In The School Of War

Alexandre Najjar was eight when Lebanon erupted into a bloody and brutal conflict; he was twenty-three when the guns at last fell silent. After seven years of voluntary exile spent trying to escape the nightmare of civil war, he is now back amongst his family and friends, and the past is quickly catching up with him. As he reacquaints himself with his bullet-riddled city, Alexandre is haunted by vivid memories which he sets down with extraordinary candour and good humour. Sometimes nostalgic, often brutal and shocking, The School of War offers unforgettable insight into a child's experiences during times of conflict. 'A marvellously affecting memoir of the war in Lebanon: perfectly pitched and intensely evocative, and all the more powerful from being seen through the eyes of a child.' William Boyd Delicate and unforgettable' Elle Magazine One of the most talented writers of his generation' Le Monde

Fort Leavenworth, where Roger J. Spiller taught the army?s finest for twenty-five years, is indeed a ?school of war.? There, among military professionals who had experienced war firsthand, Spiller honed his remarkable skills as an analyst and historian, scholar and teacher?skills that have made him one of the best-known and respected military historians of our day. This volume brings together Spiller?s original and thought-provoking explorations of wars big and small and armies glorified and ignored. For each of these essays?whether on urban warfare or the Vietnam syndrome, battlefield psychology or the making of military history, and underrated vs.øoverrated generals?Spiller revisits his topic and his thinking, bringing fresh insight and a new context to an incomparable body of work. In the School of War further reveals the complex relationship between past and present in an understanding of the nature of war.

In an era defined by political polarization, both major U.S. parties have come to share a remarkably similar understanding of the education system as well as a set of punitive strategies for fixing it. Combining an intellectual history of social policy with a sweeping history of the educational system, Daniel S. Moak looks beyond the rise of neoliberalism to find the origin of today's education woes in Great Society reforms. In the wake of World War II, a coalition of thinkers gained dominance in U.S. policymaking. They identified educational opportunity as the ideal means of addressing racial and economic inequality by incorporating individuals into a free market economy. The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 secured an expansive federal commitment to this goal. However, when social problems failed to improve, the underlying logic led policymakers to hold schools responsible. Moak documents how a vision of education as a panacea for society's flaws led us to turn away from redistributive economic policies and down the path to market-based reforms, No Child Left Behind, mass school closures, teacher layoffs, and other policies that plague the public education system to this day.

When the United States entered World War II, it took more than industrial might to transform its tiny army—smaller than even Portugal's—into an overseas fighting force of more than eight and a half million. Peter Schifferle contends that the determination of American army officers to be prepared for the next big war was an essential component in America's ultimate triumph over its adversaries. Crucial to that preparation were the army schools at Fort Leavenworth. Interwar Army officers, haunted by the bloodshed of World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive, fully expected to return to Europe to conclude the "unfinished business" of that conflict, and they prepared well. Schifferle examines for the first time precisely how they accomplished this through a close and illuminating look at the students, faculty, curriculum, and essential methods of instruction at Fort Leavenworth. He describes how the interwar officer corps there translated the experiences of World War I into effective doctrine, engaged in intellectual debate on professional issues, conducted experiments to determine the viability of new concepts, and used military professional education courses to substitute for the experience of commanding properly organized and resourced units. Schifferle highlights essential elements of war preparation that only the Fort Leavenworth education could provide, including intensive instruction in general staff procedures, hands-on experience with the principles and techniques of combined arms, and the handling of large division-sized formations in combat. This readied army officers for an emerging new era of global warfare and enabled them to develop the leadership decision making they would need to be successful on the battlefield. But Schifferle offers more than a recitation of curriculum development through the skillful interweaving of personal stories about both school experiences and combat operations, collectively recounting the human and professional development of the officer corps from 1918 to 1945. Well crafted and insightful, Schifferle's meticulously researched study shows how and why the Fort Leavenworth experience was instrumental in producing that impressive contingent of military officers who led the U.S. Army to final victory in World War II. By the end of the book, the attentive reader will also fully comprehend why the military professionals at Fort Leavenworth have come to think of it as the "Intellectual Center of the Army."

A historical analysis of the contribution of Great Britain’s public schools to the conduct of World War II. Following their ground-breaking book on Public Schools and the Great War, David Walsh and Anthony Seldon now examine how those same schools fared in the Second World War. They use eye-witness testimony to recount stories of resilience and improvisation in 1940 as the likelihood of invasion and the terrors of the Blitz threatened the very survival of public schools. They also assess the giant impact that public school alumni contributed to every aspect of the war effort. The authors examine how the “People’s War” brought social cohesion, with the opportunity to end public school exclusiveness to the fore, encouraged by Winston Churchill among others. That opportunity was ironically squandered by the otherwise radical Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government, prolonging the “public school problem” right through to the present day. The public schools shaped twentieth century history profoundly, never more so than in the conduct of both its world wars. The impact of the schools on both wars was very different, as were the legacies. Drawing widely on primary source material and personal accounts of inspiring courage and endurance, this book is full of profound historical reflection and is essential reading for all who want to understand the history of modern Britain.

Weeks after the outbreak of World War II, Joseph Halpern's Polish town, Vladimir Volynsky, in what is now part of Ukraine, was annexed by the Russians. Because of his high intelligence, mechanical prowess, and athletic ability, he was soon hand-picked to be an air cadet. On June 22, 1941, Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and launched Operation Barbarossa, an all-out attack on Russia. Halpern became a fighter pilot for the Russian Air Force, serving the Allies in trying to bring down the Nazi regime. Later on, Halpern became a special forces commando; trained in martial arts, to withstand torture, see in the dark, hear whispers, disappear in a crowd, and kill with his hands. He was shot down four times, and after cheating death on many occasions (and receiving many military honours), following World War II, he founded the Herzl Orphanage, and helped create the Israeli Air Force. He finally came to Canada and was reunited with his parents he had presumed were dead. He went on to a distinguished career with RCA Victor and the University of Ottawa. Joseph Israel Halpern played a crucial role in NASA's Apollo missions. His initials, JIH, remain carved onto a battery that is still on the moon.

When your chance for getting into college and your date for the prom are all on the line... Sixteen-year-old Samantha Taylor is used to having things go her way. She's head cheerleader and has all the right friends and a steady stream of boyfriends. But when she tanks the SATs, her automatic assumptions about going to college don't appear to be so automatic anymore. She determines that her only hope for college admission is to win the election for student body president. Unfortunately, with her razor wit and acid tongue, she's better suited to dishing out insults than winning votes. When she brashly bets her classmate Logan that she can go two weeks without uttering a single insult, Samantha immediately realizes that she may have bitten off more than she can chew. And when her current boyfriend dumps her, less than three weeks before the prom, it couldn't be a worse time to be forced to keep her opinions to herself. Finding a new boyfriend will be a challenge now that Logan shadows her every move, hoping to catch her slipping back into her old ways. Samantha is determined to win the election and find a dream date for the prom, no matter what it takes. After all . . . all's fair in love and war (and high school!).