New Books in Military History

Paul M. Cobb, “The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades” (Oxford UP, 2014)

The Crusades loom large in contemporary popular consciousness. However, our public understanding has largely been informed from a western perspective, despite the fact that there is a rich textual tr…

00:49:40 | Mon 25 Jul 2016

Mitchell Yockelson, “Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in WWI” (NAL Caliber, 2016)

In Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I (NAL Caliber, 2016), National Archives historian and forensic archivist Mitchell Yockelson reappraise…

00:58:22 | Mon 25 Jul 2016

John Freed, “Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth” (Yale UP, 2016)

For all of his importance as a medieval ruler, there are surprisingly few biographies in English of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1122-1190). John Freed fills this gap with his new book…

01:09:50 | Fri 15 Jul 2016

Marc Lynch, “The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East” (PublicAffairs, 2016)

Marc Lynch is the author of The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2016). Lynch is a professor of political science at George Washington University and blogs at …

00:21:31 | Mon 13 Jun 2016

Michael Broer, “Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny” (Pegasus, 2015)

Most biographers writing about the life and achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte have focused on his dramatic personality or his military campaigns. In Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny (Pegasus, 2015) the …

00:50:13 | Fri 13 May 2016

Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War” (U of Massachusetts Press, 2015)

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professo…

00:42:26 | Sat 30 Apr 2016

Joshua Zimmerman, “The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

Some books fly high above the field, making sweeping generalizations about big questions. Other books circle over a specific problem, analyzing it in great detail to say something important about a …

01:48:49 | Fri 18 Mar 2016

John M. Kinder, “Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)

John Kinder brings to life the challenges and problems faced by the disabled veteran in American history from the Civil War to the current day in his evocative book, Paying with Their Bodies: America…

01:18:18 | Fri 18 Dec 2015

Daniel Tortora, "Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763" (UNC Press, 2015)

Long viewed conventionally through the lens of inter-European/colonist conflict, warfare in colonial era North America is currently experiencing a resurgence as a new generation of military historian…

00:58:38 | Fri 18 Dec 2015

Peter Thorsheim, “Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

In Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press 2015), Peter Thorsheim explores the role of waste and recycling in Britain under conditions of tota…

00:59:30 | Thu 17 Dec 2015

Jennifer Mittelstadt, “The Rise of the Military Welfare State” (Harvard UP, 2015)

Have you seen those Facebook memes floating around, arguing that we shouldn’t support a 15-dollar -per-hour minimum wage for service sector workers because the military doesn’t earn a living wage? Je…

00:50:26 | Thu 10 Dec 2015

Nicholas Stargardt, “The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945” (Basic Books, 2015)

In all of the thousands upon thousands of books written about Nazi Germany, it’s easy to lose track of some basic questions. What did Germans think they were fighting for? Why did they support the wa…

01:10:24 | Wed 18 Nov 2015

John Kinder, “Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)

John Kinder brings to life the challenges and problems faced by the disabled veteran in American history from the Civil War to the current day in his evocative book, Paying with Their Bodies: America…

01:18:18 | Tue 06 Oct 2015

Derek J. Penslar, “Jews and the Military: A History” (Princeton UP, 2015)

In Jews and the Military: A History (Princeton University Press, 2015), Derek J. Penslar, the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford and the Samuel Zacks Professor of J…

00:31:07 | Thu 01 Oct 2015

Terrance J. Finnegan, “A Delicate Affair on the Western Front: America Learns How to Fight a Modern War in the Woevre Trenches” (The History Press, 2015)

In his second book, author Terrance J. Finnegan describes America’s early experience fighting the Germans during World War I. Finnegan’s A Delicate Affair on the Western Front: America Learns How to …

01:00:28 | Mon 14 Sep 2015

Dan Stone, “The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath” (Yale UP, 2015)

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