New Books in Military History

In one of his latest books, The World at War, 1914-1945 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Professor of History at Exeter University, Jeremy Black, the most prolific historian in the Anglo-phone world, if not indeed on the entire planet, explores the forty-one years from the beginning of the Great War in August 1914 to the surrender of Japan in August 1945. This book provides the reader with an innovative global military history that joins three periods—World War I, the interwar years, and World War II. Professor Black, offers a comprehensive survey of both wars, comparing continuities and differences. He traces the causes of each war and assesses land, sea, and air warfare as separate dimension in each period. A must read for anyone interested in this time period of military and indeed global history. Charles Coutinho has a doctorate in history from New York University. Where he studied with Tony Judt, Stewart Stehlin and McGeorge Bundy. His Ph. D. dissertation was on Anglo-American relations in the run-up to the Suez Crisis of 1956. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for the Journal of Intelligence History and Chatham House’s International Affairs. It you have a recent title to suggest for a podcast, please send an e-mail to Charlescoutinho@aol.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

22 Touko 201951min

In his new book, The First Soldier: Hitler as a Military Leader (Yale University Press, 2018), Stephen Fritz professor of history at East Tennessee State University reexamines Hitler as a military commander and strategist. That Hitler saw World War II as the only way to retrieve Germany’s fortunes and build an expansionist Thousand-Year Reich is uncontroversial. But while his generals did sometimes object to Hitler’s tactics and operational direction, they often made the same errors in judgment and were in agreement regarding larger strategic and political goals. A necessary volume for understanding the influence of World War I on Hitler’s thinking, this work is also an eye-opening reappraisal of major events like the invasion of Russia and the battle for Normandy. Craig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.com or on twitter @craig_sorvillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

21 Touko 20191h 16min

Guy Beiner, who is professor of modern history at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, has written one of the longest and certainly one of the most extraordinary recent contributions to the historiography of Ireland and of memory studies. His new book, Forgetful Remembering: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster(Oxford University Press, 2018), argues for the complexities and ambiguities of communal recollection by focusing on the contested memories of one of the shortest and certainly the bloodiest of politically driven Irish insurrections. In 1798, Catholics, protestants and dissenters joined together in armed uprisings against British state forces. Their defeat was followed by prolonged and traumatic reprisals, and by the union of the British and Irish parliaments to create a new “United Kingdom.” Within a decade of their participation in the rebellion, protestants and dissenters had swung to support the new state, beginning a long process of forgetting and remembering that continues to the present day. How and why do communities forget and remember these moments of collective trauma? Beiner’s ground-breaking argument offers new insights, new lines of inquiry, and some startling new conclusions. Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

21 Touko 201936min

In his book, Fegelein’s Horsemen and Genocidal Warfare: The SS Cavalry Brigade in the Soviet Union (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Dr. Henning Pieper, examines the conduct of the SS Cavalry Brigade during World War II. The SS Cavalry Brigade was a unit of the Waffen-SS that differed from other German military formations as it developed a dual role: SS cavalrymen both helped to initiate the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and experienced combat at the front. Pieper’s book highlights an understudied aspect of both the Holocaust and World War II. Craig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.com or on twitter @craig_sorvillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

30 Huhti 201956min

Michael J. Mazarr has written a history of the policy planning process leading up to the Iraq War in 2003.  Mazarr has conducted over one hundred interviews with senior policy officials from the George W. Bush administration, combined with a comprehensive review of published memoirs and declassified government documents, to provide a richly detailed history of America’s involvement in Iraq.  In his new book, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy (Public Affairs, 2019), Mazarr reviews the key faulty assumptions that hampered the war planning process, including assuming the intelligence was sufficient that weapons of mass destruction existed, assuming that Iraq had a middle-class technocratic elite just waiting to take over after liberation, assuming that the U.S. could intervene with only a “light footprint,” without any need for prolonged occupation, and failing to plan for the security situation in the aftermath of the war.  In addition to providing a narrative of how the decision to go to war occurred, Mazarr draws lessons to help guide future policy makers at all levels of government. Ian J. Drake is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University. His scholarly interests include American legal and constitutional history and political theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

30 Huhti 20191h 25min

The Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954-55 and 1958 occurred at the height of the Cold War. Mao’s China bombarded Nationalist-controlled islands, and U.S. President Eisenhower threatened the use of nuclear weapons. These were dramatic events, and it can be a difficult to disentangle military and political posturing from the real concerns of the three involved powers. Using newly available sources, Pang Yang Huei reexamines the Taiwan Strait Crises and concludes that China, Taiwan, and the United States were much more aware of each other’s concerns than previous studies have indicated. Strait Rituals: China, Taiwan, and the United States in the Taiwan Strait Crises, 1954-1958(Hong Kong University Press, 2019) traces the role of ritual, symbols, and gestures in the tacit communication between Beijing, Taipei, and Washington. Ultimately, this detailed history contributes to a better understanding of the history of the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War. Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth-century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu and on Twitter (@LDickmeyer). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

29 Huhti 201957min

In his new book, Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance (Yale University Press, 2018), Christian Goeschel, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Manchester, examines the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini and how their relationship developed and affected both countries. In this highly readable book, Goeschel, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler’s key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public. The first comprehensive study of the Mussolini-Hitler relationship, this book is a must-read for scholars and anyone interested in the history of European fascism, World War II, or political leadership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

2 Huhti 20191h 5min

Histories of the British occupation of Havana in 1762 have focused on imperial rivalries and the actions and decisions of European planters, colonial officials, and military officers. In her stunning revision, The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade and Slavery in the Atlantic World (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Elena Schneider restores the central roles of enslaved Africans in all stages of the story. The relevance of the slave trade and the multiple and essential roles of African and African descended people in battle and in urban life emerge in this beautifully written account. In the aftermath, their valor and loyalty were omitted from contemporary accounts and the ensuing historiography. This book draws from a wide range of sources and multiple archives in a careful narrative that connects the Atlantic worlds of Spain, London, Havana, Kingston and the colonial United States, and zooms in on the enslaved individuals that made that world possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

2 Huhti 201950min