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Mao's Army Goes to Sea
- The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China's Navy
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
From 1949 to 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) made crucial decisions to establish a navy and secure China's periphery. The civil war had been fought with a peasant army, yet in order to capture key offshore islands from the Nationalist rival, Mao Zedong needed to develop maritime capabilities. Mao's Army Goes to Sea is a ground-breaking history of the founding of the Chinese navy and Communist China's earliest island-seizing campaigns.
In this definitive account of a critical moment in China's naval history, Toshi Yoshihara shows that Chinese leaders refashioned the stratagems and tactics honed over decades of revolutionary struggle on land for nautical purposes. Despite significant challenges, the PLA ultimately scored important victories over its Nationalist foes as it captured offshore islands to secure its position.
Drawing extensively from newly available Chinese-language sources, this book reveals how the navy-building process, sea battles, and contested offshore landings had a lasting influence on the PLA. Even today, the institution's identity, strategy, doctrine, and structure are conditioned by these early experiences and myths. This book will help US policymakers and scholars place China's recent maritime achievements in proper historical context-and provide insight into how its navy may act in the future.
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Performance
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Revised and updated to reflect recent Russian and Western scholarship on the subject, this new edition maintains the 1995 original's distinction as a crucial volume in the history of World War II and of the Soviet Union and the most informed and compelling perspective on one of the greatest military confrontations of all time.
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The largest conflict in human history
- By Eddie on 05-15-22
By: David M. Glantz, and others
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Imperial Germany and War, 1871-1918
- Modern War Studies
- By: Daniel J. Hughes, Richard L. DiNardo
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by two of the world's leading authorities on the subject, Imperial Germany and War, 1871-1918 examines the most essential components of the imperial German military system, with an emphasis on such foundational areas as theory, doctrine, institutional structures, training, and the officer corps. In the period between 1871 and 1918, rapid technological development demanded considerable adaptation and change in military doctrine and planning.
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Very well researched
- By Jeff Wise on 04-27-20
By: Daniel J. Hughes, and others
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Third Reich Victorious
- Alternate Histories of World War II
- By: Peter G. Tsouras
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is a stimulating and entirely plausible insight into how Hitler and his generals might have defeated the Allies, and a convincing sideways look at the Third Reich's bid at world domination in World War II. What would have happened if, for example, the Germans captured the whole of the BEF at Dunkirk? Or if the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain?
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A fresh look at WW2 - false but makes one wonder.
- By Eggert Eggertsson on 09-05-15
By: Peter G. Tsouras
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For the Common Defense, 3rd Edition
- A Military History of the United States from 1607 to 2012
- By: Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, William B. Feis
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 33 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Called "the preeminent survey of American military history" by Russell F. Weigley, America's foremost military historian, For the Common Defense is an essential contribution to the field of military history. This third edition provides the most complete and current history of United States defense policy and military institutions and the conduct of America's wars. Without diminishing the value of its earlier editions, authors Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis provide a fresh perspective on the continuing issues that characterize national security policy.
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The chapters in the book are badly labled
- By Hermione on 01-31-23
By: Allan R. Millett, and others
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Reconsidering the American Way of War
- US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan
- By: Antulio Joseph Echevarria
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook challenges several longstanding notions about the American way of war. It examines US military practice (strategic and operational) from the War of Independence to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan to determine what patterns, if any, existed in the way Americans have used military force. Echevarria surveys all major US wars and most every small conflict in the country's military history.
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Excellent overview of complex subject
- By Joe on 11-25-14
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The Cambridge History of Warfare
- By: Geoffrey Parker
- Narrated by: Andrew Cullum
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The new edition of The Cambridge History of Warfare, written and updated by a team of eight distinguished military historians, examines how war was waged by Western powers across a sweeping timeframe beginning with classical Greece and Rome, moving through the Middle Ages and the early modern period, down to the wars of the 21st century in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
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Too anglocentric
- By A. Siegel on 10-27-22
By: Geoffrey Parker
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The Second World War: A Captivating Guide to World War II and D-Day
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Explore how the Second World War began, the aftermath, and the events in between, while also getting an in-depth look into the extraordinary military operation called D-Day. The Second World War was one of the most traumatic events in human history. Across the world, existing conflicts became connected, entangling nations in a vast web of violence. D-Day was one of the most extraordinary achievements not only of the Second World War but in the whole of military history.
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Very Well Written
- By Jack on 01-03-18
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South Pacific Cauldron
- World War II's Great Forgotten Battlegrounds
- By: Alan Rems
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Unlike most other World War II accounts, this work covers the South Pacific operations in detail. The audiobook includes many now-forgotten operations that deserve to be well remembered. Significantly, the official Australian history of World War II correctly observed that Australia's part in the Pacific war is barely mentioned in American histories. This volume finally brings the major Australian contribution to the fore.
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A little dry but informative
- By Damien on 02-20-15
By: Alan Rems
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Intelligence in War
- Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about military intelligence. In his characteristically wry and perceptive prose, Keegan offers us nothing short of a new history of war through the prism of intelligence.
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Military history more than history of intelligence
- By D. Littman on 01-10-04
By: John Keegan
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Case White
- The Invasion of Poland 1939
- By: Robert Forczyk
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The German invasion of Poland on 1 September, 1939, designated as Fall Weiss (Case White), was the event that sparked the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The campaign has widely been described as a textbook example of Blitzkrieg, but it was actually a fairly conventional campaign as the Wehrmacht was still learning how to use its new Panzers and dive-bombers. The Polish military is often misrepresented as hopelessly obsolete and outclassed by the Wehrmacht, yet in fact it was well-equipped with modern weapons and armor.
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Surprise
- By Kindle Customer on 11-24-19
By: Robert Forczyk
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The Mighty Endeavor
- American Armed Forces in the European Theater in World War II
- By: Charles B. MacDonald
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 22 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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From the first landings at Casablanca straight through to the crossing of the Elbe River and V-E Day, this book tells the gripping story of the European theater of operations battles of World War II that American soldiers, sailors, and airmen took part in and of the strategy behind them. The book's core is its account of such famous and dramatic episodes as the landings in North Africa, Kasserine Pass, Salerno and Anzio; D-day; the liberation of Paris; the Battle of the Bulge; the crossing of the Rhine; and the race across Germany.
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Great background on US Armed Forces in the ETO and MTO
- By Dan McGrew on 05-16-17