Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda” (Time Books, 2011)
There are many books about the war against Al Qaeda. Most of these focus on counter-terrorism or counter insurgency military tactics or espionage operations. These books have become more frequent with...
25 Okt 201342min
Brian Sandberg, “Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2010)
Brian Sandberg‘s Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) significantly revises our understanding of early modern military cultu...
15 Juli 201357min
Dale Maharidge, “Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War” (Public Affairs, 2013)
Dale Maharidge‘s Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War (PublicAffairs, 2013) is something of a departure from our regular offerings. Normally our authors are established academics spe...
3 Juli 20131h 13min
David J. Silbey, “The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China” (Hill and Wang, 2012)
Historian David Silbey returns to New Books in Military History with his second book, The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China (Hill and Wang, 2012). The popular uprising known as the Boxer Reb...
3 Juni 20131h 16min
James Q. Whitman, “The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War” (Harvard UP, 2012)
James Whitman wants to revise our understanding of warfare during the eighteenth century, the period described by my late colleague and friend Russell Weigley as the “Age of Battles.” We commonly view...
29 Apr 201342min
Stanley Payne, “The Spanish Civil War” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
The Spanish Civil War is one of those events that I have always felt I should know more about. Thanks to Stanley Payne‘s concise, lucid new work on the subject, I feel less that way. I do not exaggera...
13 Mars 201357min
Bernard Kelly, “Returning Home: Irish Ex-Servicemen and the Second World War” (Merrion, 2012)
The Republic of Ireland (aka The Irish Free State, Eire) declared neutrality during the Second World War. That wasn’t particularly unusual: Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland did too. Yet around...
21 Feb 201357min
Sanders Marble, “Scraping the Barrel: The Military Use of Substandard Manpower, 1860-1960” (Fordham UP, 2012)
Sanders Marble, senior historian of the United States Army’s Office of Medical History, presents a collection of essays related to the problems of substandard manpower as defined at different times in...
28 Jan 20131h 1min
