New Books In Military History

Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London's 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale's contributions to the care of soldiers in the Crimean War revolutionized medical hygiene, transforming hospitals from crucibles of infection to sanctuaries of recuperation. Yet histories of individual innovators ignore many key sources of medical knowledge, especially when it comes to the science of infectious disease. Reexamining the foundations of modern medicine, Jim Downs shows that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of nonconsenting subjects--conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of empire. Plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories in which physicians came to understand the spread of disease. Military doctors learned about the importance of air quality by monitoring Africans confined to the bottom of slave ships. Statist

Elizabeth Oyler and Katherine Saltzman-Li's book Cultural Imprints: War and Memory in the Samurai Age (Cornell UP, 2022) draws on literary works, artifacts, performing arts, and documents that were created by or about the samurai to examine individual "imprints," traces holding specifically grounded historical meanings that persist through time. The contributors to this interdisciplinary volume assess those imprints for what they can suggest about how thinkers, writers, artists, performers, and samurai themselves viewed warfare and its lingering impact at various points during the "samurai age," the long period from the establishment of the first shogunate in the twelfth century through the fall of the Tokugawa in 1868. The range of methodologies and materials discussed in Cultural Imprints challenges a uniform notion of warrior activity and sensibilities, breaking down an ahistorical, monolithic image of the samurai that developed late in the samurai age and that persists today. Highlighting the memory of wa

The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum’s most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artistry of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, once West Africa’s most powerful, and today part of Nigeria. But despite the Bronzes’ renown, little has been written about the brutal imperial violence with which they were plundered. Paddy Docherty’s searing new history tells that story: the 1897 British invasion of Benin. Armed with shocking details discovered in the archives, Paddy Docherty in his latest book Blood and Bronze: The British Empire and the Sack of Benin (Hurst, 2022) sets this assault in its late Victorian context. As British power faced new commercial and strategic pressures elsewhere, it ruthlessly expanded in West Africa. Revealing both the extent of African resistance and previously concealed British outrages, this is a definitive account of the destruction of Benin. Laying bare the Empire’s true motives and violent means, including the official coverup of

Today I talked to Jaclyn Granick about her book International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War (Cambridge UP, 2021).  In 1914, seven million Jews across Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were caught in the crossfire of warring empires in a disaster of stupendous, unprecedented proportions. In response, American Jews developed a new model of humanitarian relief for their suffering brethren abroad, wandering into American foreign policy as they navigated a wartime political landscape. The effort continued into peacetime, touching every interwar Jewish community in these troubled regions through long-term refugee, child welfare, public health, and poverty alleviation projects. Against the backdrop of war, revolution, and reconstruction, this is the story of American Jews who went abroad in solidarity to rescue and rebuild Jewish lives in Jewish homelands. As they constructed a new form of humanitarianism and re-drew the map of modern philanthropy, they rebuilt the Jewish Diaspora its

For King and Country: The British Monarchy and the First World War (Cambridge UP, 2021) is a ground-breaking history of the British monarchy in the First World War and of the social and cultural functions of monarchism in the British war effort. Heather Jones examines how the conflict changed British cultural attitudes to the monarchy, arguing that the conflict ultimately helped to consolidate the crown's sacralised status. She looks at how the monarchy engaged with war recruitment, bereavement, gender norms, as well as at its political and military powers and its relationship with Ireland and the empire. She considers the role that monarchism played in military culture and examines royal visits to the front, as well as the monarchy's role in home front morale and in interwar war commemoration. Her findings suggest that the rise of republicanism in wartime Britain has been overestimated and that war commemoration was central to the monarchy's revered interwar status up to the abdication crisis. In short, this

Otto Dix fought in the First World War for the better part of four years before becoming one of the most important artists of the Weimar era. Marked by the experience, he made monumental, difficult and powerful works about it. Whereas Dix has often been presented as a lone voice of reason and opposition in Germany between the wars, this book locates his work squarely in the mainstream of Weimar society. Informed by recent studies of collective remembrance, of camaraderie, and of the popular, working-class socialist groups that commemorated the war, Michael Mackenzie's book Otto Dix and the First World War: Grotesque Humor, Camaraderie and Remembrance (Peter Lang, 2019) takes Dix's very public, monumental works out of the isolation of the artist's studio and returns them to a context of public memorials, mass media depictions, and the communal search for meaning in the war. The author argues that Dix sought to establish a community of veterans through depictions of the war experience that used the soldier's hu

Forging Leninism in China: Mao and the Remaking of the Chinese Communist Party, 1927–1934 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) is a re-examination of the events of the Chinese revolution and the transformation of the Chinese Communist Party from the years 1927 to 1934. Describing the transformation of the party as 'the forging of Leninism', Dr. Joseph Fewsmith offers a clear analysis of the development of the party. Drawing on supporting statements of party leaders and a wealth of historical material, he demonstrates how the Chinese Communist Party reshaped itself to become far more violent, more hierarchical, and more militarized during this time. He highlights the role of local educated youth in organizing the Chinese revolution, arguing that it was these local organizations, rather than Mao, who introduced Marxism into the countryside. Dr. Fewsmith presents a vivid story of local social history and conflict between Mao's revolutionaries and local Communists. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melche

Susan H. Allen's Interactive Peacemaking: A People-Centered Approach (Routledge, 2022) examines the theory and practice of interactive peacemaking, centering the role of people in making peace. This book presents the theory and practice of peacemaking as found in contemporary processes globally. By putting people at the center of the analysis, it outlines the possibilities of peacemaking by and for the people whose lives are touched by ongoing conflicts. While considering examples from around the world, this book specifically focuses on peacemaking in the Georgian-South Ossetian context. It tells the stories of individuals on both sides of the conflict, and explores why people choose to make peace, and how they work within their societies to encourage this. This book emphasizes theory built from practice and offers methodological guidance on learning from practice in the conflict resolution field. This book will be of much interest to students and practitioners of peacemaking, conflict resolution, South Cauca

The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923: Success against the Odds (UP of Kansas, 2021) by Dean A. Nowowiejski fills a gap in American military and political history through thorough research and a compelling narrative of the Rhineland occupation. After the armistice ended the fighting on the Western Front in World War I, the Third US Army marched into the American occupation zone around the city of Koblenz, Germany, in December 1918. American forces remained there as part of an “inter-Allied” coalition until early 1923. Nowowiejski reintroduces us to a successful military-diplomat, Major General Henry T. Allen, who faced two major challenges: build an efficient army and handle the complexity of working with the Allied powers of France, Britain, and Belgium in the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission (IARHC). Allen’s ability to balance the interests of the French with those of the occupied Germans made him an indispensable participant in the High Commission. As the French sought revenge and added security ag

In May 1776 more than two hundred Indian warriors descended the St. Lawrence River to attack Continental forces at the Cedars, west of Montreal. In just three days’ fighting, the Native Americans and their British and Canadian allies forced the American fort to surrender and ambushed a fatally delayed relief column. In Down the Warpath to the Cedars: Indians' First Battles in the Revolution (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022), Mark R. Anderson flips the usual perspective on this early engagement and focuses on its Native participants—their motivations, battlefield conduct, and the event’s impact in their world. In this way, Anderson’s work establishes and explains Native Americans’ centrality in the Revolutionary War’s northern theater. Anderson’s dramatic, deftly written narrative encompasses decisive diplomatic encounters, political intrigue, and scenes of brutal violence but is rooted in deep archival research and ethnohistorical scholarship. It sheds new light on the alleged massacre and atrocities that

When China’s War of Resistance against Japan began in July 1937, it sparked an immediate health crisis throughout China. In the end, China not only survived the war but emerged from the trauma with a more cohesive population. Nicole Elizabeth Barnes’s book, Intimate Communities: Wartime Healthcare and the Birth of Modern China, 1937-1945 (University of California Press, 2018), argues that women who worked as military and civilian nurses, doctors, and midwives during this turbulent period built the national community, one relationship at a time. In a country with a majority illiterate, agricultural population that could not relate to urban elites’ conceptualization of nationalism, these women used their work of healing to create emotional bonds with soldiers and civilians from across the country. These bonds transcended the divides of social class, region, gender, and language. This book has won two major awards, William H. Welch Award by American Association for the History of Medicine in 2020, and Joan Kelly

Despite attracting headlines and hype, insurgents rarely win. Even when they claim territory and threaten governmental writ, they typically face a military backlash too powerful to withstand. States struggle with addressing the political roots of such movements, and their military efforts mostly just ‘mow the grass’; yet, for the insurgent, the grass is nonetheless mowed–and the armed project must start over. “In reviewing the overall insurgent experience in recent years, there are exceedingly few instances where they have toppled an established government and seized sustained power. Indeed, rather than being overthrown one after the other, most states survive the onslaught of insurgency, often by relying on their superior resources and military capabilities. Though the counterinsurgency manuals preach mobilisation and hearts and minds, it is typically through suppression that states contain their adversary, causing their movement to either fizzle our or to become a peripheral concern. Outright victory may el

To say that World War II and Southeast Asia: Economy and Society under Japanese Occupation (Cambridge University Press, 2020) is an impressive achievement is a huge understatement. Based on years of research in over two dozen archives on three continents, this book won the Lindart-Williamson prize from the Economic History Association. World War II and Southeast Asia: Economy and Society under Japanese Occupation explores how Japan, as part of its plan to build an East Asian empire and secure oil supplies essential for war in the Pacific, swiftly took control of Southeast Asia. Dr. Huff describes the occupation’s devastating economic impact on the region. Japan imposed country and later regional autarky on Southeast Asia, dictated that the region finance its own occupation, and sent almost no consumer goods. GDP fell by half everywhere in Southeast Asia except Thailand. Famine and forced labor accounted for most of the 4.4 million Southeast Asian civilian deaths under Japanese occupation. World War II and Sou

Robert Jacob’s book Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale UP, 2022) re‑envisions the history of the Cold War as a slow nuclear war, fought on remote battlegrounds against populations powerless to prevent the contamination of their lands and bodies. Jacobs’s book put these “nuclear bodies” and the legacy of our eighty years history of nuclear weapon and power use at the center of his inquiry. The contaminated bodies of the hibakusha and the contaminated grounds on which they live (or in many cases lived. As many lost their homes), Jacobs argues, are largely invisible because of the colonial and post -colonial power relations that made these communities a target to begin with. Nuclear weapon tests and power stations usually were set at remote places, and the harm was done to people with no political power. Furthermore, it is not just contemporary communities that were harmed, but also future generations. “Plutonium will remain dangerous for over two hundred thousand years, and uranium particles for more th

Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte (Rutgers University Press, 2021), by Yveline Alexis is the first US study of the politician and caco leader (guerrilla fighter) who fought against the US occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. Alexis locates rare multilingual sources from both nations and documents Péralte's political movement and citizens' protests. The interdisciplinary work offers a new approach to studies of the US invasion period by documenting how Caribbean people fought back. Alejandra Bronfman is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Latin American, Caribbean & U.S. Latino Studies at SUNY, Albany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a "forever war"--a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity. Millions have died in one of the worst humanitarian calamities of our time. The War That Doesn't Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo (Princeton UP, 2022) investigates the most recent phase of this conflict, asking why the peace deal of 2003--accompanied by the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world and tens of billions in international aid--has failed to stop the violence. Jason Stearns argues that the fighting has become an end in itself, carried forward in substantial part through the apathy and complicity of local and international actors. Stearns shows that regardless of the suffering, there has emerged a narrow military bourgeoisie of commanders and politicians for whom the conflict is a source of survival, dignity, and profit. Foreign donors provide food and urgent health

Although there is often opposition to individual wars, most people continue to believe that the arms industry is necessary in some form: to safeguard our security, provide jobs and stimulate the economy. Not only conservatives, but many progressives and liberals, support it for these reasons. Indefensible puts forward a devastating challenge to this conventional wisdom, which has normalized the existence of the most savage weapons of mass destruction ever known. Indefensible: Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade (Zed Books, 2017) is the essential handbook for those who want to debunk the arguments of the industry and its supporters: deploying case studies, statistics and irrefutable evidence to demonstrate they are fundamentally flawed, both factually and logically. Far from protecting us, the book shows how the arms trade undermines our security by fanning the flames of war, terrorism and global instability. In countering these myths, the book points to ways in which we can combat the arms trade's

Today I spoke to Prof. Adrian Shubert, professor of History at York University and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada about his book on the nineteenth century Spanish soldier statesman Baldomero Espartero published by the University of Toronto Press in 2021. Baldomero Espartero (1793–1879) who Shubert compares to Napoleon and Garibaldi and on whom a postage stamp was released in May 2020 in Spain (after the publication of The Sword..), led a life resembling that of a character created by Stendhal or Gabriel García Márquez. Indeed Espartero was famed to have been the peacemaker who promoted national unity who had brought an end to the horrific Carlist civil war, a highly internationalized conflict. He became the harbinger of a nationalism that was not elitist but collective. In The Sword of Luchana: Baldomero Espartero and the Making of Modern Spain, 1793–1879 (U Toronto Press, 2021), based on comprehensive archival research in Spain, Argentina, and the United Kingdom, the historian explores the public an

Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787-1860 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) threads together political science, history, economics, American political development, and administrative developments to understand the unique role that the United States’ Army played in laying the groundwork for so much of the growth and evolution both before and after the Civil War in the U.S. Political Scientist William Adler examines the understanding and place of the state in early America, digging at what really happened in the decades after the revolutionary war and the establishment of the new constitutional system. Adler highlights the interesting ways in which the U.S. Army was involved in governing this expanding territory, from providing engineering expertise, which was a scarcity at this time in the United States, to contributing to the development of economic dynamics in the young republic. As Adler notes, the U.S. Army was everywhere, but it was particularly present on the periphery of the co

As the horrors of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine unfold before our eyes, we have witnessed a massive wave of refugees absorbed by a range of Eastern European countries – with the most refugees so far remaining in Poland. This is a remarkably apt moment to talk about the lessons of an important new study by historian Jochen Lingelbach. In On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa during and after the Second World War (Berghahn, 2020), Lingelbach tells the story of just under 20,000 Polish refugees (many, from present-day Ukraine) who, initially deported into the Soviet Union at the start of World War II, found themselves in British hands after the USSR joined the Allies in 1941, and were transferred to the British-held colonies of East and Central Africa. On the Edges of Whiteness traces the complex relationships that developed among the Polish refugees, their British administrators, and their African neighbors in a story of survival and dramatic dislocation against the backdrop