Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
Orde Wingate - A Man of Genius 1903–1944 - cover

Orde Wingate - A Man of Genius 1903–1944

Trevor Royle

Publisher: Pen & Sword Military

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

“A superb biography” of the controversial British Army officer who lead the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade against the Japanese in Burma during World War II (HistoryOfWar.org). Winston Churchill described Wingate as a man of genius who might well have become a man of destiny. Tragically, he died in a jungle aircraft crash in 1944. Like his famous kinsman Lawrence of Arabia, Wingate was renowned for being an unorthodox soldier, inclined to reject received patterns of military thought. He was a fundamentalist Christian with a biblical certainty in himself and his mission. He is best-remembered as the charismatic and abrasive leader of the Chindits. With the support of Archibald Wavell, he was responsible for a strategy of using independent groups deep behind enemy lines, supported only by air drops. Wingate was responsible for leading the charge of 2,000 Ethiopians and the Sudan Defence Force into Italian-occupied Abyssinia. Remarkably, he defeated a 40,000 strong enemy that was supported by aircraft and artillery, which Wingate did not possess. Despite his achievements, Wingate suffered from illness and depression and in Cairo attempted suicide. He was not universally liked: his romantic Zionism contrasted with the traditional British Arabist notions. He did, however, lead from the front and marched, ate and slept with his men. In this authoritative biography, Royle expertly brings to life a ruthless, complex, arrogant but ultimately admirable general.“An insightful look at the controversies which have dogged Wingate’s reputation over the years . . . strongly recommended to anyone interested in irregular warfare and counterinsurgency operations.” —African Armed Forces Journal
Available since: 11/30/2014.
Print length: 384 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Tuesday's Child - A Memoir - cover

    Tuesday's Child - A Memoir

    Mary Ashun

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Mary Ashun’s Tuesday’s Child is the story of a girl born in the small West African country of Ghana. She has big dreams, a large boisterous, extended family and a tendency towards asking questions that children, especially girls aren’t supposed to ask. Boarding school days, interminable church services and a famine that leaves her thin enough to be an ’80’s model are all narrated with such candid humor that it’s hard to believe there were any scars. 
    Now older, wiser, with a family of her own and living in North America, she embarks on a journey back to Ghana. The mission: to make peace. Who with? The answer might surprise you and this is why this is balanced African storytelling at its best!
    Show book
  • Bookmarked - how the great works of western literature f*cked up my life - cover

    Bookmarked - how the great works...

    Mark Scarbrough

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Mark Scarbrough has been searching for something his entire life. Whether it's his birth mother, true love, his purpose, or his sexual identity, Mark has been on a constant quest to find out who he really is, with the great Western texts as his steadfast companions. As a boy with his head constantly in a book, desperate to discover new worlds, he can hardly distinguish between their plots and his own reality. The child of strict Texan Evangelicals, Mark is taught by the Bible to fervently believe in the rapture and second coming and is thus moved to spend his teen years as a youth preacher. At college, he discovers William Blake, who teaches him to fall in love with poems, lyrics . . . and his roommate Alex. Raised to believe that to be gay was to be a sinner, Mark is driven to the brink of madness and attempts suicide. Hoping to avoid books once and for all, Mark joins the seminary, where he meets his wife, Miranda. Neither the seminary nor the marriage stick, and Mark once again finds himself turning to his books for the sense of belonging he continues to seek . . . 
     
     
     
    An examination of one man's complicated, near-obsessive relationship with books, and how they shaped, molded, ruined, and saved him, Bookmarked is about how we readers stash our secrets between jacket covers and how those secrets ultimately get told in the ways that the books themselves demand.
    Show book
  • The loving pair - cover

    The loving pair

    Hans Christian Andersen

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen have inspired, frightened, and amused readers since they were first published in 1835.
    The power of his tales to charm and elevate runs like a living thread through whatever he writes. Only a few children's authors will be ranked among the Immortals, and Hans Andersen is without a doubt one of them.
    Show book
  • Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman - cover

    Scenes in the Life of Harriet...

    Sarah H. Bradford

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman" is a biography of Harriet Tubman, written by Sarah Hopkins Bradford in 1869, four years after the end of the Civil War. The book describes life and adventures of Tubman, an escaped slave, who had helped many escaped slaves travel to the northern States and Canada before the Civil War, using the Underground Railroad. Bradford wrote this book, using extensive interviews with Tubman, to raise funds for Tubman's support. Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, (c. 1822 – 1913) was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people, family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.
    Sarah Hopkins Bradford (1818 – 1912) was an American writer and historian, best known today for her two pioneering biographical books on Harriet Tubman. Bradford was one of the first Caucasian writers to deal with African-American topics, and her work attracted worldwide fame, selling very well. 
    Contents:
    Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
    Some Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
    Extracts From a Letter Written by Mr. Sanborn, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities
    Statements Made by Martin I. Townsend, Esq., of Troy, Who Was Counsel for the Fugitive, Charles Nalle
    Essay on Woman-whipping
    Harriet, The Moses of Her People
    Show book
  • Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness - cover

    Life Liberty and the Pursuit of...

    Ralph J. Temple

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A memoir from one of the country’s top civil rights lawyers—from his work with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through his career at the ACLU.   This volume comprises Ralph J. Temple’s memoirs of his life and his work on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1956, Temple worked for Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund until he was drafted into the United States Army. A critical formative experience was Temple’s August 1964 trip to St. Augustine, Florida, with the New York City Lawyers Constitutional Defense Fund, where he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to ensure compliance with the newly enacted 1964 Civil Rights Act.   Finding his calling as a civil rights and civil liberties attorney, Temple rose to the position of Legal Director of the ACLU of the National Capital Area in Washington, DC, where he served from 1966–80. During his tenure there, he established himself in Washington as a lion ready to fight (and win) across a broad array of free speech issues. In 2008, the DC ACLU presented him with their annual Alan and Adrienne Barth Award for Exemplary Volunteer Service.   Temple kept up his legal activism and civic organizing in Oregon (where he relocated in 1996), until the day he passed away on August 27, 2011. On September 18, 2011, he was recognized by the ACLU Foundation of Oregon for his brilliant and tireless work on behalf of civil liberties.   “These legal war stories will give readers a realistic view of what a civil rights lawyer faced in championing unpopular causes.” —Publishers Weekly
    Show book
  • Sniping in France - How the British Army Won the Sniping War in the Trenches - cover

    Sniping in France - How the...

    H. Hesketh-Prichard

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Available for the first time in years, this is a new edition of the classic account by the adventurer and big game hunter who developed and ran the British Army sniping programme in the First World War. When the war started in 1914, Germany's edge in the sniping duel on the Western Front cost thousands of British casualties. Sniping in France explains the methods Hesketh-Prichard used to reverse the situation and help win the sniping war. A glossary of terms and a photograph of the author have been added.
    Show book