New Books in Military History
Episodes
Erik Grimmer-Solem, "Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The First World War marked the end point of a process of German globalization that began in the 1870s, well before Germany acquired a colonial empire ...
Stella Ghervas, "Conquering Peace: From the Enlightenment to the European Union" (Harvard UP, 2021)
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stella Ghervas's Conquering Peace: From the Enlightenment to the European Union (Harvard University Press, 2021) is a bold new look at war and dipl...
Brent D. Ziarnick, "To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of Strategic Air Command in the Cold War" (US Naval Institute Press, 2021)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A sadist. A madman. A sociopath seduced by the terrible allure of nuclear weapons. These are but a few of the pejoratives commonly used to describe Un...
Richard Hammond, "Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2020) , D...
Douglas M. O'Reagan, "Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science After the Second World War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), Dou...
David Hosaflook (trans.), "The Siege of Shkodra: Albania's Courageous Stand Against Ottoman Conquest, 1478" (2017)
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mehmet the Conqueror shook Europe to its foundations when he captured Constantinople in 1453 and, over the next decades, the Ottoman sultan continued ...
Stefano Marcuzzi, "Britain and Italy in the Era of the First World War: Defending and Forging Empires" (Cambridge UP, 2020).
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is a reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Max Weber Fellow at the European Uni...
Bing West, "The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War" (Bombardier Books, 2020)
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War (Bombardier Books, 2020) is a riveting book of infantry ground combat. As a work of fiction it is su...
Gershom Gorenberg, "War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East" (Public Affairs, 2021)
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942...
Sarah Kovner, "Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps" (Harvard UP, 2020)
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Kovner’s Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps (Harvard UP, 2020) is a nuanced look at the experiences, narratives―and the po...
Michael Kluger and Richard Evans, "Roosevelt's and Churchill's Atlantic Charter: A Risky Meeting at Sea that Saved Democracy" (Naval Institute Press, 2021)
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Winston Churchill was no stranger to storms. They had engulfed him in various ways throughout his long career and he had always turned to face them wi...
Richard V. Barbuto, "New York's War of 1812: Politics, Society, and Combat" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From its use as a staging ground for invasions of Canada to the blockading of its ports, New York found itself at the forefront of America’s war wit...
Elizabeth Thompson, "How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020)
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Europe’s Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on th...
Lorenzo Servitje, "Medicine Is War: The Martial Metaphor in Victorian Literature and Culture" (SUNY Press, 2021)
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Medicine is most often understood through the metaphor of war. We encounter phrases such as “the war against the coronavirus,” “the front lines ...
Elizabeth Becker, "You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War" (PublicAffairs, 2021)
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Who were your heroes during your formative years? As a child of the 1970s, many of mine were journalists, especially those reporting on war and revolu...
James R. Holmes, "A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy" (US Naval Institute Press, 2019)
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy (US Naval Institute Press, 2019), is a readable introduction to the world of maritime strategy. While Prof Holmes ...
W. P. Leeman and J. B. Hattendorf, "Forging the Trident: Theodore Roosevelt and the United States Navy" (Naval Institute Press, 2021)
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Theodore Roosevelt was a titan of American politics, society, and culture. Rarely soft spoken, always eager to brandish a big stick, and animated by a...
Gary Scott Smith, "Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill" (Eerdmans, 2021)
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Though Churchill harbored intellectual doubts about Christianity throughout his life, he nevertheless valued it greatly and drew on its resources, esp...
Ty Seidule, "Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause" (St. Martin's Press, 2021)
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're very fortunate to be joined by the editor of The West Point History of the Civil War (Simon and Schuster, 2014), the Head of the History Depa...
Alexander Morrison, "The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander Morrison’s study of the conquest of Central Asia offers new perspectives on a topic long obscured by misleading grand narratives. Based on...
R. A. Bennette, "Diagnosing Dissent: Hysterics, Deserters, and Conscientious Objectors in Germany During World War One" (Cornell UP, 2020)
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Although physicians during World War I, and scholars since, have addressed the idea of disorders such as shell shock as inchoate flights into sickness...
Roger R. Reese, "The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917" (U Kansas Press, 2019)
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Roger Reese’s recent book, The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917 (University of Kansas, 2019), takes a deep dive into...
Rana Mitter, "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945" (HMH, 2013)
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If we wish to understand the role of China in today’s global society, we would do well to remind ourselves of the tragic, titanic struggle which tha...
R. Alan Covey, "Inca Apocalypse: The Spanish Conquest and the Transformation of the Andean World" (Oxford UP, 2020)
11 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The arrival in 1532 of a small group of Spanish conquistadores at the Andean town of Cajamarca launched one of the most dramatic – and often misun...
Robert J. Mrazek, "The Indomitable Florence Finch: The Untold Story of a War Widow Turned Resistance Fighter and Savior of American POWs" (Hachette, 2020)
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robert J. Mrazek, an author of eleven books and former congressman from New York, has written a gripping account of one the most determine heroines of...
R. Roberts and J. Smith, "War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War" (Basic Books, 2020)
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the fall of 1918, a fever gripped Boston. The streets emptied as paranoia about the deadly Spanish flu spread. Newspapermen and vigilante investiga...
Jillian C. Rogers, "Resonant Recoveries: French Music and Trauma Between the World Wars" (Oxford UP, 2021)
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Understanding how people cope with large-scale traumatic events has become more urgent as we continue to cope with the effects of the pandemic. In Re...
Kevin Weddle, "The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2021)
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
British hopes that the American War for Independence would be brought to a swift conclusion began to wane in the early months of 1777. Despite brillia...
Olga Dror, "Making Two Vietnams: War and Youth Identities, 1965-1975" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are familiar with the history of the division of Vietnam in 1954 into two states, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic ...
Emmanuel Kreike, "Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature" (Princeton UP, 2021)
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature (Princeton UP, 2021), Emmanuel Kreike offers a global history of env...
Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright, 2020)
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Michael Gorra about his new book The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War (Liveright, 2020). This episode touches on two ...
D. Barno and N. Bensahel, "Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime" (Oxford UP, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Few human enterprises are as complex, dynamic, and unpredictable as war. Armed conflict substitutes the relatively ordered reality of peace with the u...
Jeremy Black, "A History of the Second World War in 100 Maps" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The First World War was marked by an exceptional expansion in the use and production of military cartography. But World War II took things even furthe...
Kelly A. Hammond, "China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II" (UNC Press, 2020)
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 1930s-40s expansion of the Japanese empire was marked by significant interest among Japan-based scholars and policy-makers in China’s Muslim pop...
Donald F. Johnson, "Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When we read the Declaration of Independence, what tends to jump off the page are the lofty propositions concerning natural rights. Yet over a third o...
Mark Cornwall, "Sarajevo 1914: Sparking the First World War" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. This key event in 20th-century history continues to fascin...
Jeremy Black, "Tank Warfare" (Indiana UP, 2020)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the battlefield in the 20th century was dominated by a handful of developments. Foremost of these was the introduction and refinement of ...
Jiří Hutečka, "Men Under Fire: Motivation, Morale, and Masculinity among Czech Soldiers in the Great War, 1914–1918" (Berghahn Books, 2019)
09 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In historical writing on World War I, Czech-speaking soldiers serving in the Austro-Hungarian military are typically studied as Czechs, rarely as sold...
Rana Mitter, "China's Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism" (Harvard UP, 2020)
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Although World War II had been largely remembered in the People’s Republic of China as an experience of victimization since its founding in 1949, th...
Michael Brenes, "For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump campaigned on a great many things in 2016, but one of the issues he used to criticize Democrats was their role in supporting sequestratio...
Covell F. Meyskens, "Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a momentous policy decision. In response to rising tensions with the United States and Soviet Union, a...
Jeremy Black, "Geopolitics and the Quest for Dominance" (Indiana UP, 2016)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
History and geography delineate the operation of power, not only its range but also the capacity to plan and the ability to implement. Approaching sta...
Paul Jankowski, "All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and the Origins of the Second World War" (Harper, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his latest monograph, All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and The Origins of the Second World War (Harper, 2020), Professor Paul Jankowski (...
Andrea Pető, "The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Pető's book The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) analyses...
Benjamin F. Armstrong, "Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two centuries before the daring exploits of Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders captured the public imagination, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were already...
David Vine, "The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State" (U California Press, 2020)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since its founding, the United States has been at peace for only eleven years. Across nearly two-and-a-half centuries, that’s a lot of war. In his...
Niklas Frykman, "The Bloody Flag: Mutiny in the Age of Atlantic Revolution" (U California Press, 2020)
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 1790s were a decade of turmoil and strife across the West. With the French Revolution, a new era of wars began that invoked the language of equal ...
David S. Nasca, "The Emergence of American Amphibious Warfare, 1898 to 1945" (Naval Institute Press, 2020)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amphibious warfare, as outlined by American Rear Admiral James E. Jouett in 1885, was a relatively straightforward affair: to project power from the s...
K. A. Lieber and D. G. Press, "The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age" (Cornell UP, 2020)
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age (Cornell University Press, 2020), Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press tackle the...
Chima J. Korieh, "Nigeria and World War II: Colonialism, Empire, and Global Conflict" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Reading the petitions that resident of colonial Nigeria submitted to the government during World War II, Marquette University historian, Prof. Chima J...
David Davis, "Wheels of Courage: How Paralyzed Veterans from World War II Invented Wheelchair Sports" (Center Street, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Out of the carnage of World War II comes an unforgettable tale about defying the odds and finding hope in the most harrowing of circumstances. Wheels ...
Dónal Hassett, "Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939" (Oxford UP, 2019)
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dónal Hassett’s Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939 (Oxford UP, 2019) is at once a history...
Frank Jacob, "Japanese War Crimes during World War II: Atrocity and the Psychology of Collective Violence" (Praeger, 2018)
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When you mention Japanese War crimes in World War Two, you’ll often get different responses from different generations. The oldest among us will ta...
Rhodri Jeffreys Jones, "The Nazi Spy Ring in America: Hitler’s Agents, the FBI and the Case that Stirred the Nation" (Georgetown UP, 2020)
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Nazi Spy Ring in America: Hitler’s Agents, the FBI & the Case that Stirred the Nation (Georgetown University Press, 2020), Rh...
Chris Lombardi, "I Ain’t Marching Anymore: Dissenters, Deserters and Objectors to America’s Wars" (The New Press, 2020)
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal t...
Jon Lindsay, "Information Technology and Military Power" (Cornell UP, 2020)
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many assume that information technology will one day clear away the “fog of war.” But as Jon Lindsay shows in Information Technology and Military ...
Christopher Capozzola, "Bound By War: How the United States and the Philippines Built America’s First Pacific Century" (Basic Books, 2020)
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since American troops occupied the Philippines in 1898, generations of Filipinos have served in and alongside the U.S. armed forces. In Bound By ...
Brandon M. Schechter, "The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects" (Cornell UP, 2019)
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects (Cornell University Press) uses everyday objects to tell the story of...
Stephen C. Kepher, "COSSAC: Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan and the Genesis of Operation OVERLORD" (Naval Institute Press, 2020)
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
D-Day, June 6, 1944, looms large in both popular and historical imaginations as the sin qua non, or single defining moment, of the Second World War. T...
Geoffrey Plank, "Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2020)
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For the people of the Dawnland, they were floating islands. The sails resembled clouds, and the men gathered on deck looked like bears. When Europeans...
Gregory A. Daddis, "Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his compelling evaluation of Cold War popular culture, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (Cambridge UP, 2020), G...
Lorenz M. Lüthi, "Cold Wars: Asia, the Middle East, Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What was the Cold War that shook world politics for the second half of the twentieth century? Standard narratives focus on Soviet-American rivalry as ...
Justin Q. Olmstead, "The United States' Entry into the First World War: The Role of British and German Diplomacy" (Boydell Press, 2019)
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The complicated situation which led to the American entry into the First World War in 1917 is often explained from the perspective of public opinion, ...
Despina Stratigakos, "Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway" (Princeton UP, 2020)
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway (Princeton University Press, 2020), Despina Stratigakos investi...
Thomas R. Metcalf, "Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860-1920" (University of California Press, 2008)
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas R. Metcalf’s Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860-1920 (University of California Press) is an innovative remapping of ...
Mark Santiago, "A Bad Peace and A Good War: Spain and the Mescalero Apache Uprising of 1795-1799" (U Oklahoma Press, 2018)
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1795, Apaches wiped out two Spanish patrols In the desert borderlands of the what is today the American Southwest and Mexican north. This at...
Wendy Moore, "No Man’s Land: The Trailblazing Women Who Ran Britain's Most Extraordinary Military Hospital During World War I (Basic Books, 2020)
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s guest is journalist and author, Wendy Moore. Her new book, No Man’s Land: The Trailblazing Women Who Ran Britain's Most Extraordinary Mili...
Rafael Medoff, "The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust" (JPS, 2019)
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Like so many Americans, American Jews supported President Roosevelt. They adored him. They believed in him. They idolized him. Perhaps they shouldn’...
S. Grayzel and T. Proctor, "Gender and the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2017)
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week episode of “New Books in History,” we’ll discuss Gender and the Great War (Oxford University Press, 2017) with editors Sue Grayzel ...
Khary O. Polk, "Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948" (UNC Press, 2020)
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Khary Oronde Polk is the author of Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948, published by the ...
Patrice Gueniffey, "Napoleon and de Gaulle: Heroes and History" (Harvard UP, 2020)
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One of France’s most famous historians compares and contrasts the two most famous French exemplars of political and military leadership of the past ...
J. Browning and T. Silver, "An Environmental History of the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2020)
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This sweeping new history recognizes that the Civil War was not just a military conflict but also a moment of profound transformation in Americans' re...
W. J. Perry and T. Z. Collina, "The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump" (BenBella Books, 2020)
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, American nuclear policy continues to be influenced by the legacies of the Cold War. Nuclear policies...
John C. McManus, "Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943 (Dutton Caliber, 2019)
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For most Americans, the war the United States waged in the Pacific in the Second World War was one fought primarily by the Navy and the Marine Corps. ...
Leah Zani, "Bomb Children: Life in the Former Battlefields of Laos" (Duke UP, 2019)
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Leah Zani, a public anthropologist and poet based in California, about her truly wonderful book Bomb Children: Life i...
Theresa Kaminski, "Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Women's Rights" (Lyons Press, 2020)
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Among the tens of thousands of Americans who volunteered their services during the Civil War was Mary Walker, a daring young woman who was one of the ...
Lakshmi Subramanian, "The Sovereign and the Pirate: Ordering Maritime Subjects in India's Western Littoral" (Oxford UP, 2016)
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lakshmi Subramanian’s The Sovereign and the Pirate: Ordering Maritime Subjects in India's Western Littoral (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers an...
Elizabeth Shesko, "Conscript Nation: Coercion and Citizenship in the Bolivian Barracks" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2020)
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Shesko’s Conscript Nation: Coercion and Citizenship in the Bolivian Barracks (University of Pittsburgh Press) is an intimate and rich hist...
Roger Moorhouse, "Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II" (Basic Books, 2020)
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Historian and academic Roger Moorhouse, revisits the opening campaign of World War II, the German invasion of Poland in September 1939., in his new bo...
The Cold War as History
21 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Cold War, the on again and off again confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union is one of the most famous historical episodes of the shor...
Erik Grimmer-Solem, "Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919"(Cambridge UP, 2019)
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919 (Cambridge University Press) Erik Grimmer-Solem e...
Crystal Mun-hye Baik, "Reencounters: On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique" (Temple UP, 2020)
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This interview coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, a war that, as Baik reminds us, has not officially ended. How are the particular...
Jeremy Black, "War in Europe: 1450 to the Present" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016)
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
War in Europe: 1450 to the Present (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) is a masterful overview of war and military development in Europe since 1450, bringing ...
Francine Hirsch, "Soviet Judgement at Nuremberg" (Oxford UP, 2020)
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did an authoritarian regime help lay the cornerstones of human rights and international law? Soviet Judgement at Nuremberg: A New History of the I...
Jeremy Black, "History of Europe: From Prehistory to the 21st Century" (Arcturus, 2019)
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In History of Europe: From Prehistory to the 21st Century, Jeremy Black presents a learned and yet entertaining exploration of the history: politi...
Robert Gerwarth, "November 1918: The German Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2020)
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Was Weimar doomed from the outset? In November 1918: The German Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2020), Robert Gerwarth argues that this is the wr...
Greg Mitchell, "The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (The New Press, 2020)
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
dSoon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called “the most impo...
Josh Cerretti, "Abuses of the Erotic: Militarizing Sexuality in the Post-Cold War United States" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jana Byars talks to Josh Cerretti, Associate Professor of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Western Washington Univ...
Thomas C. Rust, "Watching over Yellowstone: The US Army's Experience in America's First National Park, 1886–1918" (UP of Kansas, 2020)
25 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When, in 1883, Congress charged the US Army with managing Yellowstone National Park, soldiers encountered a new sort of hostility: work they were untr...
Richard Carswell, "The Fall of France in the Second World War: History and Memory" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
25 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This fascinating book by Richard Carswell looks at how the fall of France in the Second World War has been recorded by historians and remembered withi...
John Roosa, "Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia" (U Wisconsin Press, 2020)
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On the night of September 30/October 1, 1965, a bungled coup d’état resulted in the deaths of a handful of Indonesian generals and a young girl. Wi...
E. Bruce Geelhoed, "Diplomacy Shot Down: The U-2 Crisis and Eisenhower's Aborted Mission to Moscow, 1959–1960" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020)
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The history of the Cold War is littered with what-ifs, and in Diplomacy Shot Down: The U-2 Crisis and Eisenhower's Aborted Mission to Moscow, 1959–...
Why Did the Allies Win World War One?
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Great War was perhaps the greatest single upheaval of the 20th century. While World War II saw more lives lost, in terms of the shock to European/...
Alexander Gendler, "Khurbm 1914-1922: Prelude to the Holocaust" (Varda Books, 2019)
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The murder of two-thirds of European Jews, referred to by many as the Holocaust, did not begin June 22, 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet U...
Eric Lee, "The Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge, April–May 1945" (Greenhill Books, 2020)
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Lee's new book The Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge, April–May 1945 (Greenhill Books, 2020) tells the story of th...
Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for S...
Mary Fraser, "Policing the Home Front, 1914-1918: The Control of the British Population at War" (Routledge, 2018)
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Britain went to war in 1914, policemen throughout Great Britain found themselves called upon to perform an ever-increasing range of new tasks tha...
Stanley D. M. Carpenter, "Southern Gambit: Cornwallis and the British March to Yorktown" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Lord Cornwallis’s campaign through the southern American colonies came to an ignominious close on October 19, 1781, on an open field outside...
Maria Rashid, "Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army" (Stanford UP, 2020)
08 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her spellbindingly brilliant new book, Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army (Stanford University...
Le’Trice D. Donaldson, "Duty Beyond the Battlefield: African American Soldiers Fight for Racial Uplift, Citizenship, and Manhood, 1870-1920" (SIUP, 2020)
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Duty Beyond the Battlefield: African American Soldiers Fight for Racial Uplift, Citizenship, and Manhood, 1870-1920 (Southern Illinois...