Bøger af Stephen Huggins

When George Stokes enlisted into the British Army in 1895 he used an assumed name and gave a false age. He was only sixteen. Four years later Stokes was sent to The Transvaal to fight in the Second Anglo Boer War. This conflict was to have a far reaching impact on the future development of South African politics and was also significant in what it revealed about Britain and her imperial destiny. This is one man's personal account of his experience of that war and he has much to tell: After the guns had kept up a constant fire for a considerable time we were ordered to fix bayonets and climb the kopje as soon as the big guns had ceased firing. After waiting anxiously for some time we began the climb, scrambling over huge rocks and dead and wounded as they fell. It was a terrible climb and one I shall never forget for as I neared the top a bullet passed through the left sleeve of my jacket but there was no time to think of that for with a last effort we all reached to the top and the enemy fled but a great many who could not get away had 9 inches of cold steel. Some of them threw their rifles down and asked for mercy. They got it very soon. When we had finished with those we caught on the kopje we lay down utterly exhausted after 9 hours severe fighting... Here is the diary of Corporal George Stokes who was 'a gentleman in khaki ordered South.'

In 2015 the Salvation Army celebrated the 150th anniversary of its birth in the poverty and squalor of London's East End. Today the Army is to be found in towns and cities throughout Britain, its members readily recognized through their military uniform and their reputation for good works widely acknowledged. Many people, however, are unaware of the origins and subsequent development of the organization. At times Salvationists were imprisoned, beaten up in street riots and ridiculed in the press for their religious beliefs. Despite this persecution the Army put in place a program of help for the poor and marginalized of such ambition that it radically altered social thinking about poverty.There have been very few attempts at writing a wider and accessible account which locates the Army in its historical context. This is something of an omission given that it has made a unique contribution to the changing social, cultural and religious landscape of Britain. The Salvation Army: 150 years of Blood and Fire aims to provide a history of the organization for the general reader and is for anyone who is interested in the interplay of people, ideas and events. The book reveals how the story of the Salvation Army raises fundamental questions about issues of power, class, gender and race in modern society; all as pertinent today as they were in Victorian Britain. The Salvation Army: 150 years of Blood and Fire also makes an extensive use of pictures illustrative of the Army's history gathered from around the world, most of which have never previously been published.

In 2015 the Salvation Army celebrated the 150th anniversary of its birth in the poverty and squalor of London's East End. Today the Army is to be found in towns and cities throughout Britain, its members readily recognized through their military uniform and their reputation for good works widely acknowledged.

The Salvation Army is well known for its work with the poor and disadvantaged. There is, however, much more to the story of the Salvation Army than their highly commendable good works. They have been so closely identified with a programme of social action that their wider history has been marginalized. This history includes a period of astonishing levels of opposition and religious persecution which the Army faced in its early years. Many Salvationists were badly injured in violent street riots against them while at the same time facing imprisonment as the force of the law was brought to bear on their evangelism. Among all those places in Britain where the Salvation Army was persecuted, the south-coast town of Eastbourne during the 1880s and 1890s stands out as worthy of attention. The Sussex seaside resort played a hugely important part in the wider anti-Salvation Army narrative, as it was in Eastbourne that opposition was among the most violent and protracted. Significantly and surprisingly, the vehemence and savagery was supported by the local Council and Mayor. The narrative of The Mob and The Mayor; is chronological and entirely evidence based. It includes: eyewitness accounts, newspaper reports, Parliamentary papers, Eastbourne Council Watch Committee meetings minutes, and Salvation Army documents. Britain was at times at war with itself as the country came to terms with urban poverty resulting from the Industrial Revolution. The persecution of the Salvation Army at the Victorian seaside sheds a wider light on the struggles to promote social betterment for all.

From the first, America has considered itself a shining city on a hilluniquely lighting the right way for the world. But it is hard to reconcile this picture, the very image of American exceptionalism, with what Americas Use of Terror shows us: that the United States has frequently resorted to acts of terror to solve its most challenging problems. Any war on terror, Stephen Huggins suggests, will fail unless we take a long, hard look at ourselvesand it is this discerning, informed perspective that his book provides.Terrorism, as Huggins defines it, is an act of violence against noncombatants intended to change their political will or support. The United States government adds a qualifier to this definition: only if the instigator is a subnational group. On the contrary, Huggins tells us, terrorism is indeed used by the statea politically organized body of people occupying a definite territoryin this case, the government of the United States, as well as by such predecessors as the Continental Congress and early European colonists in America. In this light, Americas Use of Terror re-examines key historical moments and processes, many of them events praised in American history but actually acts of terror directed at noncombatants. The targeting of women and children in Native American villages, for instance, was a use of terror, as were the means used to sustain slavery and then to further subjugate freed slaves under Jim Crow laws and practices. The placing of Philippine peasants in concentration camps during the Philippine-American War; the firebombing of families in Dresden and Tokyo; the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasakiall are last resort measures to conclude wars, and these too are among the instances of American terrorism that Huggins explores.Terrorism, in short, is not only terrorism when they do it to us, as many Americans like to think. And only when we recognize this, and thus the dissonance between the ideal and the real America, will we be able to truly understand and confront modern terrorism.