War Peat

"The themes of this book were addressed at a major international conference in 2013, and the expanded papers are presented here as chapters with an introduction by Ian D. Rotherham. The papers are grouped around several themes: Military Landscapes; Battles and Battlefields; The Impacts of Conflict and War; War & Peat in the Peak District; and Non-military Campaigns. As we approach the centenary of the Great War (WW1), matters of landscape, terrain, resources and strategies become increasingly topical and relevant. The relationships of people and landscapes, of economies and conflicts, and ecology and history, are complex and multi-faceted. For peatlands, including bogs, fens, moors, and heaths, the interactions of people and nature in relation to history and conflicts, are both significant and surprising."--

"The themes of this book were addressed at a major international conference in 2013, and the expanded papers are presented here as chapters with an introduction by Ian D. Rotherham. The papers are grouped around several themes: Military Landscapes; Battles and Battlefields; The Impacts of Conflict and War; War & Peat in the Peak District; and Non-military Campaigns. As we approach the centenary of the Great War (WW1), matters of landscape, terrain, resources and strategies become increasingly topical and relevant. The relationships of people and landscapes, of economies and conflicts, and ecology and history, are complex and multi-faceted. For peatlands, including bogs, fens, moors, and heaths, the interactions of people and nature in relation to history and conflicts, are both significant and surprising."--

“Outstanding … among the most important books about whisky ever written.” Charles MacLean BRINGING TOGETHER LANDSCAPES, geology, history, people and their whisky, and addressing the key role of peatlands in mitigating climate change, Peat and Whisky: The Unbreakable Bond is a love letter to Scotland and the unique substance that forms part of the DNA of Scotch whisky. Through epic journeys around Scotland and back in time, Mike Billett dives deep into the science and stories of ancient peatlands and bogs, capturing the spirit of places where whisky has been distilled for centuries. He sheds light on how peat imparts its distinctive aroma and flavour to the world’s finest single malts. He looks back to tradition and heritage, as well as forward to a future in which the dark matter will remain part of the recipe for liquid gold, while at the same time becoming an increasingly precious living sponge for atmospheric carbon. He takes us to places where the bond between peat and whisky is growing around the world. Whether you’re a whisky connoisseur, a lover of Scotland’s environment and beautiful landscapes, an armchair traveller or a history buff, this unforgettable book will deepen your appreciation for the land itself and help you to understand the profound connection between peat and the unmistakable character of uisge beatha, the water of life.

""In this record of my experiences as a private in the great war I have tried to put the emphasis on the things that seemed to me important. It is true I set out to write a book of smiles, but the seriousness of it all came back to me and crept into my pages. Yet I hope, along with the grimness and the humor, I have been able to say some words of cheer and comfort to those in the United States who are sending their husbands, their sons and brothers into this mighty conflict. The book, unsatisfactory as it is to me now that it is finished, at least holds my honest and long considered opinions. It was not written until I could view my experiences objectively, until I was sure in my own mind that the judgments I had formed were sane and sound. I give it to the public now, hoping that something new will be found in it, despite the many personal narratives that have gone before, and confident that out of that public the many friends I have made while lecturing over the country will look on it with a lenient and a kindly eye."" This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world's bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history. Each publication also includes brand new introductory essays and a timeline to help the reader place the work in its historical context.

WITNESS TO WAR is an eye-opening retelling of the war experience through the private diaries kept by people from all walks of life and from many countries. The twentieth century's Second World War announced its arrival from a distance, and as early as spring 1938 city-dwellers across Europe expected destruction on an epic scale. Men, women and children, most of whom had never kept a diary before, began to chronicle their own responses to what they knew would be a unique moment in world history. The cast of characters represented in these diaries - more than three hundred in number - ranges from politicians, soldiers and spies to ordinary citizens and housewives, from a London schoolboy watching V-1 doodlebugs from his bedroom window to an interned German refugee robbed and beaten by British troops. Many others are famous, and this collection includes rare material from figures such as Joseph Goebbels, Joyce Grenfell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Evelyn Waugh and Noël Coward. It also contains the insights of many who were close to Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. Most of these diaries involved a degree of danger and secrecy. In occupied Europe a captured diary could betray friends and relatives to the enemy. Some were downright illegal, such as those kept by soldiers on the front line. More than half a century after the end of the war, these hidden treasures - the voices of the past - are still being unearthed. Many of these accounts languished unread, unpublished and gathering dust in scholarly archives around the world. Richard Aldrich has devoted two decades to sustained research in more than a dozen countries. This is war at first hand described in the most immediate terms, not mediated through the voice of peripheral observers or shaded by fading memory or political allegiances.

A global history of environmental warfare and the case for why it should be a crime The environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people’s livelihoods and ways of life. Scorched Earth traces the history of scorched earth, military inundations, and armies living off the land from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, arguing that the resulting deliberate destruction of the environment—"environcide"—constitutes total war and is a crime against humanity and nature. In this sweeping global history, Emmanuel Kreike shows how religious war in Europe transformed Holland into a desolate swamp where hunger and the black death ruled. He describes how Spanish conquistadores exploited the irrigation works and expansive agricultural terraces of the Aztecs and Incas, triggering a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Kreike demonstrates how environmental warfare has continued unabated into the modern era. His panoramic narrative takes readers from the Thirty Years' War to the wars of France's Sun King, and from the Dutch colonial wars in North America and Indonesia to the early twentieth century colonial conquest of southwestern Africa. Shedding light on the premodern origins and the lasting consequences of total war, Scorched Earth explains why ecocide and genocide are not separate phenomena, and why international law must recognize environmental warfare as a violation of human rights.