Warfare & defence Books

I am about to be left in charge of the office. I'm not sure I am ready for the responsibility, so I double-check with my boss. He reassures me. 'You'll be fine, Marianne. As long as no one kills Amanullah Khan, you'll be fine.' By midday, Amanullah Khan is dead. In 2006 Marianne Elliott, ...

The fourth book in Random House's highly regarded Illustrated History series for eight to 12 year olds, Marcia Stenson's The Illustrated History of New Zealanders at War is an excellent resource for students, families and libraries. From pre-European tribal warfare to the musket wars, from the L...

NZSAS: The First Fifty Years is the first and only official history of New Zealand's elite Special Forces, the New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS). From their first ever engagements in the jungles of Malaya in 1956, through to the Vietnam War and on to modern conflicts in East Timor and Afgh...

This book is in brilliant colour, with many photographs. Discover what it was like to be in the professional, close-knit team that was the RNZAF Air Combat Force. Whether in the flying units at Ohakea and Nowra, or in the support units at Ohakea and Woodbourne, they were true professionals, ...

For more than 100 years, New Zealanders have fought in foreign wars. Kiwi Battlefields is the first New Zealand war book devoted entirely to the major battles including Kiwis. It shows not just what happened, but how each battle was reported and the thoughts of the soldiers themselves.

This is a gripping, revisionist account of an epic tragedy. One of the most famous battles in history, Gallipoli forced Churchill from office, established Turkey's iconic founder Mustafa Kemal ('Ataturk') and marked Australia's emergence as a nation in its own right. It had begun as a bold move led ...

From the earliest beginnings of powered flight, aviation has played a vital role in the developement of New Zealand and its interactions with the rest of the world. This book tells that story in stunning photographs sourced from the world's best photographers and chosen to show our journey from the ...

The New Zealand Wars of the nineteenth century still cast a long shadow over the twenty-first. Three decades of fighting across much of the North Island ensured Pakeha rule, but also enabled Maori survival. This guidebook, heavily illustrated with photographs, artwork and maps, takes you on a jou...

As Commander of the New Zealand troops in the Bamiyan Province of Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Hall gained a unique insight into the lives of Kiwi soldiers serving in a harsh climate amid daily threats, as well as into the lives of the locals - from the female governor trying to establish order in a...

New Zealanders were among the world's first aviators, with our geography and location making the prospect of flight an attractive one for our people and our nation. It comes as no surprise then that tens of thousands have served in not only the Royal New Zealand Air Force but in numerous air forces ...

"'A classic' Observer * 'One of the most remarkable books of this or any other modern war' New Statesman" Alan Moorehead was sent to cover the North Africa campaign in 1940 by the "Daily Express", and he followed its dramatic course all the way to 1943. The three books he sub...

Twelve thousand New Zealand men and women served in the occupation of Japan immediately after the Second World War. This book records memories from those we know as 'J Force'. Based on revealing interviews with soldiers, airmen, nurses and members of the New Zealand Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, The...

The ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan and beyond has been the longest foreign war in New Zealand history, yet most New Zealanders know almost nothing about their country’s part in it. For ten years, nearly everything controversial or potentially unpopular was kept secret, and obscured by a steady fl...

Citizen soldiering has been part of our history since the first years of colonial settlement. From the early militias set up in the 1830s, primarily for internal security, right up to the current day, these everyday men and women have been trained and ready to serve in such arena as the Boer War, th...

 This Volume is the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War and was originally published in 1955 by the Government of New Zealand, through the Department of Internal Affairs. This is a reprint of that original title, which was printed in the United States of America 1997 with in...

 This Volume is the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War and was originally published in 1955 by the Department of Internal Affairs, Government of New Zealand. This is a reprint of that original title, which was printed in the United States of America 199...

The Gallipoli campaign looms large in New Zealand's cultural memory. For the first time in this book, historian Glyn Harper tells the story of the campaign in the words of the New Zealand soldiers who were there.Having worked through archives in New Zealand and overseas, combed newspapers, and condu...

rom Robert Leckie, the World War II veteran and New York Times bestselling author of Helmet for My Pillow, whose experiences were featured in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, comes this vivid narrative of the astonishing six-month campaign for Guadalcanal. From the Japanese soldiers’ careful...

What price would you put on your life? Bringing the war in Iraq home to New Zealand, this book is the captivating true story of New Zealander Gary Brandon who worked for a private company as a mercenary in Afghanistan and Iraq. Growing up thirsty for adrenalin, this story shadows Gary through the ex...

Why revisit Minqar Qaim? Some writers ignore it; some regard the action as merely part of a broader canvas. Others, using it as an example of unrestrained brutality, seek to place it in a context from which to make a political argument. The artillery battle at Minqar Qaim on 27 June and subsequent ...

Rachel Teen travelled the length of New Zealand with her camera visiting as many of the operating Returned Service Association clubs in the country as possible. This photographic journal is the result.

Offering ancient wisdom on how to use skill, cunning, tactics and discipline to outwit your opponent, this bestselling 2000-year-old military manual is still worshipped by soldiers on the battlefield and managers in the boardroom as the ultimate guide to winning.

During World War Two several thousand New Zealanders served in the Merchant Navy. Many braved the deadly German U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic and sailed in perilous convoys to Arctic Russia and Malta. Others manned transport and hospital ships for the Allied landings in North Africa, Ita...

Infantryman Bruce Robertson had a long war. A volunteer with the First Echelon, he entered Trentham Military Camp in October 1939, sailed for the Middle East in January 1940 and entered Maadi Camp near Cairo late the following month. While other early volunteers returned home on furlough in 1943 - m...

Maori form a significant proportion of the modern New Zealand Army, and Maori officers have achieved the very highest commands, Their unique culture is deeply embedded in its tradition and daily routines; celebrated by Maori (indigenous) and pakeha (non-indigenous) soldiers alike. The exploits of...

Now the inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFIC. This was a brutish, primitive hatred, as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands...Landing on the beach at Peleliu in 1944 as twenty-year-old new recruit to the US Marines, Eugene Sledge can only try ...

This is a definitive history of the Battle of Fromelles, a revised edition of the previously self-published and much acclaimed history of the battle. Fromelles is a small town west of Lille, France's fourth largest city. It is also the site of the first Australian Imperial Force (AIF) action in Fran...

October 27, 1962, a day dubbed Black Saturday in the Kennedy White House. The Cuban missile crisis is at its height, and the world is drawing ever closer to nuclear apocalypse. As the opposing Cold War leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, mobilize their forces to fight a nuclear war on la...

Although light infantry tactics formed one of the cornerstones of Napoleonic warfare, their employment was by no means restricted to Light regiments. Thus, from the early 1800s if not before, the distinction between Light and Line infantry was largely one of costume and tradition. One marked differe...

This book marks the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. It traces the broad sweep of the air force from the early twentieth century to the first decade of the 21st, and extends beyond the romance of early military aviation and the drama of World War Two to describe the diversity of ...

The New Zealand Division earned a high reputation as an Allied strike formation on the Western Front in 1916-1918. It fought at First Somme, and the Battles of Messines, Broodseinde, and First Passchendaele. It responded effectively in plugging a gap in the British line at Second Somme during the su...

They were called Easy Company--but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered 150% casualties while liberating Europe--an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Dick Winters was their commander--"the best combat leader in World War II" to his men. This is h...

They were called Easy Company-but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered 150% casualties while liberating Europe-an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Dick Winters was their commander-"the best combat leader in World War II" to his men. Th...

In July 1942 with a notebook and pencil he had bought from a German guard, Dudley Muff started Alison's Book. Dudley was 42 and a prisoner of war in Stalag XVIIIB in Germany and his niece Alison was four and living in Timaru.  It starts "Dear Alison, Mummy has told you all about Uncle b...

In A Fair Sort of Battering, thirteen New Zealanders tell of their experiences and reactions in the Italian campaign of World War Two. Day-to-day life and major historical events are described from the perspective of members of the army, including the Maori Battalion, engineers, artillery, nurses an...

"An amazing tale of perilous adventure...Vibrant with life and fear and the sense of momentous events in the making."—Chicago Tribune In 1943, a group of brave Danish and Norwegian hunters carried out one of the most dramatic operations of World War II. Using dogsleds to patrol a st...

The Spanish Civil War is a compelling account of one of the most hard-fought and bitter wars of the twentieth century: a war of atrocities and political genocide that was a military testing ground before the Second World War for the Russians, Italians, and Germans. With his thorough and contemporary...

Pity the Nation ranks among the classic accounts of war in our time, both as historical document and as an eyewitness testament to human savagery. Written by one of Britain's foremost journalists, this remarkable book combines political analysis and war reporting in an unprecedented way: it is an ep...

In October 1942, a panzer officer wrote 'Stalingrad is no longer a town...Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure'. The battle for Stalingrad became the focus of Hitler and Stalin's determination to win the gruesome, vicious war on the eastern front. The c...

This manual will help you prepare for and survive natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, storms, tsunamis and pandemic illness. It tells you everything you need to know to prepare a plan, organise food, water and emergency kits, plan for good hygiene and infection control, prepare your prope...