Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199733538 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
Examines how insects have been used as weapons in wartime conflicts throughout history, presenting as examples how scorpions were used in Roman times and hornets nests were used during the MIddle Ages in siege warfare and how insects have been used in Vietnam, China, and Korea.
Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199715602 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
The emir of Bukhara used assassin bugs to eat away the flesh of his prisoners. General Ishii Shiro during World War II released hundreds of millions of infected insects across China, ultimately causing more deaths than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. These are just two of many startling examples found in Six-legged Soldiers, a brilliant portrait of the many weirdly creative, truly frightening, and ultimately powerful ways in which insects have been used as weapons of war, terror, and torture. Beginning in prehistoric times and building toward a near and disturbing future, the reader is taken on a journey of innovation and depravity. Award-winning science writer Jeffrey A. Lockwood begins with the development of "bee bombs" in the ancient world and explores the role of insect-borne disease in changing the course of major battles, ranging from Napoleon's military campaigns to the trenches of World War I. He explores the horrific programs of insect warfare during World War II: airplanes dropping plague-infested fleas, facilities rearing tens of millions of hungry beetles to destroy crops, and prison camps staffed by doctors testing disease-carrying lice on inmates. The Cold War saw secret government operations involving the mass release of specially developed strains of mosquitoes on an unsuspecting American public--along with the alleged use of disease-carrying and crop-eating pests against North Korea and Cuba. Lockwood reveals how easy it would be to use of insects in warfare and terrorism today: In 1989, domestic ecoterrorists extorted government officials and wreaked economic and political havoc by threatening to release the notorious Medfly into California's crops. A remarkable story of human ingenuity--and brutality--Six-Legged Soldiers is the first comprehensive look at the use of insects as weapons of war, from ancient times to the present day.
Author: Jeffrey Lockwood Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199374937 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
The human reaction to insects is neither purely biological nor simply cultural. And no one reacts to insects with indifference. Insects frighten, disgust and fascinate us. Jeff Lockwood explores this phenomenon through evolutionary science, human history, and contemporary psychology, as well as a debilitating bout with entomophobia in his work as an entomologist. Exploring the nature of anxiety and phobia, Lockwood explores the lively debate about how much of our fear of insects can be attributed to ancestral predisposition for our own survival and how much is learned through individual experiences. Drawing on vivid case studies, Lockwood explains how insects have come to infest our minds in sometimes devastating ways and supersede even the most rational understanding of the benefits these creatures provide. No one can claim to be ambivalent in the face of wasps, cockroaches or maggots but our collective entomophobia is wreaking havoc on the natural world as we soak our food, homes and gardens in powerful insecticides. Lockwood dissects our common reactions, distinguishing between disgust and fear, and invites readers to consider their own emotional and physiological reactions to insects in a new framework that he's derived from cutting-edge biological, psychological, and social science.
Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0786738871 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly -- and mysteriously -- vanished. A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time.
Author: Mike Dowling Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1451635974 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 293
Book Description
The thrilling and inspiring story of a U.S. Marine and his dog Rex, a bomb sniffing German Shepard, who forged a bond of trust and loyalty while serving on the war-torn streets of Iraq's most dangerous city. Called "a deeply affecting tale of courage and devotion in the cauldron of war" by Publishers Weekly, Sergeant Mike Dowling's heart-pounding account of an unbreakable bond between man and dog takes us into the searing 130-degree heat, the choking dust, and the ever-present threat of violent attack in Iraq's infamous Triangle of Death. In 2004, Dowling and his military working dog Rex were part of the first Marine Corps military K9 teams sent to the front lines of combat since Vietnam. It was Rex's job to sniff out weapons caches, suicide bombers, and IEDs, the devastating explosives that wreaked havoc on troops and civilians. It was Mike's job to lead Rex into the heart of danger. An extraordinary chronicle of loyalty in the face of terrible adversity, Sergeant Rex is an unforgettable story of sacrifice, courage, and love.
Author: Sheldon H. Harris Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134827512 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
Fresh evidence from newly released sources clarifies the shocking story of Japanese human experiments in Manchuria during the War, and reveals the true extent of the subsequent US cover-up.
Author: George Galdorisi Publisher: Zenith Press ISBN: 9780760323922 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 672
Book Description
The history of a near-century of combat search and rescue, with an account of how the discipline was created and how it is administered—or neglected—today.
Author: Ryan Hendrickson Publisher: Center Street ISBN: 1546084819 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
The inspiring true story of a US Special Forces soldier who was medically retired after stepping on an IED, and his incredible return to active duty. Sergeant First Class (SFC) Ryan Hendrickson is a brave, determined, and courageous soldier -- a Green Beret clearing the way for his twelve-man team while conducting combat operations against the Taliban. As the "tip of the spear," his role is to ensure the route taken by U.S. and Afghan troops are free of IEDs -- improvised explosive devices. Many soldiers do not survive their last step; those who do often lose at least one limb. While rescuing an Afghan soldier outside a mud-hut compound in 2010 -- knowing that he was in "uncleared" territory -- Ryan stepped on an IED with his right foot. The device exploded, leaving his foot dangling at the end of his leg. American soldiers losing a limb is an all-too-common occurrence. But what makes Ryan's story different is that after undergoing two dozen surgeries and a tortuous rehabilitation, he was medically retired but fought to return to active duty. Multiple skin grafts to his leg and right foot successfully reattached his lower leg, and he was aided in his recovery by wearing a new prosthetic device known as an IDEO (Intrepid Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis). Once he passed a series of crucial physical tests, Ryan was able to rejoin the Green Berets within a year and physically perform his duties, redeploying to Afghanistan in March 2012. In 2016, he volunteered to return to Afghanistan with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group. During a firefight with the Taliban, he risked his life under heavy enemy fire to rescue three Afghan soldiers cut off from friendly forces and return the bodies of two dead Afghan soldiers under the ethos that "no one gets left behind." For his heroic efforts on the battlefield, SFC Ryan Hendrickson was awarded a Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for valor. An engaging and harrowing account, Tip of the Spear tells the amazing story of one Green Beret's indomitable spirit.
Author: Thomas Ayres Publisher: Bantam ISBN: 030748825X Category : Reference Languages : en Pages : 208
Book Description
For armchair generals, history buffs, and military enthusiasts everywhere, A Military Miscellany is an essential and entertaining collection of fascinating and little-known facts, anecdotes, lists, and stories from America’s rich military legacy. Forgotten heroes, amazing blunders, surprising trivia, and strange-but-true stories overlooked by historians, it’s all here in a book that will enlighten and amaze even the most avid student of American military history. Did you know that American soldiers have been sent to invade foreign nations or their territories more than two hundred times since Thomas Jefferson dispatched troops to North Africa in 1803 to punish Muslim pirates? Or that during the Vietnam War a can opener was called a John Wayne? Or that a downed World War II airman once trekked across Germany, through occupied France, and across the mountains into Spain to avoid capture–only to be treated as a spy because Allied military intelligence said it couldn’t be done? Open this book anywhere and you’ll find yourself instantly captivated. From the "peace president" who was our most frequent practitioner of gunboat diplomacy to the Revolutionary War hero whose refusal to cut his hair set off a four-year rebellion that went all the way to the White House, there’s plenty of fascinating lore here–from the monumental to the trivial–in an indispensable encyclopedic work that takes up where ordinary history books leave off.
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Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Author: Jeffrey Lockwood
Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Author: Mike Dowling
Author: Sheldon H. Harris
Author: George Galdorisi
Author: Howard E. Wasdin
Author: Ryan Hendrickson
Author: Thomas Ayres