Climate Security and the Military by Georg Frerks (Editor); Rinze Geertsma (Editor); Jeroen Klomp (Editor); Tom Middendorp (Editor)This book, 'Climate Security and the Military: Concepts, Strategies and Partnerships', reviews the climate Security Nexus from the military angle and proposes the design of climate security strategies and how they can contribute to adaptation to and mitigation of the related challenges. Part 1 reviews the understanding of the Climate Security Nexus. Subsequently, Part 2 assesses the potential design of climate security strategies. In Part 3, adaptation to climate change by the military is reviewed. Finally, part 4 discusses the potential contribution of the military to climate mitigation from the angle of operations on land, at sea and in the air, and of solar geoengineering. By thus analysing the impact climate has on security around the world and military operations, this book provides a unique and much needed view on the mutual influence of climate security and the military and provides suggestions to adapt to and mitigate the resulting challenges.
ISBN: 9789400604780
Publication Date: 2024-05-31
The Ghosts of Iraq's Marshes : A History of Conflict, Tragedy, and Restoration by Steve Lonergan, Jassim Al-Asadi, and Keith HolmesThe gripping history of the devastation and resurrection of the Marshes of Iraq, an environmental treasure of the Middle East, now a protected site The Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq, once the largest wetland system on the planet, have been inhabited for thousands of years by the Ma'dan, or Marsh Arabs, but they remain remote, isolated, and virtually unknown. In the early 1990s, the Saddam Hussein regime drained the Marshes and set out to destroy not only a critical ecosystem but a unique way of life as well. It stands as one of the greatest environmental and humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century. In the wake of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, local residents destroyed the earthen dams built to divert water from the wetlands and the Marshes were reflooded. Their future, however, is in peril. The Ghosts of Iraq's Marshes tells the history of the creation, destruction, and revitalization of the Marshes and their inhabitants against the backdrop of the dramatic events that have convulsed Iraq in the past fifty years. It follows the life of Jassim al-Asadi, an irrigation engineer who was jailed and tortured under Saddam Hussein and who subsequently dedicated his life to the reflooding and restoration of the Marshes. He eventually contributed to the Marshes being declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Jassim is eminently relatable, and the stories of his life and other marsh dwellers are infused with pathos, tragedy, humor, and passion.
ISBN: 9781649033260
Publication Date: 2024-04-23
Half American by Matthew F. Delmont* Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction * A New York Times Notable Book * A Best Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Washington Independent Review of Books, and more! The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont "Matthew F. Delmont's book is filled with compelling narratives that outline with nuance, rigor, and complexity how Black Americans fought for this country abroad while simultaneously fighting for their rights here in the​ United States. Half American belongs firmly within the canon of indispensable World War II books." --Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the "Good War" fought by the "Greatest Generation." Half American is American history as you've likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.
ISBN: 9781984880406
Publication Date: 2022-10-18
Invisible Veterans : What Happens When Military Women Become Civilians Again by Carrie Ann Alford, Kate Hendricks Thomas, and Kyleanne HunterCombining research with narrative, this book exposes common threads of lived experience and reviews the latest data on military women and their healthy reintegration into civilian society. Female veterans share their stories of seeking to be seen in a culture where they don't quite fit and their struggles to find community and friendship. Some fought during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as the first women in combat in American history. How and where, for example, does a female combat Marine find her tribe once she leaves the service? Through the stories of these courageous yet entirely human women, readers learn about the experiences of a new and often forgotten generation of veterans; about the challenges surrounding family and career choices that millions of American women face; and ultimately, about sacrifice, resiliency, loss, and love. This book will inform readers with an interest in female veterans and women's health and mental health issues, as well as researchers, students, and professionals working in fields encompassing women's psychology, health, and social work.
ISBN: 9798216104742
Publication Date: 2019-07-19
Tactical Inclusion by Jeremiah FavaraThe revolution in military recruitment advertising to people of color and women played an essential role in making the US military one of the most diverse institutions in the United States. Starting at the dawn of the all-volunteer era, Jeremiah Favara illuminates the challenges at the heart of military inclusion by analyzing recruitment ads published in three commercial magazines: Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, and Ebony. Favara draws on Black feminism, critical race theory, and queer of color critique to reveal how the military and advertisers affected change by deploying a set of strategies and practices called tactical inclusion. As Favara shows, tactical inclusion used representations of servicemembers in the new military to connect with people susceptible to recruiting efforts and rendered these new audiences vulnerable to, valuable to, and subject to state violence. Compelling and eye-opening, Tactical Inclusion combines original analysis with personal experience to chart advertising's role in building the all-volunteer military.
ISBN: 9780252056581
Publication Date: 2024-04-09
The Time Left Between Us by Alicia DeFonzoA blend of memoir, history, and oral storytelling, The Time Left between Us bridges the gap between the generation who fought World War II and the generation who has forgotten it. Alicia DeFonzo takes an unplanned visit to the Normandy beaches while staying in Paris. Her grandfather "Del" (Anthony DelRossi) had fought in World War II, and she becomes distraught after realizing how little she knows about the war and his experiences, which until then had remained largely unspoken. Across landscapes and lifetimes DeFonzo retraces her beloved grandfather's tour through World War II Europe. The eighty-four-year-old DelRossi recounts stories as an army combat engineer surviving major campaigns, including Normandy, St. Lo, the Bulge, Hürtgenwald, and Remagen, then liberating concentration camps. In this braided narrative, we see DeFonzo's childhood in a traditional Italian American family with an erratic Marine Corps father and a beloved grandfather. Spanning ten years, DeFonzo's travels and research take an unexpected detour after she inherits a Nazi Waffen-SS diary from her grandfather, and, in her final trip, returns to Germany to confront the diary owner's family. DeFonzo's and her grandfather's stories merge when Del undergoes open-heart surgery and Alicia must be the one to safeguard the past. Both nostalgic and gripping, The Time Left between Us is a meditation on how deeply connected the past is to the present and how the truth--and what we remember of it--are fragmented.
ISBN: 9781640125131
Publication Date: 2022-09-01
Trauma and Nostalgia by Lucien van Liere (Editor); Srdjan Sremac (Editor)This volume reflects on the significance of nostalgia in the construction of traumatic pasts, both on an individual and a collective level. By employing an interdisciplinary approach, the volume enhances our understanding of how the entanglements of trauma and nostalgia influence the construction and development of identity. Scholars from a range of academic disciplines and contexts explore the integration of nostalgic memories in discussions of trauma, attending to their interactions in public spaces, patriotic symbolism and rituals, popular culture, cinema, religion, museums, and memorials. The contributors emphasize the role of media and other mass-cultural technologies in disseminating images and narratives related to traumatic and nostalgic experiences. These essays ultimately bring to light the frequently overlooked role of nostalgic longing in shaping the discursive, visual, and material aspects of collective trauma.
ISBN: 9789048559237
Publication Date: 2024-02-14
The Very Long Game : 25 Case Studies on the Global State of Defense AI by Heiko Borchert, Torben Schütz, and Joseph VerbovszkyThis open access book is the outcome of a unique multinational effort organized by the Hamburg-based Defense AI Observatory (DAIO) to portray the current state of affairs regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by armed forces around the world. The contributions span a diverse range of geostrategic contexts by providing in-depth case studies on Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States. The book does not speculate about the future implications of AI on armed forces, but rather discusses how armed forces are currently exploring the potential of this emerging technology. By adopting a uniform analytical framework, each case study discusses how armed forces view defense AI; how they are developing AI-enhanced solutions, adapting existing structures and processes, and funding their defense AI endeavors; to what extent defense AI is already fielded and operated; and how soldiers and officers are being trained to work with AI.
ISBN: 9783031586491
Publication Date: 2024-07-19
War Flower by Brooke KingBrooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war--the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq. Find out what happens when the sex turns into secret affairs, the violence is turned up to eleven, and how King's feelings for a country she knew nothing about as a nineteen-year-old become more disturbing to her as a thirty-year-old mother writing it all down before her memories fade into oblivion. The story of a girl who went to war and returned home a woman, War Flower gathers the enduring remembrances of a soldier coming to grips with post-traumatic stress disorder. As King recalls her time in Iraq, she reflects on what violence does to a woman and how the psychic wounds of combat are unwittingly passed down from mother to children. War Flower is ultimately a profound meditation on what it means to have been a woman in a war zone and an unsettling exposé on war and its lingering aftershocks. For veterans such as King, the toughest lesson of service is that in the mind, some wars never end--even after you come home. Purchase the audio edition.