American Military History

Before the Second World War, Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was one of the most famous performers in the world. She made her name dancing on the Parisian stage, but when war broke out she decided not to return to America. Instead, Baker turned spy for the French Secret Services. In this engaging, deeply researched study, Hanna Diamond tells the full story of Baker’s actions for the French and Allied powers in World War Two.

When World War I began, it seemed unlikely that a unit such as the Harlem Hellfighters would ever be formed. Given their nickname by their German foes who admired their bravery, the Harlem Hellfighters were members of the 369th, an all-Black regiment. The 369th played key roles in critical battles and helped secure an Allied victory.

Abraham Lincoln did not come out of nowhere. But if he was shaped by his times, he also managed at his life's fateful hour to shape them to an extent few could have foreseen. Ultimately, this is the great drama that astonishes us still, and that Abe brings to fresh and vivid life. The measure of that life will always be part of our American education.

Romantic Times Reviews magazine says about Secrets and Sacrifices, "The research is meticulous, and a grand cast of characters leaps off the page. This is one for the keeper shelf." Charlie is a crack sharpshooter for the Twenty-Fifth Virginia infantry. But Charlie has secrets…big secrets that could lead to heartbreak or even death. The slowly starving South, lack of medical supplies, and desperate runaway slaves motivate Charlie and Daniel to take risks beyond their wildest imaginations. How could they possibly know that their paths would cross during the worst time in their lives and ...

Joseph Plumb Martin (1760-1850) was a soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Martin participated in the Battles of Brooklyn, the White Plains and Monmouth, and the siege of Fort Mifflin, and the Battle of Monmouth. The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier relates the adventures of a young private serving his country under terrible conditions. There are engaging accounts of army life, adventures, dangers, and suffering during the years 1776-1783.

A quiet, wealthy plantation owner, Jack Hinson watched the start of the Civil War with disinterest. Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge.

The 1856 presidential race was the most violent peacetime election in American history. War between proslavery and antislavery settlers raged in Kansas, a congressman shot an Irish immigrant at a Washington hotel, and another congressman beat a US senator senseless on the floor of the Senate. But amid all the violence, the campaign of the new Republican Party, headed by famed explorer John C. Fremont, offered a ray of hope: a major party dedicated to limiting the spread of slavery.

Tracing the epic 5,000-year story of warfare from the earliest battles to the War on Terror, The Military History Book explores and explains the causes and consequences of each, offering a new angle on military history. Entries analyze the key social and political driving forces, the arms and armaments, and the technologies and tactics of war over the last 7,000 years—from the tactics of early infantry and siege craft to the rise of naval combat steel, steam, and shellfire, and from trench warfare and aerial dogfights to chemical weapons and cyber warfare.

How did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichael's sweeping new study of men at war.

The Mountain State also saw its fair share of battles, skirmishes, raids, and guerrilla warfare, with places like Harpers Ferry, Philippi, and Rich Mountain becoming household names in 1861. When the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, leaders primarily from the northwestern region of the state began the political process that eventually led to the creation of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. Renowned Civil War historian Mark A. Snell has written the first thorough history of these West Virginians and their civil war in more than fifty years.

Early on, the United States imposed war taxes that both demanded sacrifices from all Americans and served as reminders of their participation. Since the Korean War, the United States has increasingly moved away from war taxes. Instead, borrowing has become a permanent feature of contemporary wars. The move serves leaders well because reducing the apparent burden of war has helped mute public opposition and any decision-making constraints. But by masking accountability, however, the move away from war taxes undermines the basis for democratic restraint in wartime.

In a world of renewed great power competition, the challenges facing the United States in managing its relations with China and Russia are daunting. But with "A New Cold War Global Strategy," you can get ahead of the curve in understanding this complex conflict. This comprehensive analysis of the relationships among these three global powers draws on insights from history, economics, law, and philosophy to provide a strategic roadmap for the United States. From the resource dependence and demographic constraints of dictatorship to the isolationism and withdrawal of democracy, the book ...

The last battle of World War II was not for military victory but for the technology of the Third Reich. In American Raiders, Wolfgang Samuel assembles from official Air Force records and survivors' interviews the largely untold stories of the disarmament of the Luftwaffe and of Operation Lusty—the hunt for Nazi technologies.

We set out on the James River, March 25, 1865, aboard the paddle steamboat River Queen. President Lincoln is on his way to General Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, and he’s decided he won’t return to Washington until he’s witnessed, or perhaps even orchestrated, the end of the Civil War. Now, it turns out, more than a century and a half later, historians are still searching for that end.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

Call Sign Chaos is the account of Jim Mattis’ storied career, from wide-ranging leadership roles in three wars to ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the Middle East. Along the way, Mattis recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, extracting the lessons he has learned about the nature of warfighting and peacemaking, the importance of allies, and the strategic dilemmas - and short-sighted thinking - now facing our nation.

As the Civil War was drawing to a close, former Missouri governor Sterling Price led his army on one last desperate campaign to retake his home state for the Confederacy, part of a broader effort to tilt the upcoming 1864 Union elections against Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans. In The Collapse of Price’s Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri, Mark A. Lause examines the complex political and social context of what became known as “Price’s Raid,” the final significant Southern operation west of the Mississippi River.

The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. And their mission was to obliterate the muscular democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable.

In the darkest days of the American Revolution, Francis Marion and his band of militia freedom fighters kept hope alive for the patriot cause during the critical British southern campaign. Like the Robin Hood of legend, Marion and his men attacked from secret hideaways before melting back into the forest or swamp. Employing insurgent tactics that became commonplace in later centuries, Marion and his brigade inflicted losses on the enemy that were individually small but cumulatively a large drain on British resources and morale.

The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of that era’s most compelling narratives, defining the nation and one of history’s great turning points. Now, S.C. Gwynne’s Hymns of the Republic addresses the time Ulysses S. Grant arrives to take command of all Union armies in March 1864 to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox a year later. He breathes new life into the epic battle between Lee and Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; and much more.