Category: France

Napoleonic Wars history book – “The Invisible Emperor” (Penguin Press, 2018) – Mark Braude interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Mark Braude is a historian whose specialty is French history. He’s written a new book on Napoleon Bonaparte’s time on Elba and we discussed the book.

2:30 – Mark talks about his start in French history and how he started writing about Napoleon.

4:06 – Mark talks about the book.

6:45 – Mark talks about ideas on why Napoleon was sent to Elba. We talk about how the smaller characters in the book also become very interesting.

17:45 – We talk about French taverns and their interplay with public opinion.

20:59 – Mark talks about the historical valleys between periods of war.

22:35 – Mark talks about his research materials.

27:00 – Mark talks about a prison he visited on Elba where Napoleon had stayed before it was a prison and how this visit connects to the book.

33:24 – Mark talks about why no one has written on this subject before.

October 16, 2018 515am

43:53 – Mark talks about the women in Napoleon’s life.

49:06 – Mark talks about how he developed his skills in writing good narrative non-fiction.

53:18 – Mark talks about his research into the Michelin company.

55:59 – Mark has a website, markbraude.com

Links of interest

MarkBraude.com

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Mark Braude

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Napoleon, British, French Empire, Elba, Campbell, Navy, Bonaparte

WWII history book – “They Fought Alone” (Penguin Press, 2018) – Charles Glass interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Charles Glass is a broadcaster, journalist and writer. Early in his career he worked in the ABC News Beirut bureau with Peter Jennings. He covered the October Arab-Israeli War on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts and the civil war in Lebanon. He was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent from 1983 to 1993. He’s been a freelance writer since then covering hot spots around the world. He spoke to me about his latest book on two British spies who operated in WWII France.

1:11 – Charles Glass talks about how he got into writing about special operations in WWII Europe. He started by studying Tony Brooks, an agent during WWII.

2:30 – Charles talks about the book and the Starr brothers and how they joined the British Special Operations Executive. A lot of the book is about how they evaded capture while conducting operations.

6:15 – Charles talks about his previous books about WWII.

10:04 – Charles talks about how the brothers maintained security.

11:38 – Charles talks about how French spy networks were created.

17:10 – Charles talks about how the SOE interacted with their agents in France.

19:04 – Charles talks about how the SOE was run.

30:25 – Charles talks about the inefficiencies of the hundreds of resistance groups during the war.

33:00 – De Gaulle was very tough on SOE agents after the war.

43:15 – His website is www.charlesglass.net

Links of interest

www.charlesglass.net

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Charles Glass

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Britain, France, germany, Nazis, special operations executive, SOE, occupied France, French Resistance, D-Day, Starr brothers, spies

Modern warfare history book – “Military Cultures in Peace and Stability Operations” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) – Chiara Ruffa interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Dr. Chiara Ruffa has recently published a book about military culture. It’s based on her research with French and Italian military units that had deployed to Lebanon and Afghanistan. I spoke to her about the book.

2:20 – In 2006, Chiara was working for the UN in the Central African Republic in support of the peacekeeping mission. This inspired her interest in the topic this book is about and in her graduate studies.

4:04 – While the book focuses on current events, it traces the military cultures of France and Italy from the 19th century. These cultures affects how militaries carry out their mandates.

8:00 – Peacekeeping operations are a very particular type of operation in that there is much more latitude in interpreting the mission and how to carry it out.   This is important because of the high volume of peacekeeping operations being carried out.

13:53 –Chiara would like multi-national forces to be more open in talking about cultural characteristics of units that are deployed.

17:00 – Military culture is most important at the service level.

25:00 – NATO has standardized much of the ways in which peacekeeping is done however cultures create variations.

26:05 – French military culture has revolved around assertiveness since the Revolution. But this was modified when de Gaulle in 1962 reaffirmed the idea of civilian control over the military.

30:18 – Italy had a shift in military culture that was affected by WWII and by the Cold War. Italian officers push for using the Italian military for peacekeeping. Italy has a change in the culture in the 1990s.

34:13 – Chiara’s first problem in the research was how she would collect data on these militaries. She didn’t have much access to begin with. She started by going to Lebanon and working with French and Italian troops.

46:50 – Chiara had to learn about military organizations from scratch when she started her research.

48:30 – Chiara still wonders how cultures shape Standard Operating Procedures.

1:01:00 – The book will hopefully cross the gap between security studies and peace studies in Europe.

1:05:45 – She’s on twitter at Ruffa.Chiara.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Chiara Ruffa

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, France, Italy, Afghanistan, Lebanon, peacekeeping, stability, operations