Guy Mayfield was the Station Chaplain at RAF Duxford during the Battle of Britain. His diary is a moving account of the war fought by the young pilots during that summer of 1940, providing a unique and intimate insight into one of the most pivotal moments in British history. Frequently speaking to pilots who knew they may not survive the next 24 hours, Mayfield’s diary provides a vivid account of the fears and hopes of the young men who risked their lives daily for the defense of Britain. Interspersed with photographs of the men and contextual narrative by IWM historian Carl Warner, this book brings a compelling and direct new perspective to this historic battle.

Life, Death, and the Western Way of War traces when and how western soldiers--once regarded as simple fighting tools--became the far less expendable beings that we know today. In Kant's terms, the study traces the process through which soldiers have been turned from mere military means into ends in themselves. The book argues that such a major transformation is largely the result of a shift in the social meaning ascribed to soldiers' death. It suggests that looking at death can somehow provide a privileged angle to understanding the value that societies attach to life. The narrative emerging from the empirical evidence will show that the story of attitudes towards soldiers' death is the story of a gradual, increasing process of individualization in the social meaning attached to human loss in war. Such a development, which took centuries to emerge in full, was neither simple nor linear. It was a process that the state was temporarily able to frame in the collective narrative of the nation, but which ultimately has seen the increasing importance of the life of the individual soldier. In tracing the process through which soldiers have been turned from an amorphous collective into distinct individuals, this book shows how the emphasis on the primacy of the individual has further eroded the effectiveness of western warfare as an instrument of foreign policy. In particular, the modern, liberal conception of the soldier has had the unintended consequence of jeopardizing the Clausewitzian relationship between military means and political ends.

A psychologist seeks to answer your burning questions about what happens after death, from afterlife communication and human consciousness to out-of-body and near-death experiences. Most people in the world believe in some form of life after death, but what exactly is the nature of the afterlife? David Fontana examines all the extensive evidential material that has been accumulated over time—including communication through mediums and accounts from those who had near-death and out-of-body experiences—and compares them to descriptions found in such mystical texts as The Tibetan Book of the Dead and The Egyptian Book of the Dead. He explores the whole area of human consciousness and considers the question: if the body and the brain perish at death, what remains to survive? From the various ideas of paradise to the very meaning of existence, this is a journey through infinite possibilities.

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This book surveys current archaeological and historical thinking about the dimly understood characteristics of daily life in Great Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries. Arthurian legends are immensely popular and well known despite the lack of reliable documentation about this time period in Britain. As a result, historians depend upon archaeologists to accurately describe life during these two centuries of turmoil when Britons suffered displacement by Germanic immigrants. Daily Life in Arthurian Britain examines cultural change in Britain through the fifth and sixth centuries-anachronistically known as The Dark Ages-with a focus on the fate of Romano-British culture, demographic change in the northern and western border lands, and the impact of the Germanic immigrants later known as the Anglo-Saxons. The book coalesces many threads of current knowledge and opinion from leading historians and archaeologists, describing household composition, rural and urban organization, food production, architecture, fashion, trades and occupations, social classes, education, political organization, warfare, and religion in Arthurian times. The few available documentary sources are analyzed for the cultural and historical value of their information.

Life/Death Rhythms of Capitalist Regimes Debt before Dishonour explores the cyclical theory of cultural development, with particular attention paid to the introduction of democratic forms of government in the British Empire and the United States republic. The cyclical theory allows a forecast of the fading of the dominance of the United States as an imperial power. Similar to cultural survival of the loss of dominance experienced by the British Empire after the Great War, the United States will survive in a new form. Which superpower will take over the reins remains to be seen, but the likely contender is the Peoples Republic of China. This conclusion and the timing will allow long-term planning by corporations and governments. In the age of political correctness, it is unlikely that readers will experience any such forecasts by government bodies. Throughout history, societies have used and abused debt, revolted and warred over debt, and have forbidden usury. But the modern financial world as we know it simply cannot exist without usury. Since the 1400s, modern governments have found new ways to expand debt to produce modern economies, which are still subject to the age-old basic principle of debt that it needs to be repaid or dire consequences ensue. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana (1863 1952)

"A philosophy of the history of the human race, worthy of its name, must begin with the heavens and descend to the earth, must be charged with the conviction that all existence is one—a single conception sustained from beginning to end upon one identical law."—Friedrich Ratzel.

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