Mike Croissant
Books
Mike's new book, Bombing Hitler's Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe, is now available!
During the waning days of World War II, five thousand American airmen embarked on a white-knuckled mission to bomb one of Europe’s most heavily defended targets—Linz, Austria—the town Hitler called home. This riveting account reveals the never-before-told true story of the mission and the epic journey the surviving airmen endured to return home. Drawing on interviews with dozens of America’s last surviving World War II veterans, as well as previously unpublished sources, Mike Croissant compellingly relates one of the war’s last truly untold stories—a gripping chronicle of warfare, the death of Nazi Germany, and the beginning of the Cold War. It is also a timeless tale of courage and terror, loss and redemption, humanity and savagery.
New!
Check out Mike's publication, "A Top Secret Yugoslavian Emergency Landing Field in World War II", in the Winter 2022 issue of Air & Space Power History.
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Read Mike's op-ed on Hezbollah's war with Israel.
Mike is also author of The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Causes and Implications (Praeger Publishers, 1998)
Of all the violent disputes that have flared across the former Soviet Union since the late 1980s, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is the only one to pose a genuine threat to peace and security throughout Eurasia. By right of its strategic location and oil resources, the South Caucasus has been and will continue to be a source of interest for external powers competing to advance their geopolitical influence in the region. With the growth of interest in the oil riches of the Caspian Sea and the increasing engagement of Western countries, including the United States, the risks and implications of renewed violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan will grow.
Mike also co-edited, with Bulent Aras, Oil and Geopolitics in the Caspian Sea Region (Praeger Publishers, 1999)
The opening of the Caspian Sea basin to Western investment following the breakup of the Soviet Union produced a major contest for access to the region’s vast energy reserves on the part of powers as close as Russia, Turkey, and Iran, and as far away as Japan and the United States. Indeed, the struggle to exploit Caspian oil has been one of the most monumental geopolitical developments of the post-Cold War era as external powers vie for political, economic, and military influence in a region brimming not only with oil, but also with ethnic conflicts and historical animosities. This collection of essays by prominent scholars and international experts offers several important and often conflicting interpretations of the events unfolding along the shores of the world’s oldest oil-producing region.