New Books In Military History

From Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798 to the foreign interventions in the ongoing civil wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya today, global empires or the so-called Great Powers have long assumed the responsibility to bring security in the Middle East.  The past two centuries have witnessed their numerous military occupations to 'liberate', 'secure' and 'educate' local populations. They staged first 'humanitarian' interventions in history and established hitherto unseen international and local security institutions.  Consulting fresh primary sources collected from some thirty archives in the Middle East, Russia, the United States, and Western Europe, Dangerous Gifts: : Imperialism, Security, and Civil Wars in the Levant, 1798-1864 (Oxford University Press, 2021) revisits the late eighteenth and nineteenth century origins of these imperial security practices. It explicates how it all began.  Why did Great Power interventions in the Ottoman Levant tend to result in further turmoil and civil wars? Why ha

With an estimated 250,000 people killed in 15 years, the Mexican drug war is the most violent conflict in the Western world. It shows no sign of abating. In Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism and the Logic of Cruelty (2020), Dr Teun A. Voeten analyzes the dynamics of the violence. He argues it is a new type of war called hybrid warfare: multidimensional, elusive and unpredictable, fought at different levels, with different intensities with multiple goals. The war ISIS has declared against the West is another example of hybrid warfare. Voeten interprets drug cartels as ultra-capitalist predatory corporations thriving in a neoliberal, globalized economy. They use similar branding and marketing strategies as legitimate business. He also looks at the anthropological, individual level and explains how people can become killers. Voeten compares Mexican sicarios, West African child soldiers and Western jihadis and sees the same logic of cruelty that facilitates perpetrating 'inhumane' acts t

Histories of the Vietnam War are not in short supply. In U.S. history, it ranks alongside the Civil War and World War Two in terms of author coverage. The aftermath of the war has received a similar amount of attention, with historians noting the effect that the end of the war had on domestic politics and U.S. foreign policy. But what about shifts during the war itself? While the war dominated thinking in the Johnson Administration and overshadowed a whole host of other foreign policy issues, it did not cause them to simply disappear. Quite the opposite: Lyndon Johnson was confronted by a multitude of issues during his time in office, and the fact that those issues occurred in tandem with the Vietnam War shaped the U.S. response to them. In The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era (Princeton UP, 2021), Mark Atwood Lawrence fills in some of the gaps about U.S. foreign policy during the Vietnam War. While historians have noted that U.S. foreign policy became markedly less am

This book is the story of one death among many in the war in eastern Ukraine. Its author is a historian of war whose brother was killed at the frontline in 2017 while serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Olesya Khromeychuk takes the point of view of a civilian and a woman, perspectives that tend to be neglected in war narratives, and focuses on the stories that play out far away from the warzone. Through a combination of personal memoir and essay, Khromeychuk attempts to help her readers understand the private experience of this still ongoing but almost forgotten war in the heart of Europe and the private experience of war as such. A Loss: The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister (Ibidem, 2021) will resonate with anyone battling with grief and the shock of the sudden loss of a loved one. Dr. Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian and writer. She received her PhD in History from University College London. She has taught the history of East-Central Europe at the University of Cambridge, University College Lo

How can we best understand ethnic armed organizations on the borderlands of Myanmar? Why did the Karen embrace the military-initiated peace process in 2012, shortly after the Kachin had rejected ceasefire proposals? How can ethnographic fieldwork inform studies of insurgent movements? And what does the February 2021 military coup mean for the future of ethnic conflicts in Myanmar In this wide-ranging conversation, David Brenner – a lecturer in global insecurities at the University of Sussex – discusses these questions with Duncan McCargo, director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. He makes the case for an understanding of insurgent groups based on their specific internal political dynamics, which cannot be readily reduced to rational, economics-related incentives and obstacles. Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands (Cornell UP, 2019) analyzes the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar,

In Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882–1955 (Cornell University Press, 2021), Ying Jia Tan explores the fascinating politics of Chinese power consumption as electrical industries developed during seven decades of revolution and warfare. Tan traces this history from the textile-factory power shortages of the late Qing, through the struggle over China's electrical industries during its civil war, to the 1937 Japanese invasion that robbed China of 97 percent of its generative capacity. Along the way, he demonstrates that power industries became an integral part of the nation's military-industrial complex, showing how competing regimes asserted economic sovereignty through the nationalization of electricity. Based on a wide range of published records, engineering reports, and archival collections in China, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States, Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882–1955 argues that, even in times of peace, the Chinese economy operated as though still at war, constructing power syst

With Britain by late 1916 facing the prospect of an economic crisis and increasingly dependent on the US, rival factions in Asquith's government battled over whether or not to seek a negotiated end to the First World War. In this riveting new account, Plotting for Peace: American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers, and Britain at War, 1914–1917 (Cambridge UP, 2021) by Daniel Larsen tells the full story for the first time of how Asquith and his supporters secretly sought to end the war. He shows how they supported President Woodrow Wilson's efforts to convene a peace conference and how British intelligence, clandestinely breaking American codes, aimed to sabotage these peace efforts and aided Asquith's rivals. With Britain reading and decrypting all US diplomatic telegrams between Europe and Washington, these decrypts were used in a battle between the Treasury, which was terrified of looming financial catastrophe, and Lloyd George and the generals. This book's findings transform our understanding of British str

With its ultimate debacle in August 2021, a discussion of the twenty-year military involvement of America and the West in Afghanistan is most timely. Accordingly, there is no one more pertinent to speak to about this history than premier British historian Jeremy Black. In a dialogue with Dr. Charles Coutinho of the Royal Historical Society, Professor Black expertly delineates why the once promising American campaign in Afghanistan went seriously amiss. Given how timely the discussion is, this is an episode of ‘Arguing History’, that should not be missed.  Listeners might be interested in Black's book Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A Global History (Rowman & LIttlefield, 2016).  Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the

In 1948, a war broke out that would result in Israeli independence and the erasure of Arab Palestine. Over twenty months, thousands of Jews and Arabs came from all over the world to join those already on the ground to fight in the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces and the Arab Liberation Army. With this book, the young men and women who made up these armies come to life through their letters home, writing about everything from daily life to nationalism, colonialism, race, and the character of their enemies. Shay Hazkani offers a new history of the 1948 War through these letters, focusing on the people caught up in the conflict and its transnational reverberations. Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War – published with Stanford University Press in 2021 – also examines how the architects of the conflict worked to influence and indoctrinate key ideologies in these ordinary soldiers, by examining battle orders, pamphlets, army magazines, and radio broadcasts. Through two narratives—the official and un

What claims could Jewish veterans make on the Nazi state by virtue of their having fought for Germany? How often did Germans treat Jewish veterans differently from Jewish men without military experience during the Weimar and Nazi periods? How did perceptions of masculinity and of Germanness intersect to shape attitudes and behaviors of Jewish veterans?   Michael Geheran's wonderful new book Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans under Hitler (Cornell UP, 2020) tries to understand how Jewish participation in World War I shaped their lives in 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He uses a seemingly never-ending supply of diaries, letters, journals and other sources to paint a compelling picture of the ways in which German Jews understood their identities and influenced  their interactions with Germans and with the restrictions imposed by the Nazi Government. It raises new questions about how to periodize the Holocaust and how to think about the role of Germans--both civilian and military--in the persecution and elim

What is grand strategy? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought--what, in other words, makes it "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand strategy" has become almost an equivalent of "military history." The traditional attention paid to military affairs is understandable, but in today's world it leaves out much else that could be considered political, and therefore strategic. It is in fact possible to consider, and even reach, a more capacious understanding of grand strategy, one that still includes the battlefield and the negotiating table while expanding beyond them. Just as contemporary world politics is driven by a wide range of non-military issues, the most thorough considerations of grand strategy must consider the bases of peace and security--including gender, race, the environment, and a wide range of cultural, social, political, and economic issues. Rethinking American Grand Strategy

When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, tens of thousands of young men and women from across the world flocked there to fight against the Nationalist uprising. Though their history has been told before, Giles Tremlett’s The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War (Bloomsbury, 2021) draws upon previously unavailable materials to tell the stories of the war they fought. Though these people came from a variety of backgrounds and held a range of different left-wing political views, what united them was their opposition to fascism. Despite their disorganization and lack of training, they made an impact on the battlefield soon after their deployment, and became a highly visible presence in the war against Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces. While the Spanish Republic they fought for was ultimately defeated, Tremlett explains how many of those who served in the Brigades continued their struggle against fascism during the Second World War, reflecting the lasting legacy of their servic

Nicholas, today's guest, explains Australia has no war hero more impressive than Tongerlongeter. Leader of the Oyster Bay nation of south-east Tasmania in the 1820s and ’30s, he and his allies led the most effective frontier resistance ever mounted on Australian soil. They killed or wounded some 354 – or 4 per cent – of the invaders of their country. Tongerlongeter’s brilliant campaign inspired terror throughout the colony, forcing Governor George Arthur to launch a massive military operation in 1830 – the infamous Black Line. Tongerlongeter escaped but the cumulative losses had taken their toll. On New Year’s Eve 1831, having lost his arm, his country, and all but 25 of his people, the chief agreed to an armistice. In exile on Flinders Island, this revered warrior united most of the remnant tribes and became the settlement’s ‘King’ – a beacon of hope in a hopeless situation. Nicholas Clements completed his PhD at the University of Tasmania in 2013. His research explores traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal cultu

In Trauma, Primitivism and the First World War: The Making of Frank Prewett (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), Joy Porter examines the extraordinary life of Frank “Toronto” Prewett and the history of trauma, literary expression, and the power of self-representation after WWI. She sheds new light on how the First World War affected the Canadian poet, and how war-induced trauma or “shell-shock” caused him to pretend to be an indigenous North American. Porter investigates his influence of, and acceptance by, some of the most significant literary figures of the time, including Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. In doing so, Porter skillfully connects a number of historiographies that usually exist in isolation from one another and rarely meet. By bringing together a history of the WWI era, early twentieth century history, Native American history, the history of literature, and the history of class Porter expertly crafts a valuable contribution to the field. Learn more about your ad choi

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving

From the Taliban to Hezbollah, armed nonstate actors and civil warfare have dominated the US national security debate for much of the last 20 years. Yet, most analysis shares a critical underlying assumption: that non-state actors fight very differently than states do. In Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords and Militias (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Stephen Biddle argues that those ideas are not just misleading but dangerous. Through a careful review of five nonstate actors, Dr. Biddle shows that state and nonstate military methods vary more by degree than by kind. Still, degrees do matter. To predict how “conventionally” or “unconventionally” a nonstate actor will fight, Dr. Biddle develops a theory reliant on two key variables: the stakes leaders perceive in a conflict and the strength of a nonstate actor’s institutions. The greater either variable, the more that actor will fight like we expect states to: defending and seizing ground, concentrating forces, employing heavy weapons, and

Remapping empire, nature, and scientific enquiry beyond the simple binary exchange between periphery and metropole, Dr. Kirsten Greer demonstrates how ornithology, the study of birds, became entwined with tours of duty for British military officers shaping military strategy and developing ecological understanding. A critical historical geography of empire, Red Coats and Wild Birds: How Military Ornithologists and Migrant Birds Shaped Empire (UNC Press, 2020) follows the travels and exploits of Capt. Thomas Wright Blakiston, surgeon Andrew Leith Adams, Lt. Col. Leonard Howard Lloyd Irby, and Capt. Philip Savile Grey Reid to demonstrate how collecting avian specimens and documenting migratory patterns created a new 19th C British military officer archetype: the Scientific War Hero. The scientific and geographic knowledge that these officers produced represents “a series of networks (human and non-human) connecting people, birds, and places across (and beyond) the British Empire These avian imaginations furthere

Following tirailleurs sénégalais’ deployments in West Africa, Congo, Madagascar, North Africa, Syria-Lebanon, Vietnam, and Algeria from the 1880s to 1962, Militarizing Marriage West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire (Ohio UP, 2021) historicizes how African servicemen advanced conjugal strategies with women at home and abroad. Sarah J. Zimmerman examines the evolution of women’s conjugal relationships with West African colonial soldiers to show how the sexuality, gender, and exploitation of women were fundamental to the violent colonial expansion and the everyday operation of colonial rule in modern French Empire. These conjugal behaviors became military marital traditions that normalized the intimate manifestation of colonial power in social reproduction across the empire. Soldiers’ cross-colonial and interracial households formed at the intersection of race and sexuality outside the colonizer/colonized binary. Militarizing Marriage uses contemporary feminist scholarship on militar

In the new book, How the Army Made Britain a Global Power: 1688-1815, published by Casemate, acclaimed historian and commentator Professor Jeremy Black, looks at this neglected, but ultra-important topic. Between 1760 and 1815, British troops campaigned from Manila to Montreal, Cape Town to Copenhagen, Washington to Waterloo. The naval dimension of Britain's expansion has been superbly covered by a number of excellent studies, but there has not been a single volume that does the same for the army and, in particular, looks at how and why it became a world-operating force, one capable of beating the Marathas as well as the French. This book will both offer a new perspective, one that concentrates on the global role of the army and its central part in imperial expansion and preservation, and as such will be a major book for military history and world history. There will be a focus on what the army brought to power equations and how this made it a world-level force.  The multipurpose character of the army emerges

Rough Draft: Cold War Military Manpower Policy and the Origins of Vietnam-Era Draft Resistance (Cornell University Press, 2019) draws the curtain on the race and class inequities of the Selective Service during the Vietnam War. Amy J. Rutenberg argues that policy makers' idealized conceptions of Cold War middle-class masculinity directly affected whom they targeted for conscription and also for deferment. Federal officials believed that college educated men could protect the nation from the threat of communism more effectively as civilians than as soldiers. The availability of deferments for this group mushroomed between 1945 and 1965, making it less and less likely that middle-class white men would serve in the Cold War army. Meanwhile, officials used the War on Poverty to target poorer and racialized men for conscription in the hopes that military service would offer them skills they could use in civilian life. As Rutenberg shows, manpower policies between World War II and the Vietnam War had unintended con