Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of modern (post-1898) American military history who has been fortunate enough to be at a university that supports my research. I have always been fascinated by the ā€œblack holesā€ in military history, the topics that are not glamorous like the big wars, charismatic generals, or Washington-level civil-military relations. This has led me to study such obscure topics as the conquest and pacification of the Philippines, the forty-year plans for Pacific defense prior to World War II, and how military officers have envisioned future war. The peacetime US Army is a terrific ā€œblack holeā€ because so many people, civilians, and military, assume that they already know that history.


I wrote

Book cover of Elvis's Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield

What is my book about?

Elvisā€™s Army explores the great military and social experiment that was the Cold War atomic army. Militarily, the US Army transformedā€¦

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force

Brian McAllister Linn Why did I love this book?

This is a fascinating study of the creation, evolution, and ultimate success of the All-Volunteer Army after Vietnam. Bailey maintains her historical objectivity even when dealing with controversial and emotional subjects such as race, the role of women, and the Armyā€™s commitment to combat. As she explores this traumatic institutional shift from war to peace, she skillfully interweaves the experiences of individuals into the story. The result is a well-written, enjoyable work that both meets the highest standards of scholarship and is enlightening and entertaining.

By Beth L Bailey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked America's Army as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1973, not long after the last American combat troops returned from Vietnam, President Nixon fulfilled his campaign promise and ended the draft. No longer would young men find their futures determined by the selective service system; nor would the U.S. military have a guaranteed source of recruits.

America's Army is the story of the all-volunteer force, from the draft protests and policy proposals of the 1960s through the Iraq War. It is also a history of America in the post-Vietnam era. In the Army, America directly confronted the legacies of civil rights and black power, the women's movement, andā€¦


Book cover of Preparing for War: The Emergence of the Modern U.S. Army, 1815-1917

Brian McAllister Linn Why did I love this book?

A pathbreaking study of the century-long transformation from frontier constabulary and border protection force to a modern army organized to wage industrial warfare against a rival Great Power. Clark brilliantly traces the intellectual evolution of Army concepts of future conflict, how they were shaped by experiences and observations of war, and the emergence of distinct generations of reformers. Exceptionally well researched and written, Clarkā€™s work undermines much of both the historical and theoretical interpretations of military reform, proving that the path to the modern army was tortuous, contested, and uneven, with yesterdayā€™s reformers becoming todayā€™s reactionaries. The book is not only a terrific history, it is essential reading for those who want to understand todayā€™s Army.

By J. P. Clark,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The U.S. Army has always regarded preparing for war as its peacetime role, but how it fulfilled that duty has changed dramatically over time. J. P. Clark traces the evolution of the Army between the War of 1812 and World War I, showing how differing personal experiences of war and peace among successive generations of professional soldiers left their mark upon the Army and its ways.

Nineteenth-century officers believed that generalship and battlefield command were more a matter of innate ability than anything institutions could teach. They saw no benefit in conceptual preparation beyond mastering technical skills like engineering andā€¦


Ad

Book cover of Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle against the Nazi Occupation of France

Doctors at War by Ellen Hampton,

Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle against the Nazi Occupation of France takes readers into the moral labyrinth of the Occupation years, 1940-45, to examine how the medical community dealt with the evil authority imposed on them. Anti-Jewish laws prevented many doctors from practicing, inspiring many to form secret medicalā€¦

Book cover of The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898

Brian McAllister Linn Why did I love this book?

Coffmanā€™s twin volumes are a, if not the, foundational texts on the social history of the peacetime US Army. Drawing on a host of sources, the books brought to light, in many cases for the first time, the experiences of officers, enlisted men, and their families from the Regular Armyā€™s founding to the outbreak of World War II. Without apparent effort, the late Mac Coffman combined the history of a military organization with the stories of hundreds of individuals who were its components, and he did it with empathy, warmth, humor, and masterly tale-telling.

By Edward M. Coffman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

One of the most important works of military history published in the last decade, The Old Army is the only comprehensive study of the people who made up the "garrison world" in the peacetime intervals between the War for Independence and the Spanish-American War. Drawing on diaries, letters, and other primary documents, Edward M. Coffman vividly recreates the harsh, often lonely life of men, collected mostly from the streets of Northern cities, for whom
enlistment was "a leap in the dark...a choice of evils." He pays special attention to the roles of women and children, as well as black Americans,ā€¦


Book cover of From Here to Eternity

Brian McAllister Linn Why did I love this book?

There are many novels of the peacetime US Army, but most of them, such as Anton Myrerā€™s much-beloved Once an Eagle, are about officers (almost inevitably good) participating in epic historical events. Jones's book was one of the first to reveal the khaki-collar enlisted culture, the rigid caste line between officers and their troops, and the ruthless ambition and careerism that typified too many military leaders. At the time it shocked civilians (and outraged officers) with its harsh depiction of barracks life, the boredom and meaningless ritual, the obsession with sports, the drinking and prostitutes, and incessant brutal tyranny justified as discipline. Although modern readers will find it overlong, sex-obsessed, and repetitive, it remains essential to understanding enlisted life in the pre-World War II army. 

By James Jones,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked From Here to Eternity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I'll never understand the fucking Army.'

Prew won't conform. He could have been the best boxer and the best bugler in his division, but he chooses the life of a straight soldier in Hawaii under the fierce tutelage of Sergeant Milt Warden. When he refuses to box for his company for mysterious reasons, he is given 'The Treatment', a relentless campaign of physical and mental abuse. Meanwhile, Warden wages his own campaign against authority by seducing the Captain's wife Karen - just because he can. Both men are bound to the Army, even though it may destroy them.

Published hereā€¦


Ad

Book cover of The Dark Backward

The Dark Backward by D.W. Buffa,

The Dark Backward is the story of the strangest case ever tried in a court of law. The defendant, who does not speak English or any other language anyone can identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed and charged with murder, rape, and incest. 

He isā€¦

Book cover of Jackson's Sword: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1810-1821

Brian McAllister Linn Why did I love this book?

Sam Watsonā€™s two volumes fully integrate the US Army into the history of the Jacksonian Era. These works demonstrate the Armyā€™s vital role in issues as diverse as populism, professionalism, federalism, military policy, and the controversial suppression, dispossession, and forced relocation of Native Americans. His extensively-researched work not only shows the Armyā€™s diplomatic-police role, but why, despite the Jacksonianā€™s ideological opposition to a standing army, they made it so central to national policy on the frontier.

By Samuel J. Watson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jackson's Sword as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jackson's Sword is the initial volume in a monumental study that provides a sweeping panoramic view of the U.S. Army and its officer corps from the War of 1812 to the War with Mexico, the first such study in more than forty years. Watson's chronicle shows how the officer corps played a crucial role in stabilising the frontiers of a rapidly expanding nation, while gradually moving away from military adventurism toward a professionalism subordinate to civilian authority.

Jackson's Swordexplores problems of institutional instability, multiple loyalties, and insubordination as it demonstrates how the officer corps often undermined-and sometimes supplanted-civilian authority withā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Book cover of Elvis's Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield

What is my book about?

Elvisā€™s Army explores the great military and social experiment that was the Cold War atomic army. Militarily, the US Army transformed for the revolution in warfare initiated by nuclear weapons. Traumatized by Cold War reductions and Korea, it seized on the vision of a great atomic land war against the Soviet Union. The Army not only developed a radically new way of fighting, but underwent radical changes in its equipment, its training, and its organizationā€”the infamous Pentomic division. Socially, in the 1950s the service underwent even more of a transformation.  In large part due to the draft, the Fifties Army became the nationā€™s most racially and economically egalitarian institution, impacting American culture in the 1950s from Madison Avenue to Hollywood, and from civil rights to rock-n-roll.

Book cover of America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force
Book cover of Preparing for War: The Emergence of the Modern U.S. Army, 1815-1917
Book cover of The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,887

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

šŸ“š You might also likeā€¦

Book cover of Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles

Courting the Sun by Peggy Joque Williams,

Can a free-spirited country girl navigate the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power-mongering that is the court of Louis XIVā€”the Sun King--and still keep her head?

France, 1670. Sixteen-year-old Sylvienne dā€™Aubert receives an invitation to attend the court of King Louis XIV. She eagerly accepts, unaware of her motherā€™sā€¦

Book cover of Girl in the Ashes

Girl in the Ashes by Douglas Weissman,

Odette Lefebvre is a serial killer stalking the shadows of Nazi-occupied Paris and must confront both the evils of those she murders and the darkness of her own past. In Douglas Weissman's "Girl in the Ashes," this young woman's childhood trauma shapes her complex journey through World War II France,ā€¦

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the United States Army, Andrew Jackson, and presidential biography?

Andrew Jackson 19 books