New Books in Military History

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contribute to this process? This podcast addresses this issue. We interview Professor Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, whose book, The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance (forthcoming with MIT Press) is undergoing a Massive Online Peer-Review (MOPR) process, where everyone can make comments on his manuscript. Additionally, his book will be Open Access (OA) since the date of publication. We discuss with him how do MOPR and OA work, how he managed to combine both of them and how these initiatives can contribute to the democratization of knowledge. You can participate in the MOPR process of The Good Drone through this link: https://thegooddrone.pubpub.org/ Felipe G. Santos is a PhD candidate at the Central European University. His research is focused on how activists care for each other and how care practices within social movements mobilize and radicalize heavily aggrieved collectives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

19 Maalis 201932min

This episode of the New Books in Military History podcast is something of a sea change, so to speak, as we turn our attention to naval policy and strategy.  Institutional reform is a well-established topic in studies of the ground and air forces of the United States, ranging from Alexander Hamilton and John C. Calhoun through to Emory Upton and Billy Mitchell.  By comparison, with the noted exception of Alfred Thayer Mahan, much less has been written about the growing professionalism and institutional transformation of the United States Navy in the late nineteenth century.  Our guest for this episode addresses this gap directly.  Scott Mobley is a former naval officer and University of Wisconsin PhD who has written Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity, 1873-1898 (Naval Institute Press, 2018).  Not only does Scott address many open question about the technological transformation of the Navy, from a wooden hulled, sail and steam powered force into one built around steel armored cruisers, he goes far to put Mahan into his proper context as one of a growing community of intellectuals willing to reassess the mission and global reach of the institution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

6 Maalis 20191h 5min

Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars (Georgetown University Press, 2019), investigates the mobilization of female fighters, women’s roles in combat, and what happens to women when conflicts end.  The book focuses on three case studies of asymmetric conflicts. Jessica Trisko Darden contributes research looking at Ukraine, Alexis Henshaw discusses the civil war in Columbia, and Ora Szekley provides insights into conflict involving Kurdish groups. The book includes lessons for policy makers on women’s motivations for joining armed groups and unique issues facing female combatants during reintegration. Beth Windisch is a national security practitioner. You can tweet her @bethwindisch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

11 Helmi 201954min

The Macedonian king Alexander III is best remembered today for his many martial accomplishments and the empire he built from them. Yet as Fred S. Naiden details in Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great (Oxford University Press, 2018), this ignores what for his subjects were his even more important responsibilities as a religious figure. Alexander’s religious practices were a vital part of his legitimacy as a ruler of his people, and were interwoven into his daily activities. As his armies advanced into southwestern Asia, Alexander insinuated himself into the religions of the lands he conquered, which aided the acceptance of his rule. This became increasingly difficult the further east he marched, however, as the religious systems he encountered there often contained obligations often at variance from the traditions which he had accepted. As Naiden describes, Alexander’s increasing disregard for the religions he encountered contributed to the difficulties he faced with his later campaigns, fueling both local resistance and rebellions by his own men. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

8 Helmi 201949min

Monica Kim provides a fresh look at the Korean War with a people-centered approach that studies the experiences of prisoners of war. As the first major conflict after the 1949 Geneva Conventions, POW repatriation during the Korean War became a new battleground for the recognition of state sovereignty and a larger tool for political propaganda. The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold History (Princeton University Press, 2019) opens with a captured Korean solider who must navigate what identities and documentation to leverage depending on his captor. The extraordinary stories of everyday people involved in the Korean War illustrate how the effects of war span past and future conflicts.  The thoroughly researched book is full of fascinating stories and sheds light on lessons from the Korean War that are still relevant today. Beth Windisch is a national security practitioner. You can tweet her @bethwindisch. 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 Tammi 20191h 1min

Noah Coburn's Under Contract: The Invisible Workers of America's Global War (Stanford University Press, 2018) is about the hidden workers of American’s foreign wars: third country nationals who while not serving in their country’s militaries, still work to support the American war effort. These men and women serve as laborers, cooks, logisticians, engineers and security guards. They bear the burden of service in a war zone with the hopes of good pay, but are sometimes, maybe even often, disappointed. Prof Coburn explains in this book how they come to be in America’s wars, why they want to sign on a contract, how America’s government incentivizes and perpetuates the contracting system and what that means for the world both in the present and future. In our talk, we discussed how Prof. Coburn came to this project, his personal experience in Afghanistan, what it means to be a contractor and how contracts are established as well as what happens to these contractors when they no longer have America’s wars to fight. Jeffrey Bristol is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Boston University and a JD candidate at the University of Michigan Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

24 Tammi 20191h

Andrew Lambert, Professor of Naval History at King’s College, London, author of eighteen books, and winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal—turns his attention in a book that historian Felipe Fernandez Armesto describes as full of ‘ambition’, ‘verve’ and at times ‘brilliance’ - to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain. In Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World (Yale UP, 2018), Professor Lambert, examines how each of these polities identities as “seapowers” informed and determined their individual histories and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size. Lambert by delving into the intricacies of each of these seapowers is able to show how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these states begin to decline. Recognizing that the United States and China are modern naval powers—rather than seapowers—is essential to understanding current affairs, as well as the long-term trends in world history. This volume is a highly original “big think” analysis of five states whose success—and eventual failure—is a subject of enduring interest, by a someone who is perhaps the leading naval scholar in the Anglophone world to-day. Charles Coutinho holds 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. 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

23 Tammi 20191h 2min

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

18 Tammi 20191h 25min