New Books in Military History4 Syys 2025

Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, "Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East" (UP of Colorado, 2025)

Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East (University Press of Colorado, 2025) by Dr. Tiffany Earley-Spadoni offers an in-depth exploration of the Urartian empire, which occupied the highlands of present-day Turkey, Armenia, and Iran in the early first millennium BCE. Lesser known than its rival, the Neo-Assyrian empire, Urartu presents a unique case of imperial power distributed among mountain fortresses rather than centralized in cities. Through spatial analysis, the book demonstrates how systematic warfare, driven by imperial ambitions, shaped Urartian and Assyrian territories, creating symbolically and materially powerful landscapes.

Dr. Earley-Spadoni challenges traditional views by emphasizing warfare’s role in organizing ancient landscapes, suggesting that Urartu’s strength lay in its strategic optimization of terrain through fortified regional networks. Using an interdisciplinary approach that includes GIS-enabled studies and integrates archaeological, historical, and art-historical evidence, she illustrates how warfare was a generative force in structuring space and society in the ancient Middle East. Landscapes of Warfare situates Urartu’s developments within the broader context of regional empires, providing insights into the mechanisms of warfare, governance, and cultural identity formation.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Arthur der Weduwen, "The Last Invasion of England: 1688 and the Dutch Armada" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In popular accounts of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the autocratic Catholic King James II was ousted by his subjects and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary Stuart, wife of James’s nephew, th...

22 Syys 56min

Edward Willis, "WWII in East Timor: An Australian Army Site and Travel Guide" (2/2 Commando Association of Australia, 2024)

WWII in East Timor: An Australian Army Site and Travel Guide (2/2 Commando Association of Australia, 2024) is an overdue addition to the history of a campaign that remains surprisingly little known ...

22 Syys 1h 11min

Stefano Recchia, "Strategies for Approval: Building Support for Military Intervention at the UN Security Council" (Yale UP, 2025)

When powerful states go to war, why do they bother asking permission? In Strategies for Approval: Building Support for Military Intervention at the UN Security Council (Yale University Press, 2025), S...

20 Syys 51min

Xiaofei Tian, "Writing Empire and Self: Poetic and Cultural Transformation in Early Medieval China" (Columbia UP, 2026)

China’s early medieval period, from the fifth through the early seventh century, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties through the unified Sui, was a time of political fragmentation, military strif...

19 Syys 57min

Francesca Lessa and Sebastián Santana, "Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent" (Storia, 2025)

In Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent (Storia, 2025), Francesca Lessa uncovers the shadowy machinery behind one of the most chilling transnational terror campaigns of the twentieth...

12 Syys 1h 3min

Michael E. Neagle, "Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror" (UNC Press, 2025)

While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security...

11 Syys 45min

Charles Lachman, "They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most Wanted" (Diversion Books, 2026)

May 1945. The Reich is in ruins. Hitler is dead. Yet for the US Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, the real war has just begun. They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most Wa...

11 Syys 31min

Emily Matson, "China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Emily Matson is an in-depth investigation of the Chinese Communist Party’s remapping of China’s World ...

6 Syys 36min