[PDF] Fighting Means Killing eBook

Author : Jonathan M. Steplyk
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 46,52 MB
Release : 2020-10-05
Category : History
ISBN : 0700631860

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“War means fighting, and fighting means killing,” Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest famously declared. The Civil War was fundamentally a matter of Americans killing Americans. This undeniable reality is what Jonathan Steplyk explores in Fighting Means Killing, the first book-length study of Union and Confederate soldiers’ attitudes toward, and experiences of, killing in the Civil War. Drawing upon letters, diaries, and postwar reminiscences, Steplyk examines what soldiers and veterans thought about killing before, during, and after the war. How did these soldiers view sharpshooters? How about hand-to-hand combat? What language did they use to describe killing in combat? What cultural and societal factors influenced their attitudes? And what was the impact of race in battlefield atrocities and bitter clashes between white Confederates and black Federals? These are the questions that Steplyk seeks to answer in Fighting Means Killing, a work that bridges the gap between military and social history—and that shifts the focus on the tragedy of the Civil War from fighting and dying for cause and country to fighting and killing.

Author : Gary W. Gallagher
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 693 pages
File Size : 28,64 MB
Release : 2000-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 0807882348

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Originally published by UNC Press in 1989, Fighting for the Confederacy is one of the richest personal accounts in all of the vast literature on the Civil War. Alexander was involved in nearly all of the great battles of the East, from First Manassas through Appomattox, and his duties brought him into frequent contact with most of the high command of the Army of Northern Virginia, including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet. No other Civil War veteran of his stature matched Alexander's ability to discuss operations in penetrating detail-- this is especially true of his description of Gettysburg. His narrative is also remarkable for its utterly candid appraisals of leaders on both sides.

Author : Dave Grossman
Publisher : Open Road Media
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 48,88 MB
Release : 2014-04-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1497629209

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A controversial psychological examination of how soldiers’ willingness to kill has been encouraged and exploited to the detriment of contemporary civilian society. Psychologist and US Army Ranger Dave Grossman writes that the vast majority of soldiers are loath to pull the trigger in battle. Unfortunately, modern armies, using Pavlovian and operant conditioning, have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. The mental cost for members of the military, as witnessed by the increase in post-traumatic stress, is devastating. The sociological cost for the rest of us is even worse: Contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army’s conditioning techniques and, Grossman argues, is responsible for the rising rate of murder and violence, especially among the young. Drawing from interviews, personal accounts, and academic studies, On Killing is an important look at the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects the soldier, and of the societal implications of escalating violence.

Author : Dave Grossman
Publisher : Ppct Research Publications
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 45,17 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Psychology
ISBN :

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Looks at the effect of deadly battle on the body and mind and offers new research findings to help prevent lasting adverse effects.

Author : Jeff McMahan
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 10,48 MB
Release : 2009-04-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0191563463

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Killing a person is in general among the most seriously wrongful forms of action, yet most of us accept that it can be permissible to kill people on a large scale in war. Does morality become more permissive in a state of war? Jeff McMahan argues that conditions in war make no difference to what morality permits and the justifications for killing people are the same in war as they are in other contexts, such as individual self-defence. This view is radically at odds with the traditional theory of the just war and has implications that challenge common sense views. McMahan argues, for example, that it is wrong to fight in a war that is unjust because it lacks a just cause.

Author : Chris Hedges
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 43,70 MB
Release : 2014-04-08
Category : History
ISBN : 1610395107

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General George S. Patton famously said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!" Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close -- in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America -- and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.

Author : Shelby Foote
Publisher :
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 36,82 MB
Release : 1958
Category : United States
ISBN : 9780307290243

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The second volume is dominated by the almost continual confrontation of great armies. The starting point for this volume is the Battle of Fredericksburg, fought in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, from December 11 to December 15, 1862, between General Robert E. Lee's Confederate States Army and the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major general Ambrose E. Burnside. It continues through to the meticulous destruction of Meridian, Mississippi, in February 1864 by General Sherman. This volume is full of the life of the times--the elections of 1863, the resignations of Seward and Chase, the Conscription riots, the mounting opposition (on both side) to the crushing war, and then the inescapable resolution that it must go on.

Author : Nick Turse
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 18,79 MB
Release : 2013-01-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0805086919

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Based on classified documents and interviews, argues that American acts of violence against millions of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War were a pervasive and systematic part of the war.

Author : Steele Brand
Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 22,43 MB
Release : 2019-09-10
Category : History
ISBN : 1421429861

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A sweeping political and cultural history, Killing for the Republic closes with a compelling argument in favor of resurrecting the citizen-soldier ideal in modern America.