Barbed wire, trenches, and machine guns are all elements of modern warfare that are mainly associated with the bloody carnage of World War One, yet they were all first used in combination 10 years earlier in a largely forgotten war that was fought in Manchuria and Korea: the Russo-Japanese War.

The Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria is sometimes described as the true beginning of World War II. The Second Sino-Japanese War: The History and Legacy of the Deadly Conflict That Lasted Through the End of World War II examines the notorious fighting, as well as the crucial aftermath. You will learn about the Second Sino-Japanese War like never before.

Wellington’s Scum: The History and Legacy of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars examines the history of the British Army during one of history’s most pivotal eras. You will learn about the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars like never before.

Although Russia has long been considered part of Europe, it has always had a culture so distinct and a history so different that it is still foreign to Western Europe in many ways. Naturally, this sense of otherness has lent an aura of intrigue and mystique to Russia as people have struggled to understand it. Over the long course of Russian history, perhaps no aspect of the giant country has generated interest quite like Siberia, the easternmost part of Russia that lies in Asia.

Two military setbacks, on a scale unprecedented in history, were required before the high tide of Napoleon's success began to ebb towards the final denouement of the Hundred Days and the famous Battle of Waterloo. The failed Russian invasion set the stage for the second defeat at Leipzig, which essentially sealed the fate of Napoleon's empire. The four-day Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, dubbed the "Battle of the Nations", essentially determined the course the Napoleonic Wars took from that moment forward.

Before the being called the Emperor revealed himself, before the rise of the aeldari, before the necrontyr traded their flesh for immortal metal, the world was born in violence. Even when they inhabited bodies of flesh, Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner were polar opposites. Trazyn, a collector of historical oddities, presides over a gallery full of the most dangerous artefacts - and people - of the galactic past. Orikan, a chronomancer without peer, draws zodiacs that predict and manipulate the future.

It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures, and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century - this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.

Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece. Beginning in the second century A.D. at the apex of the Pax Romana, Gibbon traces the arc of decline and complete destruction through the centuries across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a thrilling and cautionary tale of splendor and ruin, of faith and hubris, and of civilization and barbarism. Follow along as Christianity overcomes paganism... before itself coming under intense pressure from Islam.

The Napoleonic Wars saw fighting on an unprecedented scale in Europe and the Americas. It took the wealth of the British Empire, combined with the might of the continental armies, almost two decades to bring down one of the world's greatest military leaders and the empire that he had created. Napoleon's ultimate defeat was to determine the history of Europe for almost 100 years. From the frozen wastelands of Russia, through the brutal fighting in the Peninsula to the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterloo, this book tells the story of the dramatic rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire.

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.

George Washington’s military strategy has been called bumbling at worst and brilliant at best. So which is it? Was George Washington a strategic genius or just lucky? So asks Dave R. Palmer in George Washington’s Military Genius. An updated edition of Palmer’s earlier work, The Way of the Fox, George Washington’s Military Genius breaks down the American Revolution into four phases and analyzes Washington’s strategy during each.

The struggle between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars was arguably the greatest and most desperate conflict of antiquity. The forces involved and the casualties suffered by both sides were far greater than in any wars fought before the modern era, while the eventual outcome had far-reaching consequences for the history of the Western World, namely the ascendancy of Rome. An epic of war and battle, this is also the story of famous generals and leaders: Hannibal, Fabius Maximus, Scipio Africanus, and his grandson Scipio Aemilianus, who would finally bring down the walls of Carthage.

An astonishing retelling of 20th-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the contemporary Middle East. Between 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, was World War I - a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the "wars of the Ottoman succession", we know far less than we think.

In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict.

An astonishing retelling of 20th-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the contemporary Middle East. Between 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, was World War I - a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the "wars of the Ottoman succession", we know far less than we think.

George Washington’s military strategy has been called bumbling at worst and brilliant at best. So which is it? Was George Washington a strategic genius or just lucky? So asks Dave R. Palmer in George Washington’s Military Genius. An updated edition of Palmer’s earlier work, The Way of the Fox, George Washington’s Military Genius breaks down the American Revolution into four phases and analyzes Washington’s strategy during each.

A century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the "war to end all wars" is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world.

History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive". Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt - all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking".

In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict.

The first World War was one of the most devastating conflicts in our history. The tumult and chaos that remained in the wake of the first World War had far-reaching and devastating consequences, not just for Europe and the survivors of the war, but for the entire world. The ruins of Europe provided a fertile breeding ground for fierce nationalism, which led to the rise of the Third Reich and allowed the evil of Adolf Hitler to go unchecked for far too long.

History for busy people. Listen to a concise history of World War One in just one hour. World War One brought with it the world’s first experience of Total War, involving all of the world’s great powers, polarized between the Triple Entente, led by Britain, France and Russia, and the Central Powers, dominated by Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary. Around nine million men lost their lives in a conflict that introduced the horrors of trench warfare, machine guns, and toxic gas attacks.

The terrible conflict that dominated the mid-19th century, the Crimean War, killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land.

This audiobook examines the meteoric rise of Sweden as the pre-eminent military power in Europe during the Thirty Years War during the 1600s, and then follows its line of warrior kings into the next century until the Swedes finally meet their demise, in an overreach into the vastness of Russia. A small Scandinavian nation, with at most one and a half million people and scant internal resources of its own, there was small logic to how Sweden could become the dominant power on the Continent.

The Great War of 1914-1918 was the first mass conflict to fully mobilize the resources of industrial powers against one another, resulting in a brutal, bloody, protracted war of attrition between the world's great economies. Now, 100 years after the first guns of August rang out on the Western front, historian William Philpott reexamines the causes and lingering effects of the first truly modern war.

What if Hitler had won the war, if Japan had another sneak attack, or if the cold war turned hot? What If? provides a fascinating new perspective on history's most pivotal events. Featuring today's foremost historians speculating on what could have happened, we discover where we might be if history had not unfolded the way it did.

The definitive history of Austria’s multinational army and its immense role during three centuries of European military history. Among the finest examples of deeply researched military history, For God and Kaiser is a major account of the Habsburg army. It shows how the Imperial Austrian Army, time and again, was a decisive factor in the story of Europe, the balance of international power, and the defense of Christendom...it was the first pan-European army made up of different nationalities and faiths, counting among its soldiers not only Christians but also Muslims, and Jews.

The struggle between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars was arguably the greatest and most desperate conflict of antiquity. The forces involved and the casualties suffered by both sides were far greater than in any wars fought before the modern era, while the eventual outcome had far-reaching consequences for the history of the Western World, namely the ascendancy of Rome. An epic of war and battle, this is also the story of famous generals and leaders: Hannibal, Fabius Maximus, Scipio Africanus, and his grandson Scipio Aemilianus, who would finally bring down the walls of Carthage.

For more than 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads not only for armies but also for clashes between civilizations. As a result of the United States' engaging in armed conflict with the Afghan regime, an understanding of the military history of that blood-soaked land has become essential to every American.

In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie D. Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts, Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded.