The Essential Eight Decisive Battles Of The Civil War

Living the Truth: A Yaqui Journey By: Rip Walsh Born a full-blooded Yaqui Indian in Mexico’s northwest Sonora province, Henry grew up in the most tumultuous period in the proud history of the tribe. Yearning for nothing more than to lead a quiet existence, pursuing the Yaquis’ fascinating religion, which blended Christian elements acquired from Jesuit missionaries in the 1600s and reverence for the huya aniya or natural world, Henry and his family would be torn asunder by the bitter wars against the Mexican government from the 1860s to the 1880s. Following a devastating defeat in 1886, Henry must make a life-altering decision, stay in oppressed Sonora, or risk a new beginning north of the border in the United States. Living the Truth: A Yaqui Journey is a semi-biographical novel of the author’s great-great grandfather, Henry Serine, who lived from 1854 to 1935. It is an incredible story of perseverance and the unconquerable human spirit. Combining a compelling personal narrative, interwoven with the culture and saga of the Yaqui Nation, the most feared Native American tribe in Mexico, it is a haunting and unforgettable book.

In this stimulating and original investigation of the decisive battles of the English Civil War, Malcolm Wanklyn reassesses what actually happened on the battlefield and as a result sheds new light on the causes of the eventual defeat of Charles I. Taking each major battle in turn - Edgehill, Newbury I, Cheriton, Marston Moor, Newbury II, Naseby, and Preston - he looks critically at contemporary accounts and at historians' narratives, explores the surviving battlegrounds and retells the story of each battle from a new perspective. His lucid, closely argued analysis questions traditional assumptions about each battle and the course of the war itself.

Horses played a major role in the military, economic, social and cultural history of early-modern England. This book uses the supply of horses to parliamentary armies during the English Civil War to make two related points. Firstly it shows how control of resources - although vital to success - is contingent upon a variety of logistical and political considerations. It then demonstrates how competition for resources and construction of individuals’ identities and allegiances fed into each other. Resources, such as horses, did not automatically flow out of areas which were nominally under Parliament’s control. Parliament had to construct administrative systems and make them work. This was not easy when only a minority of the population actively supported either side and property rights had to be negotiated, so the success of these negotiations was never a foregone conclusion. The study also demonstrates how competition for resources and construction of identities fed into each other. It argues that allegiance was not a fixed underlying condition, but was something external and changeable. Actions were more important than thoughts and to secure victory, both sides needed people to do things rather than feel vaguely sympathetic. Furthermore, identities were not always self-fashioned but could be imposed on people against their will, making them liable to disarmament, sequestration, fines or imprisonment. More than simply a book about resources and logistics, this study poses fundamental questions of identity construction, showing how culture and reality influence each other. Through an exploration of Parliament’s interaction with local communities and individuals, it reveals fascinating intersections between military necessity and issues of gender, patriarchy, religion, bureaucracy, nationalism and allegiance.