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Whenever one thinks of the World War II, the image of dark menacing panzers cutting deep swathes into enemy forces comes up to the mind. No amount of interpretation and overinterpretation can belittle the extraordinary role-played by the panzers in World War II. Similarly, despite the presence of numerous good works by various historians and introduction of exotic methodologies, Professor Dennis Showalter’s place in the world of academic writings on World War II can never be marginalized. The present article humbly attempts to highlight one aspect of Professor Showalter’s research: history of tanks during the World War II. This essay has two sections. The first section evaluates Showalter’s three works dealing with armour during the World War II. In the next section, the present author, inspired by Showalter’s works on armoured war, attempts to recount the evolution of armoured branch in the Indian Army until the end of World War II. Indian tank units, as this article argues, played a crucial role in the capture of Meiktila and the subsequent ‘Race to Rangoon’.

We compared the pronounced geographic pattern in the recolonization of Britain by the Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) from 1970 onward with the spatiotemporal pattern among House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) populations over the same period, using data on the occurrence of both species at garden feeding stations. Using a simulation of House Sparrow population trends based on a logistic model that incorporated a predation index derived from Eurasian Sparrowhawk incidence functions, we generated a close approximation to the unique trajectories among House Sparrow populations in rural and urban sites in different regions of Britain. We carried out further comparisons using two contrasting methods that focused solely on temporal patterns. We used estimates of the varying date of Eurasian Sparrowhawk recolonization at different sites to derive time variables in relation to recolonization date. One such relative time variable proved to be a better predictor of House Sparrow numbers than chronological time; it indicated that House Sparrow numbers were generally stable or increasing prior to recolonization by Eurasian Sparrowhawks but declined continuously afterward. We also detected a significantly greater decrease in House Sparrow numbers when Eurasian Sparrowhawks were present using a method that compared annual changes in the abundance of prey species in the presence or absence of a predator. On the basis of these results, we argue that predation by Eurasian Sparrowhawks may be a sufficient explanation for the decline in House Sparrows in Britain. We also argue that urban House Sparrow populations' long-term release from predator pressure made them especially vulnerable when urban habitats were colonized by Eurasian Sparrowhawks.

Why do democracies win wars? This is a critical question in the study of international relations, as a traditional view--expressed most famously by Alexis de Tocqueville--has been that democracies are inferior in crafting foreign policy and fighting wars. In Democracies at War, the first major study of its kind, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam come to a very different conclusion. Democracies tend to win the wars they fight--specifically, about eighty percent of the time.

Extinctions of megafauna species during the Late Quaternary dramatically reduced the global diversity of mammals. There is intense debate over the causes of these extinctions, especially regarding the extent to which humans were involved. Most previous analyses of this question have focused on chronologies of extinction and on the archaeological evidence for human-megafauna interaction. Here, I take an alternative approach: comparison of the biological traits of extinct species with those of survivors. I use this to demonstrate two general features of the selectivity of Late Quaternary mammal extinctions in Australia, Eurasia, the Americas and Madagascar. First, large size was not directly related to risk of extinction; rather, species with slow reproductive rates were at high risk regardless of their body size. This finding rejects the 'blitzkrieg' model of overkill, in which extinctions were completed during brief intervals of selective hunting of large-bodied prey. Second, species that survived despite having low reproductive rates typically occurred in closed habitats and many were arboreal or nocturnal. Such traits would have reduced their exposure to direct interaction with people. Therefore, although this analysis rejects blitzkrieg as a general scenario for the mammal megafauna extinctions, it is consistent with extinctions being due to interaction with human populations.

Recent claims for continent wide disappearance of megafauna at 46.5 thousand calendar years ago (ka) in Australia have been used to support a \"blitzkrieg\" model, which explains extinctions as the result of rapid overkill by human colonizers. A number of key sites with megafauna remains that significantly postdate 46.5 ka have been excluded from consideration because of questions regarding their stratigraphic integrity. Of these sites, Cuddie Springs is the only locality in Australia where megafauna and cultural remains are found together in sequential stratigraphic horizons, dated from 36-30 ka. Verifying the stratigraphic associations found here would effectively refute the rapid-overkill model and necessitate reconsideration of the regional impacts of global climatic change on megafauna and humans in the lead up to the last glacial maximum. Here, we present geochemical evidence that demonstrates the coexistence of humans and now-extinct megafaunal species on the Australian continent for a minimum of 15 ka.

The Diffusion of Military Power examines how the financial and organizational challenges of adopting new methods of fighting wars can influence the international balance of power. Michael Horowitz argues that a state or actor wishing to adopt a military innovation must possess both the financial resources to buy or build the technology and the internal organizational capacity to accommodate any necessary changes in recruiting, training, or operations. How countries react to new innovations--and to other actors that do or don't adopt them--has profound implications for the global order and the likelihood of war.