This chapter describes the origin of the idea of an American way of war. That idea began with the publication of historian Russell Weigley’s classic, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy, in 1973. For Weigley, a way of war essentially came down to habits of thought. America’s way of war, thus, had to do with the habits of thought of Americans with respect to armed conflict. This chapter also provides a brief survey of America’s armed conflicts, from its War of Independence to its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. This survey describes the major war aims in each of these conflicts as well as the type of military strategy employed.

Ostensibly, Hume’s Essays do not have much to say about religion. ‘Of Superstition and Enthusiasm’ (1741) may contain an incisive treatment of the psychological origins of religious error and its ecclesiastical and political consequences, but it was the one Essay dedicated to religion published in Hume’s lifetime. But when the topic of religion does come up in the Essays, as it frequently does in examples, asides and footnotes, we find Hume doing two things: outlining the character and dangers of institutional religion on individual happiness and social stability and doing so in a neutral manner characteristic of his wider ‘science of man’. He brought religious belief and priestly power down to the level of another aspect of human life, comparable to the other themes discussed in this guide, and which could subject to ‘scientific’ observation that led to identification of general principles. Piecing together the various discussions of religion, we find Hume articulating a strong anticlericalism in which religion is understood to be a natural propensity of human nature, exploited by priesthoods claiming power over others, but which could be managed through increased scepticism about clerical claims amongst the citizenry and the subordination of church to state.

Chapter 3 focuses on the kinds of domestic duties expected of women in gentle, noble, and royal establishments and thus offers an understanding of everyday life in a late medieval elite household. The range of activities required of highborn household servants was broad, encompassing both public and private obligations. They saw to their queens’ or noblewomen’s personal needs in terms of apparel, entertainment, and piety. They traveled when duties demanded it and assisted their queens and ladies with medical care. To perform these tasks, they were entrusted with significant household resources and also, sometimes, care and custody of royal and noble children. Over years of service, through daily serving the needs of their employers, some serving women and their mistresses developed affectionate relationships as they shared literary tastes and devotional practices. Their employment provided opportunities for elite female servants to live a sumptuous lifestyle surrounded by luxury and entertainments, and also to network with other courtiers. I argue that investigating the domestic duties and daily lives of these often-overlooked women completes our understanding of courts and great households by showing the importance of female employment in the Middle Ages.

Chapter 11, Francis Rodd makes sense - and a plot, (June 9 - June 20). In this chapter I change focus to Rodd’s retrospective sensemaking. I quote in full a long note by Rodd written in the aftermath of the loan from Bank of England where he tells his narrative of what happened from the BIS board meeting on June 8 to June 16. Rodd clearly blame the French government, but not the Banque de France. After this, the perspectiev shifts to that of Pierre Quesnay, who tells his view about the British loan and how it came about. The chapter ends by showing how Rodd leaving Vienna.

Chapter 3 establishes that the Dutch had economic incentives to continue holding slaves. Slavery in Dutch New York was not just a cultural choice, but was reinforced by economic considerations. From archival sources and published secondary sources, I have compiled a unique dataset of prices for over 3,350 slaves bought, sold, assessed for value, or advertised for sale in New York and New Jersey. This data has been coded by sex, age, county, price, and type of record, among other categories. It is as far as I know the only slave price database for slaves in the Northern states yet assembled. Regression analysis allows us to compute the average price of Northern slaves over time, the relative price difference between male and female slaves, the price trend relative to known prices in the American South, and other variables such as the price differential between New York City slaves and slaves in other counties in the state. Slave prices in New York and New Jersey appear relatively stable over time, but declined in the nineteenth century. The analysis shows that slaveholders in Dutch New York were motivated by profit, and they sought strength and youth in purchasing slaves.

This chapter begins with two contrasting tales of state-managed reburials and then mainly focuses on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl, the national cemetery. The recent process whereby Mount Herzl and the adjoining Holocaust Memorial are joined together is described, and the chapter reviews the multiple divisions and conflicts that presently characterize Israeli society.

An introductory chapter briefly outlines relevant historiography of courtier studies in general and analyses of elite female servants more narrowly. This introduction establishes important classifications of household servants and demonstrates how roles and terminology shifted over time as the royal court and household grew in both size and complexity over the course of the later Middle Ages. In addition to illuminating categories of female service, the introduction details the sources and methodology employed to produce this analysis of medieval English ladies-in-waiting, highlighting the goals, successes, and limits of this kind of prosopographical methodology. The introduction argues that an analysis of ladies-in-waiting offers insight into female social networks, gender dynamics at court, and issues of power, authority, and wealth, along with how women accessed these features, in late medieval society.

Napoleon is widely admired as a military strategist who embraced the violence of modern war and understood the potential of mass armies. Yet he wrote little about the practice of strategy beyond a few rather bland maxims, claiming to rely on offence and opportunism on the battlefield. But these offensive tactics had a strategic purpose. He sought to crush his opponents in decisive battles, not just to destroy enemy armies but to impose his will in the peace talks that followed. As First Consul and later as Emperor he channelled the resources of the state to the cause of military success and imperial expansion. His goal was political as much as it was military, mobilising all the resources of the Empire in its pursuit. Napoleon conscripted mass armies in the lands he conquered, imposed French-style administrative systems, and imposed taxes and customs duties. He was focused on Europe, where the other powers developed their own strategies to counter him, repeatedly forging alliances to defend their sovereignty and to thwart his imperial ambitions. Each country had its own war aims. Russia looked to expand into the Balkans, Prussia to conquer Poland, and Britain to consolidate its colonial presence overseas.

Chapter 1 examines the general political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of early post-Nazi Romania, looking at the political struggle and the main economic and social developments. This chapter also discusses the official and unofficial (popular) antisemitism that did not disappear from local society and how it impacted Jewish lives during the first post-Holocaust years.

In this chapter Soviet strategy in practice is viewed through the lens of Soviet interventions within the Soviet bloc: East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Kremlin’s struggle for justifying interventions within the socialist bloc provides an interesting analysis of the decision making, objectives, priorities and means of Soviet intervention, while also allowing an examination of the extent to which the Soviet leadership learnt from previous mistakes. The interventions illustrate an interesting kind of progression from unilateral decision making in 1953 to consultation of Soviet allies within the Warsaw Pact, and beyond in 1956 to a so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ of five Warsaw Pact countries, which collectively intervened in Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Concerns for the security and integrity of the Soviet bloc as well as fears for a domino-effect of unrest spilling over into neighbouring Warsaw Pact countries informed Soviet decision making. This chapter accordingly also argues that the Kremlin was increasingly reluctant to intervene, as shown in the Solidarnosc trade union crisis in Poland in 1980–1981. The chapter concludes with a brief comparison with the motives and methods of Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in 24 February 2022.

Chapter 5 discusses the postwar international struggle for and against restitution carried out by the Romanian government and the local and international Jewish organizations that aimed to convince the Allies who prepared the peace treaty with Romania. On the one hand, it shows the local Jewish leaders’ and organizations’ efforts to obtain restitution, reparations, and restoration of rights by enlisting support from international Jewish organizations and Allied (Western) politicians. On the other hand, it highlights how most of the Romanian politicians and diplomats tried to limit restitution in favor of the Jews. In this chapter, the author also discusses other reparative justice measures adopted by the post-Antonescu governments, including the payment of limited reparations (pensions to some categories of survivors of camps, ghettos, and pogroms) and the return of citizenship.

The strategies of Louis XIV were shaped both by France’s position as one of the largest powers in Europe and by the Sun King’s domineering personality. After his succession to the French throne in 1661, Louis XIV gradually asserted control over his state, to launch a series of wars against his neighbours, particularly the disconnected Spanish Habsburg territories which encircled France. Commanding one of the largest standing armies in Europe, he used diplomatic and military intimidation to effect rapid conquests of smaller neighbouring states (1660s–1680s). His initial successes led to opposing coalitions which further blunted French advances. By the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1679), his hopes for short wars were dashed, and the rest of his reign would see attritional struggles on land and at sea. Each time Louis sought to expand his frontiers through force, more belligerents joined the anti-French coalition, expanding the number of contested theatres, and increasing the duration of each conflict. Louis’s early victories in the War of Devolution (1667–1668) and the Franco-Dutch War benefited from French numerical superiority, from strategic surprise, and from the capacity of great captains such as the marshals Turenne and Condé. By 1701 Louis’s strategy aimed defensively to retain Spanish territories he had seized in the name of his grandson. His wars were costly, but France provided Louis the resources to pass a larger kingdom on to his successor.

Chapter 2 is a history of the connection between wheat cultivation and the spread of slavery in areas of Dutch control, primarily focusing on Kings County (Brooklyn) and the Hudson Valley. This chapter pushes back against the “staple interpretation” of slavery, the idea that slavery flourished when and where it did primarily because of the advantages of geography and soil that allowed for cash crops such as tobacco and cotton. Historians have failed to explain why farmers who grew wheat would prefer slaves to short-term hired hands. The chapter argues that New York’s slave-owning farmers found slaves to be economically valuable in helping to solve the “peak-labor problem” – the difficulty of finding extra laborers during the busy wheat-harvest season in August. By ensuring a ready supply of enslaved laborers at hand, a wheat farmer could be more confident in planting more wheat, knowing that he would have sufficient labor to harvest it. From the first Dutch settlement in the 1620s until roughly 1820, eastern New York was a grain-producing region that focused first and foremost on raising wheat. In these years, it was also a society of slaveholders.

From the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, the Persian empire under the Teispid and Achaemenid dynasties ruled most of western Asia and neighbouring regions, from the Indus river to Egypt and the coasts of the Aegean Sea. Despite the sources’ disproportionate emphasis on the failures of military expeditions against the overseas Greeks, the Persians enjoyed a lengthy period of military success and overall stability due in part to their rulers’ skill in the formulation of strategy. In the initial conquests, Persia absorbed peer competitors such as Babylon and Egypt; most subsequent conflicts pitted the empire’s superior forces against localised rebellions. Persia’s control stretched to vital subject communities in frontier zones and they also projected influence over external allies and clients. Persian kings rarely campaigned in person after the early expansionist phase, but relied on an exemplary communication system to manage satraps and other delegates tasked with provincial and frontier operations. To carry out military objectives, they relied on networks of provincial recruitment, supported as necessary by elements of a standing army associated with the royal court. Persian military activities were augmented by diplomatic outreach, most notably in Persia’s Greek relations after the failed invasion of mainland Greece. Persia’s strategic capabilities remained formidable until they were caught off guard by the tactical superiority of Alexander’s Macedonian invaders.