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Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars
In addition to war, terrorism, and unchecked military violence, modernity is also subject to less visible but no less venomous conflicts. Global in nature, these “culture wars” exacerbate the tensions between tradition and innovation, virtue and freedom. This book charts a course beyond these persistent but curable dichotomies. Consulting diverse fields such as philosophy, literature, political science, and religious studies, the book equates modern history with a process of steady pluralization. This process, which the book calls “integral pluralism,” requires new connections and creates ethical responsibilities. The book critically compares integral pluralism against the theories of Carl Schmitt, the Religious ...Read More
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The Mississippi Territory and the Southwest Frontier 1795–1817
Originally inhabited by Native American tribes, territorial Mississippi has a complex history rife with fierce contention. Since 1540, when Hernando de Soto of Spain journeyed across the Atlantic and became the first European to stumble across its borders, the territory has been the center of passionate international disagreements. After numerous boundary shifts, Mississippi was finally admitted as the twentieth state of the Union on December 10, 1817. This book does more than recount history; it explores the political and diplomatic situations that led to the formation and expansion of the Mississippi Territory. This extensively researched book details critical events in ...Read More
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The 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam: Unparalleled and Unequaled
Of all the military assignments in Vietnam, perhaps none was more challenging than the defense of the Mekong River Delta region. Operating deep within the Viet Cong-controlled Delta, the 9th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army was charged with protecting the area and its population against Communist insurgents and ensuring the success of the South Vietnamese government's pacification program. Faced with unrelenting physical hardships, a tenacious enemy, and the region's rugged terrain, the 9th Division established strategies and quantifiable goals for completing their mission, effectively writing a blueprint for combating guerrilla warfare that influenced army tacticians for decades to come. ...Read More
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Victorious Insurgencies: Four Rebellions that Shaped Our World
Insurgencies, especially in the form of guerrilla warfare, continue to erupt across many parts of the globe. Most of these rebellions fail, but this book analyzes four twentieth-century conflicts in which the success of the insurgents permanently altered the global political arena: the Maoists in China against Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s; the Viet Minh in French Indochina from 1945 to 1954; Castro's followers against Batista in Cuba from 1956 to 1959; and the mujahideen in Soviet Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989. The book illuminates patterns of failed counterinsurgencies that include serious but avoidable political ...Read More
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Vietnam’s Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War
The Vietnam War has been analyzed, dissected, and debated from multiple perspectives for decades, but domestic considerations—such as partisan politics and election-year maneuvering—are often overlooked as determining factors in the evolution and outcome of America's longest war. This book assesses the influence of the Republican Party—its congressional leadership, politicians, grassroots organizations, and the Nixon administration—on the escalation, prosecution, and resolution of the Vietnam War. It also sheds new light on the relationship between Congress and the imperial presidency as they struggled for control over U.S. foreign policy. Beginning the analysis in 1961 and continuing through the Paris Peace Accords of ...Read More
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Homer Lea: American Soldier of Fortune
What is known about the self-proclaimed general, Homer Lea, is based on a collection of problematic or even contradictory sources. This book aims to cut through the myths and offer a coherent and convincing analysis of Lea's real connections with Chinese reformers and his role in training Chinese military cadets in the United States. Homer Lea may be largely forgotten but he was an extraordinary man. He served as a general in the Chinese army and was Sun Yat-sen's military advisor, all of this achieved despite much ill health. In 1909, he predicted that a future war between Japan and ...Read More
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Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans
The Vietnam War’s influence on politics, foreign policy, and subsequent military campaigns is the center of much debate and analysis. But the impact on veterans across the globe, as well as the war’s effects on individual lives and communities, is a largely neglected issue. As a consequence of cultural and legal barriers, the oral histories of the Vietnam War currently available in English are predictably one-sided, providing limited insight into the inner workings of the Communist nations that participated in the war. Furthermore, many of these accounts focus on combat experiences rather than the backgrounds, belief systems, and social experiences ...Read More
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The Way of Duty, Honor, Country: The Memoir of General Charles Pelot Summerall
After graduating from West Point in 1892, Charles Pelot Summerall (1867–1955) launched a distinguished military career, fighting Filipino insurgents in 1899 and Boxers in China in 1900. His remarkable service included brigade, division, and corps commands in World War I; duty as chief of staff of the U.S. Army from 1926 to 1930; and presidency of the Citadel for twenty years, where he was instrumental in establishing the school's national reputation. Previously available only in the Citadel's archives, this memoir offers an eyewitness account of a formative period in U.S. Army history. Edited and annotated, the memoir documents critical moments ...Read More
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Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington
Although not a household name, Clark Clifford (1906–1998) advised Democratic presidents from Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson. The author, American History Professor at William Paterson University, has absorbed a mass of material and delivers an insightful if not always flattering biography. Fiercely ambitious, Clifford was a successful St. Louis lawyer when Truman, a fellow Missourian, became president in 1945. A senior colleague invited Clifford to Washington, where within a year his organizational skills won him promotion to Truman's special counsel. Happy to take credit for Truman's spectacular 1948 election upset, Clifford kept his reputation as a political genius ...Read More
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Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency
This book offers a detailed account of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) effort to help South Vietnamese authorities win the loyalty of the Vietnamese peasantry and suppress the Viet Cong. Covering the CIA engagement from 1954 to mid-1972, it provides a thorough analysis of the agency and its partners. The book comprehensively documents the CIA's role in the rural pacification of South Vietnam, drawing from secret archives to which the author had unrestricted access. In addition to a chronology of operations, the book explores the assumptions, political values, and cultural outlooks of not only the CIA and other United States ...Read More
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