Reviews for History of the Us Army

The average rating for History of the Us Army based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-03-11 00:00:00 Leonard Norris This was a rather instructive text, summarizing various schools of thought when it comes to military history. The bulk of the text is an annotated-bibliography/summary of military history from the dawn of time until the 1970s. The focus is more on "How to study military history, and why you should care" for the first quarter of the book. This was interesting, but I have some different interpretations of Clausewitz. Overall it's instructive. The "Summary/bibliography" consumes the remaining three-quarters of the book. It really focuses on American military history, and glosses over ancient and medieval (and early modern) military history. I don't know how to feel about this, as my belief is studying military history is like studying art: it's always in reaction to the status quo. Consequently, I feel the best way to study military history is from ancient times, and progress slowly studying the innovations and changes over time. But this requires years of study, and hundreds of thousands of pages! The bibliography aspect of this section serves quite well...in places. I heartily agreed with the references for the American civil war, checking both Freeman's Lee and Lee's Lieutenants as well as Henderson's Stonewall Jackson were included. But the bibliography for pre-modern warfare is a bit of a joke, they forget: Knight's The Normans in Sicily (or any other text on the Norman invasion of Sicily), Donald Engels' Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. I could not locate any references on Belisarius, Genghis Khan, or Alexander Suvorov...but they could have been hidden among the hundreds of references, and simply glossed over them. These blemishes aside, this serves as a great introduction on how to study military history.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-12-24 00:00:00 Sean Carton Another thrift store find from many years ago. This is a practical guide to the study of military history from the United Sates Army. Although written with military officers in mind, anyone interested in the history of warfare will find it useful. About two-thirds of the text is an extensive bibliography of recommended texts, and I was checking off books that I had and books I would like to read someday.