of an independent Arab state. In October 1...
23 Mar 20211h
Lorenzo Servitje, "Medicine Is War: The Martial Metaphor in Victorian Literature and Culture" (SUNY Press, 2021)
Medicine is most often understood through the metaphor of war. We encounter phrases such as “the war against the coronavirus,” “the front lines of the Ebola crisis,” “a new weapon against antibiotic r...
23 Mar 20211h 6min
