New Books in Military History

Charles W. A. Prior, "Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

01 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic (U Nebraska Press, 2026), Professor Charles W. A. Prior of...

Anthony Kaldellis, "1453: The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople" (Oxford UP, 2026)

01 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A detailed account of the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, a watershed year that closed the book, once and for all, on the Roman Empir...

Vindhya Buthpitiya, "A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka" (U Washington Press, 2026)

29 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka (U Washington Press, 2026) by Dr. Vindhya Buthpitiya is a groundbreaking ...

Jack Cheevers, "Kennedy’s Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent into Vietnam" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Based on a decade of research and writing, enriched by eyewitness interviews and revealing documents obtained through dozens of freedom of information...

Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026) Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barb...

A Shakeup Is Coming for the Nation-State: A Conversation with Stephen Sims

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Sims’ New Atlantis essay examines how emerging technologies are reshaping the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. He argue...

Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)

26 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely h...

Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)

25 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and ReconstructionCharles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist...

Mia Martin Hobbs and Joan Beaumont, "Challenging Anzac: Stories That Don't Fit the Legend" (NewSouth, 2026)

25 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Challenging Anzac: Stories that don’t fit the legend Edited by Mia Martin Hobbs, Carolyn Holbrook, The Anzac legend has shaped Australia’s nat...

Jan Cress Dondi, "The Navigator's Letter" (Union Square, 2026)

22 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of the riskiest air raids of World War II occurred on August 1, 1943, over the oil fields at Ploesti, Romania--Nazi Germany's primary fuel source....

Drew Flanagan, "From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955" (LSU Press, 2026)

22 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

After the collapse of the National Socialist regime in May 1945, France became one of four principal occupying powers in a defeated Germany. Within th...

The Information State: How is the State Surveilling and Manipulating us These Days?

22 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny interviews Jacob Siegel, writer, Army veteran, and author of The Informat...

Jim Downs, "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" (Harvard UP, 2023)

21 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jim Downs’ most recent book is Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. Professor Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-Nat...

Nathaniel Greenberg, "The Long War of Ideas: American Public Diplomacy in Arabic After 9/11" (Columbia UP, 2026)

19 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, US officials identified the so-called battle for hearts and minds as the “second front” in the war on ter...

Kristan Stoddart, "Russia's Hybrid Warfare Offensive Against the West" (de Gruyter, 2025)

19 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Kristan Stoddart's Russia's Hybrid Warfare Offensive Against the West (de Gruyter, 2025) is a timely and systematic analysis of Russian hybrid warfa...

Manuel Barcia, "Pirate Imperialism: Trade, Abolition, and Global Suppression of Maritime Raiding, 1825–1870" (Yale UP, 2026)

18 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, imperial powers around the world came into direct confrontation with local resistance in the form of ...

Jane Vaynman, "Enemies in Agreement: Political Volatility and the Design of Arms Control" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

18 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Why do adversaries sometimes cooperate to restrain their military competition? Why do they design arms control agreements with intrusive verification ...

Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars have long viewed intelligence as the preserve of nation states. Where the term ‘private sector intelligence’ is used, the focus has been ...

Andrew W. M. Smith, "Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in Modern France" (Manchester UP, 2026)

16 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the French government announced a massive extension of its military base on the Larzac plateau in southern France. Land was to be expropriate...

John Bechtold, "U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)

12 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space (Taylor & Francis, 2024), John Bechtold examines how the US military understan...

Thorsten Gromes, "Sustaining Peace After Civil War: Insights from 48 Recent Cases" (Springer, 2026)

08 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Sustaining Peace After Civil War: Insights from 48 Recent Cases (Springer, 2026) examines one of the most important questions in peace research: W...

Andrew Thomas Park, "Sarah Wambaugh and the Plebiscite: The Turbulent History of a Democratic Alternative to War" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

07 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Sarah Wambaugh and the Plebiscite: The Turbulent History of a Democratic Alternative to War (Cambridge UP, 2026) Dr. Andrew Park tells the story ...

Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)

05 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take...

Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, "The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2025)

04 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Between May 1 and May 22, 1863, Union soldiers marched nearly 200 miles through the hot, humid countryside to assault and capture the fortified city o...

Isabelle Held, "Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies" (Duke UP, 2026)

03 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Bullet bras, bazookas, bombshells, bikinis. In Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Isabelle Held challenges t...

Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson, "Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away" (U Hawaiʻi Press, 2026)

01 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“Japanese war crimes are notorious. During the Second World War, as Japanese forces overran Southeast Asia and the Pacific, they massacred, murdered...

Arthur W. Gullachsen, "The Defeat and Attrition of the 12. SS-Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend: Volume II: Operations Martlet, Epsom, Windsor and Charnwood 11 June-12 July 1944" (Casemate, 2026)

31 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Following the Normandy landings, Rommel rushed Heeresgruppe B reserves towards the coast in order to crush the bridgehead and drive the Allied forc...

Peter Mauch, "Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General" (Harvard UP, 2026)

31 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan i...

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

On Feb. 6, 1945, just three days after the U.S. army started to fight the Japanese in the city of Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declared that “M...

Susanne Vees-Gulani, 'Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token (University of Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Vees-Gulani explores how memory and p...

Sidra Hamidi, "After Fission: Recognition and Contestation in the Atomic Age" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Nuclear status is typically treated as a stable feature of a state's capacity to possess, use, or build nuclear weapons. Challenging this view, After...

Timothy Manion, "Why Barbarossa Failed: Germany and Russia in the Second World War" (Helion, 2026)

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Why did Operation Barbarossa fail? For more than eight decades, historians have offered one dominant answer: Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet U...

Our Age of War: A Discussion with Author Robert Pape

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, has been writing about war for decades, including in his book Bombing to Win: Air Po...

Foster Chamberlin, "Uncivil Guard: Policing, Military Culture, and the Coming of the Spanish Civil War" (Louisiana State UP, 2025)

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Uncivil Guard: Policing, Military Culture, and the Coming of the Spanish Civil War (Louisiana State UP, 2025), Foster Chamberlin evaluates the r...

Gudrun Persson, "Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The development of the Russian military's strategic thought is an understudied and thus misunderstood subject in the West. Strategy in Russia encompas...

Matthew Moran et al., "Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons" (Oxford UP, 2025)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 2012, US President Barack Obama stated that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on its population would cross a red line that would r...

Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Eleven days into the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, starting on Feb. 28, 2026, I speak with Vali Nasr, a renowned analyst of Iran. He...

Sezai Ozan Zeybek, "Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) by Dr. Sezai Ozan Zeybek explores the intricate...

Patrick Chung, "Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026) by Dr. Patrick Chung tr...

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast, "Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers...

James Giesler, "Francisco de Saavedra's American Revolutionary War, The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown" (James Giesler, 2025)

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Francisco de Saavedra’s American Revolutionary War: The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown (James Giesler, 2025) by James Giesler is t...

Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Not everything about wool is warm and fuzzy. Wool, for millennia the cold climate textile fiber, has a long relationship to war, both in terms of supp...

Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of ...

Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, men...

American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Wednesday, February 18—Called “the greatest American diary of the nineteenth century,” the journal of the patrician New York City lawyer George ...

Colleen M. Moore, "The Peasants' War: Russia's Home Front in the First World War and the End of the Autocracy" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

14 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

During the First World War, Russia relied on the mass mobilization of its peasant population. In the summer of 1914, approximately four million peasan...

Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady, "Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century" (Howgate Publishing, 2026)

14 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2026), Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Ga...

Claire Morelon, "Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prague, 1914–1920" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Prague entered the First World War as the third city of the Habsburg empire, but emerged in 1918 as the capital of a brand new nation-state, Czechoslo...

Mark Stout, "World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence" (UP of Kansas, 2023)

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Ask an American intelligence officer to tell you when the country started doing modern intelligence and you will probably hear something about the Off...

Rosina Buckland and Oleg Benesch, "Samarai" (British Museum, 2025)

07 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Samurai (British Museum Press 2026) is a richly illustrated volume co-authored by exhibition curator Rosina Buckland (British Museum) and Oleg Bene...

Andrew Monaghan, "Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War" (Manchester UP, 2025)

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A cutting-edge investigation of how Russia makes war. Russian strategy in the twenty-first century has been described in terms of 'hybrid' warfare, a...

Peter Stansky, "The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War" (Stanford UP, 2023)

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Few English writers wielded a pen so sharply as George Orwell, the quintessential political writer of the twentieth century. His literary output at on...

Nicole Wegner, "Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) by Dr. Nicole Wegner is not a book about peacekeep...

Jeremy Black, "The Revolutionary War" (St. Augustine's Press, 2026)

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Military historian Jeremy Black follows his engagement with the American Civil War (St. Augustine's Press, 2025) with a review of the Revolutionary Wa...

Jeremy Black, "Britain's Imperial Histories (St. Augustine's Press, 2025)

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Military historian Jeremy Black continues his review of the global context of martial conflict and spatial conquest into the modern era (16th-20th cen...

Erika Quinn, "This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Through the diaries and personal papers of a German woman, Vera Conrad, This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948 (Berghahn Bo...

Jason Burke, "The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s" (Knopf, 2026)

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jason Burke's The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s (Knopf, 2026) is an epic, authoritative, gripping account of ...

Alex Wellerstein, "The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age" (Harper, 2025)

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was, arguably, the most controversial decision of the 20th century. The responsibility for that...

Michael P.M. Fox et al., eds., " Framing the First World War: How Divergent Views Shaped a Global Conflict" (UP of Kansas, 2025)

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The character of the conflict that erupted in 1914 defied the expectations of many political leaders and military analysts. Despite the mountains of b...

John M. Findlay, "The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the 1930s, the West was in peril. A cultural and economic backwater, the Great Depression had all-but wiped out the extractive industri...

Gerald F. Goodwin, "Race in the Crucible of War: African American Servicemen and the War in Vietnam" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When African American servicemen went to fight in the Vietnam War, discrimination and prejudice followed them. Even in a faraway country, their milita...

Duncan Kelly, "Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Duncan Kelly is a new intellectu...

Amanda G. Madden, "Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy" (Cornell UP, 2025)

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy (Cornell UP, 2025) is a study of the practice of vendetta among the civic e...

Giles Tremlett, "El Generalísimo: A Biography of Francisco Franco" (Oxford UP, 2025)

17 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From a scrawny, overlooked military graduate to the youngest general in Europe, Francisco Franco was known for his ambition, talent and calculated ris...

Reena Goldthree, "Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean" (Princeton UP, 2025)

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Following the outbreak of World War I, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered as soldiers to fight on behalf of the British E...

Steven J. Brady, "Less Than Victory: American Catholics and the Vietnam War" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The first book of its kind, Less Than Victory: American Catholics and the Vietnam War (Cambridge UP, 2025) by Dr. Steven J. Brady explores both the ...

Jessica Kelly and Neal Shasore, "Reconstruction: Architecture, Society and the Aftermath of the First World War" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Reconstruction explores the impact of the First World War on the built environment - examining the immediate effects and aftermath of the Great War o...

Charles G. Thomas, "Ujamaa's Army: The Creation and Evolution of the Tanzania People's Defence Force, 1964-1979" (Ohio UP, 2024)

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The immediate postcolonial moment brought both promise and peril for the states of Africa and their security. The process of decolonization generated ...

Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration. Helen J. Nicholson's book Wo...

Aaron Bateman. "Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative" (MIT Press, 2024)

06 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond...

Susan McCready, "Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

03 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on memory studies and theatrical history, Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War (University of Toronto Press, ...

Filip Kovacevic, "KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

25 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union (University of Toronto Press, 2025) offers a first-ever glimpse into the mysterious ...

Samuel Helfont, "The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

American wars in Iraq were a defining feature of global politics for almost thirty years. The Gulf War of 1991, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003,...

Tim Bouverie, "Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World" (Crown, 2025)

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Tim Bouverie, the renowned author of the very well received Appeasement, gives us another brilliant history Allies at War: How the Str...

Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft (Cornell UP, 2025), Erik Lin-Greenberg shows that drones are rewriting the rules of inter...

David Nasaw, "The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II" (Penguin, 2025)

16 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In its duration, geographical reach, and ferocity, World War II was unprecedented, and the effects on those who fought it and their loved ones at home...

Matthew A. Tattar, "Innovation and Adaptation in War" (MIT Press, 2025)

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An analysis of advances in military technology that illustrates the importance of organizational flexibility in both an attacker’s innovations and a...

Charlotte Macdonald, "Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and across the British Empire" (Bridget Williams Books, 2025)

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The pivotal year of 1870 brought down the curtain on the redcoat garrison world at both the metropolitan and colonial ends of the empire . . . In fewe...

Beau Cleland, "Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: How Pirates, Smugglers, and Scoundrels Almost Saved the Confederacy" (U Georgia Press, 2025)

07 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: How Pirates, Smugglers, and Scoundrels Almost Saved the Confederacy (U Georgia Press, 2025) by Dr. Beau Clel...

Michal A. Piegzik, "Gamble in the Coral Sea: Japan's Offensive, the Carrier Battle, and the Road to Midway" (Naval Institute Press, 2025)

07 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Driven by extensive Japanese primary sources, Gamble in the Coral Sea: Japan's Offensive, the Carrier Battle, and the Road to Midway (Naval Instit...

Henry Rausch, "Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War" (Independently Published, 2024)

06 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War (Independently Published, 2024), the author graduates from an eli...

Steve Tibble, "Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood" (Yale UP, 2025)

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Assassins and the Templars. Two groups that are now part of popular legend–and not just because of Assassin’s Creed, the massive video game ...

Jonathan S. Jones, "Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis" (UNC Press, 2025)

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

During the Civil War, the utility and widespread availability of opium and morphine made opiates essential to wartime medicine. After the war ended, t...

Marc Sommers, "We the Young Fighters: Pop Culture, Terror, and War in Sierra Leone" (U Georgia Press, 2023)

30 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We the Young Fighters: Pop Culture, Terror, and War in Sierra Leone (U Georgia Press, 2023) by Dr. Marc Sommers is at once a history of a nation, the...

James Lacey, "Rome: Strategy of Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)

29 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From Octavian's victory at Actium (31 B.C.) to its traditional endpoint in the West (476), the Roman Empire lasted a solid 500 years -- an impressive ...

Jochen Hellbeck, "World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews" (Penguin Group, 2025)

25 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the West, World War II is commonly understood as the Allies’ struggle against Nazism. Often elided, if not simply forgotten, is the Soviet Union’...

Nina Wilen, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025)

25 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Sahel has become a focal point of international security interventions, with external actors providing extensive security force assistance (SFA) t...

Marek Kohn, "The Stories Old Towns Tell: A Journey Through Cities at the Heart of Europe" (Yale UP, 2023)

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historic quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfu...

John Bodnar, "Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11" (UNC Press, 2021)

22 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

September 11th, 2001 marked the beginning of the so-called war on terror, but the attacks of that day also re-ignited battles over the nature of Ameri...

Tim Seiter, "Wrangling Pelicans: Military Life in Texas Presidios" (U Texas Press, 2025)

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A richly detailed history of daily life for colonial Spanish soldiers surviving on the eighteenth-century Texas Gulf Coast. In 1775, Spanish King Car...

John Goodall, "The Castle: A History" (Yale UP, 2022)

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Castle: A History (Yale University Press, 2022) Dr. John Goodall presents a vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle A...

Jennifer Yip, "Grains of Conflict: The Struggle for Food in China’s Total War, 1937-1945" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

15 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did China’s Nationalists feed their armies during the long war against Japan? In her new book, Grains of Conflict: The Struggle for Food in Chi...

David Kieran, "Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military's Mental Health Crisis" (NYU Press, 2019)

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The surprising story of the Army's efforts to combat PTSD and traumatic brain injury The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a tremendous toll on...

Sonia Faleiro, "The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern Asia" (Columbia UP, 2025)

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the robe becomes a weapon, who can stop the violence? We think of Buddhism as a faith of peace—rooted in compassion, patience, and nonviolence...

Mila Burns, "Dictatorship Across Borders: Brazil, Chile, and the South American Cold War" (UNC Press, 2025)

13 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dictatorship Across Borders: Brazil, Chile, and the South American Cold War (UNC Press, 2025) offers a groundbreaking perspective on the 1973 Chilea...

Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of th...

Phillips Payson O'Brien, "War and Power: Who Wins Wars--And Why" (PublicAffairs, 2025)

11 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A bold, revisionist study of modern warfare, showing that military victory is rooted not in large armies and decisive battles, but in the full spectru...

Jason A. Higgins, "Prisoners After War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Prisoners after War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration (University of Mass. Press, 2024), Dr. Jason Higgins examines the connections betw...

Wolfgang Wagner, "The Democratic Politics of Military Interventions" (Oxford UP, 2020)

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

According to a widely shared notion, foreign affairs are exempted from democratic politics, i.e. party-political divisions are overcome-and should be ...

E. Alaverdov and M. W. Bari, "Cultural Heritage Protection and Restoration in Conflict and Post-Conflict Zones" (IGI Global, 2025)

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The protection and restoration of cultural heritage is essential, especially in conflict and post-conflict zones. Armed conflicts frequently result in...