Why am I passionate about this?

I never thought I’d become a historian of the US military. Like most Americans raised in the era of the All-Volunteer Force, I grew up with no close personal connections to the US military. Yet its symbols, metaphors, and power flooded my life, from movies to games to politics. Every encounter with a memoir, an operational history, a biography, or a government study offered a new understanding of how the US military came to play such a vital role in US society, and how US society in turn shaped practices and people in the military. These five histories did more than any others to shape my understanding of the military’s relationship to American society in the twentieth century.


I wrote

Rise of the Military Welfare State

By Jennifer Mittelstadt,

Book cover of Rise of the Military Welfare State

What is my book about?

Since the end of the draft, the U.S. Army has prided itself on its patriotic volunteers who heed the call…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II

Jennifer Mittelstadt Why did I love this book?

A classic work of war and society by a brilliant scholar of the gay experience during World War II. This deeply researched, lively book tells the personal stories of the gay men and women who were swept into military service in the 1940s. Berube documents how wartime induction put the military at the forefront of defining concepts of homosexuality at mid-century, and he describes the ambiguities and ambivalences that wartime service produced, both for the military and for gay service personnel. While the war brought hundreds of thousands of queer young people together and allowed them chances to create a vibrant new gay life, the military also grew increasingly repressive about homosexuality and instituted policies and practices to diagnose, disparage, and discharge gay men and women.

By Allan Bérubé,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Coming Out Under Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding antihomosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire , Allan Berube examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation--not as a story of how the military victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government, transforming them both. Drawing on GIs' wartime letters, extensive interviews with gay veterans, and declassified military documents, Berube…


Book cover of Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era

Jennifer Mittelstadt Why did I love this book?

Torchbearers is a pathbreaking history of the fight for American democracy during World War I, told from the perspective of African American servicemen who joined, fought, and returned from battle. Already engaged in conflict over civil rights in the US, African Americans took seriously the call to “make the world safe for democracy.” Through writing, activism, and organizing, they linked their domestic fight to the foreign fight against democracy’s enemies. Perhaps no other group in the US, Williams shows, was poised to engage the very biggest questions that animated the war – questions of citizenship, rights, freedom, and empire – as were African Americans. And their wartime service, he shows, was the crucible for the long freedom movement that followed.  

By Chad L. Williams,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Torchbearers of Democracy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On April 2, 1917, Woodrow Wilson thrust the United States into World War I by declaring, ""The world must be made safe for democracy."" For the 380,000 African American soldiers who fought and labored in the global conflict, these words carried life or death meaning. Relating stories bridging the war and postwar years, spanning the streets of Chicago and the streets of Harlem, from the battlefields of the American South to the battlefields of the Western Front, Chad L. Williams reveals the central role of African American soldiers in World War I and how they, along with race activists and…


Book cover of The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines

Jennifer Mittelstadt Why did I love this book?

Kara Vuic can tell a story! Her highly readable volume unearths the experiences of the tens of thousands of women who volunteered to sing, dance, play games, and break bread with soldiers throughout US military deployments of the 20th century. Enlisted by the military to keep up troop morale, women were sent to far-flung theaters of war, and served in every deployment from World War I through Iraq and Afghanistan.  Vuic teaches us how the military saw these “girls next door” as essential to encouraging men to fight, providing a fantasy of the American gendered dream — a girlfriend or wife back home. The women walked a tricky line, expected to exhibit enough femininity to entrance and entertain but not so much as to be sexually available. Vuic reveals the tensions and dangers faced by women working in troop morale and shows convincingly how gender and sexuality serve vital roles in military strategy.

By Kara Dixon Vuic,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Girls Next Door as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of the intrepid young women who volunteered to help and entertain American servicemen fighting overseas, from World War I through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The emotional toll of war can be as debilitating to soldiers as hunger, disease, and injury. Beginning in World War I, in an effort to boost soldiers' morale and remind them of the stakes of victory, the American military formalized a recreation program that sent respectable young women and famous entertainers overseas.

Kara Dixon Vuic builds her narrative around the young women from across the United States, many of whom had never…


Book cover of Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II

Jennifer Mittelstadt Why did I love this book?

You can’t understand today’s privatized military without this groundbreaking new book on the history of WWII and the military-industrial complex. Wilson’s political and economic history overturns celebratory myths of American business acumen winning the war. Instead, Wilson shows that the “arsenal of democracy” lay not in the private sector but in the massive public sector of military-owned and military-operated production facilities that churned out planes, tanks, bombs, and materiel. Government production angered American businessmen who had hoped to capture wartime profits and legitimacy. Corporate leaders and their allies resisted government production at every turn and launched political and public relations campaigns to hide the government’s scope and successes. The private sector’s battle to regain control of military production and services, Wilson shows, launched a long-term movement toward military privatization and outsourcing.

By Mark R. Wilson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Destructive Creation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During World War II, the United States helped vanquish the Axis powers by converting its enormous economic capacities into military might. Producing nearly two-thirds of all the munitions used by Allied forces, American industry became what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "the arsenal of democracy." Crucial in this effort were business leaders. Some of these captains of industry went to Washington to coordinate the mobilization, while others led their companies to churn out weapons. In this way, the private sector won the war-or so the story goes.
Based on new research in business and military archives, Destructive Creation shows that…


Book cover of Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century

Jennifer Mittelstadt Why did I love this book?

When I picked up Homefront, I couldn’t put it down. A study of perhaps the most iconic military community in the US, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Homefront brings a reader as close to everyday life in a military town as they can get without being there. Lutz burrows into Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, and pries open their histories and cultures. She offers glimpses into military subculture, the militarization of American infrastructure, the tensions surrounding town-and-installation relations. More than any other book, Homefront sensitized me to the complexities of twentieth-century US military culture and its deep influence on American people, places, and ideas. 

By Catherine A. Lutz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Homefront as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A look at Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to Fort Bragg, that poses the question,'Are we all military dependents?'

Fayetteville has earned the nicknames of Fatalville and Fayettenam. Unusual and not-sounusual features of the town include gross income inequalities, an extraordinarily high incidence of venereal disease, miles and miles of strip malls, and a history of racial violence. Through interviews with residents and historical research, Catherine Lutz immerses herself in the life of the town to discover how it has supported the military for over a century. From secret training operations that use civilians as mock enemies and allies to the…


Explore my book 😀

Rise of the Military Welfare State

By Jennifer Mittelstadt,

Book cover of Rise of the Military Welfare State

What is my book about?

Since the end of the draft, the U.S. Army has prided itself on its patriotic volunteers who heed the call to “Be All That You Can Be.” But beneath the recruitment slogans, the army promised volunteers something more tangible: a social safety net including medical and dental care, education, child care, financial counseling, housing assistance, legal services, and other privileges that had long been reserved for career soldiers. 

The Rise of the Military Welfare State examines how the U.S. Army’s extension of benefits to enlisted men and women created a military welfare system of unprecedented size and scope at the end of the twentieth century. And it examines how this welfare state fared amidst the rollback of civilian social welfare, a turn to “self-reliance” within the military leadership, and the growth of military privatization and outsourcing.  

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By Kalvin Thane,

Book cover of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

Kalvin Thane Author Of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

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Why am I passionate about this?

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What is my book about?

Unlike the typical tales of a flawless fighting unit, this story follows Commander Kami Trenn and her ragtag squad of mixed-race space marines.

Dog Squad fights a mysterious adversary whose presence remains shrouded in secrecy. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but will they be able to make enough of a difference?

Can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic dominance before the Alliance falls? Maybe. If they can stop fighting each other.

Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

By Kalvin Thane,

What is this book about?

Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.

The tenuous Alliance, sixty civilizations united only by fear of invasion, prepare to resist the encroachment of their as-yet unseen enemy, known only as the Creeps.

The Void has become a battleground. Three thousand light years across, and populated by a scattering of ten thousand ‘dark’ worlds, it is the Alliance’s last chance to protect their way of life. Self-destructive, robotic drones pour across the Void in ever-increasing numbers, testing the Alliance fleets to breaking point.

In the midst of the surging tides of war, a…


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