Military History

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  Hell in the Holy Land: World War I in the Middle East

  In the modern popular imagination, the British Army's campaign in the Middle East during World War I is considered somehow less brutal than the fighting on European battlefields. A romantic view of this conflict has been further encouraged by such films as Lawrence of Arabia and The Light Horsemen. This book uses graphic eyewitness accounts from the diaries, letters, and memoirs of British soldiers who fought in that war to describe in rigorous detail the genuine experience of the fighting and dying in Egypt and Palestine. The massive flow of troops and equipment to Egypt eventually made that country host ...Read More

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  The Unknown Dead: Civilians in the Battle of the Bulge

  Traditional histories of the hard-fought Battle of the Bulge routinely include detailed lists of the casualties suffered by American, British, and German troops. Conspicuously lacking in most accounts, however, are references to the civilians in Belgium and Luxembourg who lost their lives in the same battle. Yet the most reliable current estimates calculate the number of civilians who perished in the Ardennes in six weeks of fighting at approximately three thousand. In gruesome detail, this book tells the story of ordinary people caught up in the maelstrom of war. The book describes the horrific war crimes committed by German military ...Read More

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  America and Guerrilla Warfare

  From South Carolina to South Vietnam, America’s two hundred-year involvement in guerrilla warfare has been extensive and varied. America and Guerrilla Warfare analyzes conflicts in which Americans have participated in the role of, on the side of, or in opposition to guerrilla forces, providing a broad comparative and historical perspective on these types of engagements.

  Anthony James Joes examines nine case studies, ranging from the role of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, in driving Cornwallis to Yorktown and eventual surrender to the U.S. support of Afghan rebels that hastened the collapse of the Soviet Empire. He analyzes the origins of ...Read More

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  Voices from the Korean War: Personal Stories of American, Korean, and Chinese Soldiers

  "In three days the number of so-called ‘volunteers’ reached over three hundred men. Very quickly they organized us into military units. Just like that I became a North Korean soldier and was on the way to some unknown place.”—from the book

  South Korean Lee Young Ho was seventeen years old when he was forced to serve in the North Korean People’s Army during the first year of the Korean War. After a few months, he deserted the NKPA and returned to Seoul where he joined the South Korean Marine Corps. Ho’s experience is only one of the many compelling accounts ...Read More

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  Kentucky's Last Cavalier: General William Preston, 1816-1887

  William Preston was a leading representative of Kentucky’s slaveholding, landed gentry, the group who dominated economic, political, and social life in the commonwealth before the Civil War. Preston was heir to valuable lands adjacent to Louisville and married to the daughter of the state’s largest slave owner, and his Ivy League education and leadership abilities made him a natural spokesman for the interests of the South’s antebellum elite. As a legislator, diplomat, and soldier, Preston defended the interests of his region for three decades, and his successes and failures were linked to the fortunes of the South. Among his many ...Read More

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  Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization

  The roots of American globalization can be found in the War of 1898. Then, as today, the United States actively engaged in globalizing its economic order, its political institutions, and its values. Thomas Schoonover argues that this drive to expand political and cultural reach—the quest for wealth, missionary fulfillment, security, power, and prestige—was inherited by the United States from Europe, especially Spain and Great Britain. Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization is a pathbreaking work of history that examines U.S. growth from its early nationhood to its first major military conflict on the world stage, also ...Read More

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  Trial by Friendship: Anglo-American Relations, 1917-1918

  During the crucial period of 1917-1918, the United States superseded Great Britain as the premier power in the world. The differing strategic perspectives of London and Washington were central to the tensions and misunderstandings that separated the two dominant powers in 1918 and determined how these two countries would interact following the Armistice.

  David R. Woodward traces the projection of American military power to western Europe and analyzes in depth the strategic goals of the American political and military leadership in this first comprehensive study of Anglo-American relations in the land war in Europe. Based on extensive research in British ...Read More

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  Echoes of War: A Thousand Years of Military History in Popular Culture

  Americans are often accused of not appreciating history, but this charge belies the real popular interest in the past. Historical reenactments draw thousands of spectators; popular histories fill the bestseller lists; PBS, A&E and The History Channel air a dizzying array of documentaries and historical dramas; and Hollywood war movies become blockbusters.

  Though historians worry that these popular representations sacrifice authenticity for broad appeal, Michael C.C. Adams argues that living history—even if it is an incomplete depiction of the past—plays a vital role in stimulating the historical imagination. In Echoes of War, he examines how one of the most popular ...Read More

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  Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade: The Journal of a Confederate Soldier

  John W. Green (1841-1920), an enlisted man with Kentucky’s famed Confederate Orphan Brigade throughout the Civil War, fought at Shiloh, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Atlanta and many other crucial battles. An acute observer with a flair for humanizing the impersonal horror of war, he kept a record of his experiences, and penned an exciting front-line account of America’s defining trial by fire.

  Albert D. Kirwan provides a brief history of the Orphan Brigade and a biography of Johnny Green. Introductions to each chapter explain references in the journal and also set the context for the major campaigns.

  Winner of the ...Read More

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  Camp Nelson, Kentucky: A Civil War History

  Camp Nelson, Kentucky, was designed in 1863 as a military supply depot for the Union Army. Later it became one of the country’s most important recruiting stations and training camps for black soldiers and Kentucky’s chief center for issuing emancipation papers to former slaves. Richard D. Sears tells the story of the rise and fall of the camp through the shifting perspective of a changing cast of characters—teachers, civilians, missionaries such as the Reverend John G. Fee, and fleeing slaves and enlisted blacks who describe their pitiless treatment at the hands of slave owners and Confederate sympathizers. Sears fully documents ...Read More