How to Obtain a Review Copy
Please submit review copy requests along with a preferred mailing address to Joshua Cline at josh.cline@armyhistory.org
All reviewers are limited to one book per request. Book reviews for On Point must be submitted within the three-month review period. All reviews must be submitted in Microsoft Word and must not exceed 700 words. Please download the submission template and sample files provided and follow the format accordingly. If you are quoting from the text, please provide the page number as well.
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Books Currently Available
The Fifteen: Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America. By William Geroux, Crown, 2025. Guarded by the U.S. Army in good conditions and fair treatment during the Second World War, Geroux looks into the Nazi power games within the prisoner of war camps across the United States that nonetheless imposed Nazi ideology on those within it. Fifteen POWs were sentenced to death in military tribunals for murdering those who did not toe the party line. In retaliation, the German government condemned fifteen American POWs in Germany to the same fate, unless traded man for man.
Advice and Support: The Middle Years, January 1964-June 1965.By Andrew J. Birtle, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2025. The third of four chronological volumes of the Advice and Support subseries in the U.S. Army’s official history of the Vietnam War, focused on the Army’s role in helping the Republic of Vietnam organize, equip, train, and employ its armed forces.
The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America’s Cold War Army. By Robert F. Williams, Cornell University Press, 2025. Williams explores the small but powerful cadre of Airborne general officers who established an unprecedented impact on the Cold War US Army, dominating the values and beliefs of army doctrine in the mid-1950s.
Arming the World: American Gun-Makers in the Gilded Age. By Geoffrey S. Stewart, Lyons Press, 2024. A focused view on American small arms industry, more specifically, the manufacturers who supplied the world’s revolution in breech-loading rifles that followed the Civil War. Particular focus is on the names that did not survive to the 20th Century, who had their heyday and downfall alike in the Gilded Age.
Armies Afloat: How the Development of Amphibious Operations in Europe Helped Win World War II. By John M. Curatola, University of Kansas Press, 2025. Examines the key development of the U.S. Army’s amphibious capabilities during World War II. It focuses on six components: command relationships, ship-to-shore movement, naval fire support, air support, beachhead establishment, and logistics and communication.
The Army That Never Was: George S. Patton and the Deception of Operation Fortitude. By Taylor Downing, Pegasus Books, 2024. The largest deception operation of World War II was Operation FORTITUDE, the plan to mislead the Third Reich into believing the Allies would land at Pas-de-Calais, instead of Normandy. Written by a prominent British historian, this presents General George S. Patton’s faked army that contributed to the successful deception.
The Battlin’ Bastards of Bravo: Bravo Company, 1/506th, 101st Airborne, in Vietnam and Beyond. By Melissa Ziobro, Casemate Publishers, 2025. Dr. Ziobro depicts an airborne company of the Vietnam War during their time “in country”, 1968-1971, primarily based on interviews given in interviews fifty years later.
Black Yanks: Defending Leroy Henry in D-Day Britain. By Kate Werran, History Press, 2024. On 26 May 1944, with D-Day eleven days away, black soldier Leroy Henry was found guilty of rape and sentenced to death; a crime he did not commit. An unprecedented campaign across Britain led to a 33,132-strong signed petition being handed to Eisenhower, pleading for Henry’s life just after D-Day. Never before told in such detail, Black Yanks sheds light on the “first significant, if uncelebrated, win in the civil rights movement.”
Born From War: A Soldier’s Quest to Understand Vietnam, Iraq, and the Generational Impact of Conflict. By Patrick W. Naughton, Jr., Casemate Publishers, 2025. Both Patrick Naughton Sr. and Jr. fought for their country – one in the Vietnam War, one in Iraq. Though three decades divided their service, the similarities in their experiences were notable enough to analyze and inspire this book.
A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg – Volume Two: From the Crater’s Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill. By A. Wilson Greene, University of North Carolina Press, 2025. Depicts the Battle for Petersburg in the Civil War not as a siege, like in most depictions, but rather as a concentrated campaign of maneuver and defense. This volume is focused on the end of July 1864 to the end of October. There were five months still remaining before Petersburg fell to the Union.
Cape May County and the Civil War. By Ray Rebmann, The History Press, 2025. A very localized focus on a county that was steadfastly loyal to the North in a ‘border state’ that saw much split in support during the Civil War. Not concerning itself with broader questions and topics of the war, Rebmann focuses solely on the men of the county who served, and what they did.
Cassino ’44: The Brutal Battle for Rome. By James Holland, Grove Atlantic, 2024. Holland’s concluding volume of his histories of the Italy Campaign in World War II. This focuses on the four assaults on Monte Cassino, the landings at Anzio, and the liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944.
Death Before Dismount: U.S. Army Tanks in Iraq. By Dr. Andrew Eric Wright, Sr., Casemate Publishers, 2025. An analysis of armor in Iraq, with focus on five battles – the Thunder Run in Baghdad, the Second Battle of Fallujah, Ramadi, Baqubah, and Sadr City.
The Devil’s Playground: The Story of Two Charlie and the Arghandab River Valley. By Andrew Bragg, Casemate Publishers, 2024. Charlie Company, 2d Platoon, 2-508th PIR deployed to the Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan in 2009-10. ‘The Devil’s Playground’ was everything south of the second canal. “There was never a dull moment in the Arghandab.” Over the course of the deployment, 2d Platoon’s numbers dwindled and the fighting only got harder. “In the end, the valley always wins.”
“Digging All Night and Fighting All Day”: The Civil War Siege of Spanish Fort and the Mobile Campaign, 1865. By Paul Bureske, Savas Beattie, 2024. The siege of Spanish Fort in the Civil War was 26 March to 8 April, 1865, and surrendered to Major General Edward R. S. Canby on 12 April. It was the key defense of Mobile, Alabama. The battles between Confederate defenders outnumbered 10-1 by the Union attackers “witnessed every offensive and defensive art known to war.” It is the “first dedicated, detailed, and objective study of the siege of Spanish Fort.”
Dread Danger: Cowardice and Combat in the American Civil War. By Lesley J. Gordon, Cambridge University Press, 2025. The label of ‘coward’ was both insult and crime punishable by death during the Civil War. Dread Danger examines the fear of combat through one Union and one Confederate regiment to consider broader questions about the war.
Dying Hard: Company B, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th US Infantry Division in WWII. By COL. French L. MacLean (USA-Ret.), Schiffer Publishing, 2024. “In the mold of the classic Band of Brothers,” Dying Hard focuses on a single Army company infantry unit through the Second World War via highly personal vignettes. Only 7% of the unit’s enlisted men when it formed in 1941 were still there in May 1945. MacLean’s personal connection is through his father, who fought with Company B in the Battle of the Bulge.
The Fabric of Civil War Society: Uniforms, Badges, and Flags, 1859-1939. By Shae Smith Cox, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. Shae Smith Cox argues that the material items of the Civil War has more importance than previous scholarship has depicted; logistically and financially, politically and meaning, and tracing their change from practicalities of warfare to sentimental symbols of remembrance.
The Final Bivouac: The Confederate Surrender at Appomattox and the Disbanding of the Virginia Armies, April 10-May 20, 1865. By Chris Calkins, Savas Beattie, 2025. A sequel to No One Wants to Be the Last to Die, Final Bivouac sheds light on the surrender parade at Appomattox at the end of the Civil War, then continues to show both Union and Secessionist on their homebound journeys. It particularly makes note of those in the Danville Expedition, those who occupied Southside Virginia, and the last blue regiments that returned to Washington, D.C. to disband.
A Fractured Liberation: Korea Under U.S. Occupation. By Kornel Chang, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2025. Begins with the short time period in post-World War II Korea when liberation from the Japanese Empire was at hand, before the dream of unified Korea was shattered. Particularly it focuses on the U.S. occupation government, and the ruthless focus on protecting American interests, which meant supporting authoritarian rule over South Korea.
From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell’s Civil War. Edited by Jonathan W. White and Reagan Connelly, University of Virginia Press, 2025. A soldier for the Union in the Civil War, this is edited from Buswell’s diaries, which began in Autumn 1862 and ended 31 December 1864. Originally enlisting in the 7th Minnesota, he accepted a commission to the 68th United States Colored Infantry in February 1864. The diary enables a focused view into the life of a single American soldier with a unique service career.
From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the Revolutionary War. By John R. Maass, Osprey Publishing, 2025. Mass writes upon five key events of the Revolutionary War; from obvious military victories like Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown, to less obvious but necessary reforms and decisions such as Washington at Valley Forge and King Louis XVI supplying the Continental Army in the Saratoga Campaign.
Frontier Rangers of Colonial New England: From King Philip’s War to the American Revolution. By Anthony Phillip Blast, The History Press, 2025. A view into the frontier rangers of New England in combat, from the first colonists’ conflicts in King Philip’s War (1675-1678), to the waning days of New England as a frontier in the War of 1812.
Garden of Ruins: Occupied Louisiana in the Civil War. By J. Matthew Ward, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. A social and military history of the first Confederate state to be partially occupied by the Union in Spring 1862, during the early Civil War. Ward examines the use, tempered or abusive alike, of power in both Union occupied and Confederate held territory within Louisiana. “The work to preserve democracy,” viewed by both blue and gray.
A Grand Opening Squandered: The Battle for Petersburg, June 15-18, 1864. By Sean Michael Chick, Savas Beatie, 2025. The first in a multi-volume set and part of the Emerging Civil War Series, which focuses on easy to understand, entry-level looks into notable events of the Civil War. This focuses on the Union Army’s failure to take Petersburg at the climax of the Overland Campaign, forcing the long siege that followed.
Green & Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military 1861-1865. By Damian Shiels, Louisiana State University Press, 2025. Written with the results of the U.S. National Archives Civil War Widows’ Pension Digitization Project. This book attempts to reassess the numbers of Irishmen in service, focusing not on units like the Irish Brigade but instead on the tens of thousands who served in the numbered, mixed regiments.
Guam: The Battle for an American Island in World War II. By James H. Hallas, Stackpole Books, 2025. A sequel to Hallas’ Saipan, he continues on to the campaign to liberate Guam in Summer 1944, which began on 21 July 1944. The ensuing two and a half week battle was hellish. Primarily a Marine Corps battle, the 77th Infantry Division was the Army’s contribution to the battle. An estimated 130 Japanese soldiers still held out in January 1946; the last holdout didn’t surrender until 1972.
The Gulf War: George H.W. Bush and American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era. By Spencer D. Bakich, University Press of Kansas, 2024. Part of the Landmark Presidential Decisions series, this work focuses on the role of military force in George H.W. Bush’s administration, with particular focus on Operation DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM.
Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign, November 1862-January 1863. By Daniel A. Masters, Savas Beattie, 2025. The full Stones River Campaign of the Civil War, presented with both a high level focus on strategy, tactics, and battlefield command decisions; combined with the use of archival materiel and firsthand accounts to depict the views of the soldiers who fought the turning point of Federal fortune in the Western Theater.
High-Bounty Men in the Army of the Potomac: Reclaiming Their Honor. By Edwin P. Rutan II, Kent State University Press, 2024. Focuses on the recruits to the Union Army after the draft was adopted and higher bounties for service were offered. Historically portrayed as mercenary, greedy, and an inferior soldier to those who volunteered earlier in the war, as Rutan puts it, “a reappraisal–based on data–is in order.”
Hollywood’s Imperial Wars: The Vietnam Generation and the American Myth of Heroic Continuity. By Armando José Prats, University of Oklahoma Press, 2024. Describing the ‘American Myth of Heroic Continuity’ as a belief that there is heroism in victory, and victory was inevitable, Hollywood’s Imperial Wars explores how this culturally significant myth was propagated by Hollywood film, and how the Vietnam War resulted in a drastic change away from the previously mythic heroism.
How To Lose A War: the Story of America’s Intervention in Afghanistan. By Amin Saikal, Yale University Press, 2024. Emeritus professor and founding director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at Australian National University depicts a “compelling and meticulously documented” analysis of how the US failed to achieve its aims in the war in Afghanistan.
John J. Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, 1917-1919: March 21-May 19, 1918, Volume 4. Edited by John T. Greenwood, University Press of Kentucky, 2024. The fourth volume of a long running project focusing on Pershing’s corresponded as commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I.
Kansas and Kansans in World War I: Service at Home and Abroad. By Blake A. Watson, University Press of Kansas, 2024. Depicts the Kansas home front and Kansans abroad in the First World War – National Guard, Regular Army, National Army, including African Americans in and from Kansas.
Little Helpers: Harry Vaughan, His Cronies, and Corruption in the Truman Administration. By John Robert Greene, University of Missouri Press, 2024. The first political biography of Major General Harry Vaughan, who precipitated the Truman Administration’s scandals following World War II. The majority of it speaks of the cronies that surrounded Vaughan, and illustrates the depth of Truman and Vaughan’s relationship to the First World War, resulting in a great reluctance to rein Vaughan in or fire him.
Mekong Memoirs: A GI in Tan Tru, Long An Province, 1969-1970. By L. Glen Inabinet, McFarland & Company Inc., 2025. Written for his children and future generations to understand his service in the Vietnam War, Inabinet writes of his service from basic training, arriving in Vietnam in March 1969, to his departure on 14 April 1970, with a short afterword for the 55 years since.
The Mexican-American War Experiences of Twelve Civil War Generals. Edited by Timothy D. Johnson, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. Twelve essays depicting twelve American officers in the Mexican-American War who went on to fight in the Civil War; six Union, six Confederate. For most of them it was their first combat experience, a laboratory and crucible of combat action that defined who they were before the Civil War.
More Important Than Good Generals: Junior Officers in the Army of the Tennessee. By Jonathan Engel, Kent State University Press, 2025. Addresses two understudied subjects of the Civil War: the Army of the Tennessee, which gets little focus in comparison to the east coast units; and company level officers. Most Civil War subjects focus on the enlisted or colonels and general officers; Engel attempts to shed some light on the bridge between them.
My Toughest Battle: A Soldier’s Lifelong Struggle with Polio. By Major General William M. Matz, Jr. (USA-Ret.), Casemate Publishers, 2024. The memoir of Major General Matz, who had polio as a child and overcame paralysis to become a ranger tabbed paratrooper. Wounded in the Tet Offensive, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, leader of troops in Panama, Matz’ accomplishments all happened while wearing a specially fitted combat boot on an atrophied leg. He retired from the Army in 1995 and had a final retirement in 2021.
Non-Hostile: How 1,400 American Soldiers Died During My Year in Vietnam. By John R. Walker, Self-Published, 2025. Veteran of the 1st Infantry Division, Walker noted that almost twenty percent of American fatalities in Vietnam were from non-hostile causes; nearly one in five. Selecting the year he was in Vietnam himself, Walker uses the 1,083 non-hostile cause and 318 friendly fire fatalities the Army suffered during those 365 days as a case study to examine why these men died, what killed them, and where, while simultaneously depicting his own Vietnam War experience. (uncorrected pre-release PDF copy only)
Of Their Own Accord: A Company of Army Rangers Changing Lives in Changing Times. By LTG Lawson W. Magruder III (USA-Ret.) & MSG Fred R. Kleibacker III (USA-Ret.), Self Published, 2024. Written with the intent of inspiring future generations, this speaks of the men who were ‘plankowners’ of the first 2d Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry that was formed after the Vietnam War, who Chief of Staff Creighton Abrams Jr intended to be the flagbearers of a new, all-volunteer, highly motivated Army. It is structured to tell tales of the men to highlight particular positive qualities of their character in fifteen focus chapters.
The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Fremont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation. By John Bicknell, Stackpole Books, 2025. Fremont, the “pathfinder,” was the Republican Party’s first presidential nominee to run on an anti-slavery platform in 1856. In 1861 he sparked a national crisis when he unilaterally declared emancipation in Missouri, which influenced Lincoln’s path to the Emancipation Proclamation two years later. In addition, it calls attention to the role of border states in shaping Union strategy.
Patton’s Shadow: The Making of a Hero in Modern Memory. By Nathan C. Jones, University of Alabama Press, 2024. Curator of the General Patton Museum wrote this in studying the phenomenon of Patton’s legend, “an attempt to demonstrate how heroes become legends and how legends are used.” It is not a biography of General George S. Patton, Jr., or an analysis of his career; it is examining the legends and myths that have created the historical memory of what is now a man larger than life.
Playing At War: Identity and Memory in Civil War Video Games. Edited by Patrick A. Lewis and James Hill Welborn III, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. An anthology work of fifteen essays about how the Civil War has been depicted digitally in commercial videogames. Discusses with an analytical eye to how they educate – or don’t educate – those who play them, and how videogames influence the collective perception of the Civil War.
The Political Army: How the U.S. Military Learned to Manage the Media and Public Opinion. By Thomas Crosbie, Columbia University Press, 2025. A history of U.S. Military public relations from 1939 to 2000. It primarily focuses on senior leaders, public affairs officers, and the journalists they worked or sparred with. Crosbie argues that in observing this relationship, we also glimpse the democratic oversight the military is governed by, particularly in what journalists were and weren’t allowed to depict or publish.
Quartermasters of Conquest: The Mexican-American War and the Making of South Texas, 18460-1860. By Christopher N. Menking, University of Oklahoma Press, 2025. The War with Mexico, 1846-1848, ended with the largest territorial expansion by force in American history. Menking asserts the war also shaped power and wealth in South Texas. He explores how the Quartermaster Department’s wartime support of three armies and the long-term operations afterwards created an influx of imported Anglo labor to areas sparsely populated by Tejanos and Mexicans, altering the demographics of the region.
Red Arrow Across the Pacific: The Thirty-Second Infantry Division during World War II. By Mark D. Van Ells, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2024. Written to shine light on a proud unit, the 32d Infantry Division, which served with honor in the Second World War but has not seen much of the limelight. It is first a combat chronicle of the Red Arrow Division, and second is to examine the unit in a social and cultural context.
Searching For Dr. Harris: The Life and Times of a Remarkable African American Physician. By Margaret Humphreys, University of North Carolina Press, 2024. The life of Dr. J.D. Harris, a contract surgeon for the Union Army and, following the Civil War, surgeon for the Freedmen’s Bureau in Virginia, used as a window to look into race and citizenship in the South in the Reconstruction Era. Harris was one of a scant few African Americans to become a doctor before Howard Medical School opened its doors.
Sharpen Your Bayonets!: A Biography of Lieutenant General John Wilson “Iron Mike” O’Daniel, Commander, 3rd Infantry Division in World War II. By Lt. Col. (Ret.) Timothy R. Stoy, Casemate Publishers, 2022. The first full-length biography of ‘Iron Mike’ O’Daniel, who served in World War I, World War II, Korea, and the early days of Vietnam; he commanded the 3d Infantry Division from Anzio to V-E Day.
Shots Heard Round The World: America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War. By John Ferling, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025. A “global reappraisal” of the Revolutionary War, timed for release with the 250th anniversary of Lexington and Concord. It attempts to depict just how the global the conflict was, involving France, Spain, the Dutch Republic as well as the British Empire. War raged on four continents and the high seas.
The South Carolina Militia in the Revolutionary War: Captain Henry Felder & the Backcountry Defense. By John Brian Eleazer, History Press, 2025. Written by Captain Felder’s descendant. A leader of his community, Felder served in the first and second Provincial Congress. Though with particular note of Felder’s hand in the Revolutionary War, this is foremost a history of South Carolina militia fighting for their freedom.
Staying In The Fight: How War on Terror Veterans in Congress Are Shaping US Defense Policy. By Jeffrey S. Lantis, University Press of Kentucky, 2024. Speaks of how War on Terror veterans are an influential generation of policy activists in Congress, one of the first in-depth studies of the new cohort on Capitol Hill. Sixty-one of ninety-five military veteran members of Congress in the 118th Congress served during the Global War on Terror.
Stone Tapestry: A Visual and Historical Guide to the West Point Cemetery. By LTC Robert C. Holcomb (USA-Ret.), Schiffer Publishing, 2025. Written by an officer born in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s hospital, this photographic tome examines a number of accomplished officers, professors, priests, infants and the rare enlisted who are buried in the West Point Cemetery.
Surviving Three Shermans: With The 3rd Armored Division Into The Battle of the Bulge. By Walter Boston Stitt, Jr., Edited by Dr. Jessica L. George, Casemate Publishers, 2024. A memoir of a tank loader and gunner in the Second World War. The book is built around the censored letters sent home to his mother, who saved and treasured them until her death, and telling the real tale that Stitt couldn’t tell then.
A Tempest of Iron and Lead: Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21, 1864. By Chris Mackowski, Savas Beattie, 2024. A former historian of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park uses his meticulous knowledge of the landscape and primary sources to make this new study of the Civil War campaign.
Three Cold Wars: A Vermont Citizen-Soldier’s Life in the Infantry. By R. V. Little, Jr., LTC (USA-Ret.), Self-Published, 2024. The biography of Major R. V. Little, Sr., written by his son. Beginning as a private in the Vermont National Guard in 1936, Major Little, Sr. served with quiet distinction in formerly under-reported battles of the Second World War and Korean War. As well, he served in three different post-WWII Occupations, and engaged in Troop Information and intelligence missions against nascent Cold War Communist threats.
Thunderbolt To The Rebels: The United States Sharpshooters in the Civil War. By Darin Wipperman, Stackpole Books, 2025. The elite green uniformed marksmen of the Union Army, this focuses on their combat performance instead of simply marveling at the distinctive uniforms and equipment; telling of how they lived, fought, and died in the Civil War.
Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the US Army, 1889-1963. By Stephen A. Bourque, University of North Texas Press, 2024. Raymond “Tubby” O. Barton – named for his football and wrestling prowess at West Point – had a thirty-seven year Army career culminating in commanding the 4th Infantry Division in France during World War II. The first American general to enter Nazi Germany, he was physically unable to command after the Battle of the Bulge. Released in recognition of the 80th Anniversary of that battle, Bourque tells an inside picture with the extensive use of Tubby’s wartime diary.
US Battle Tanks 1917-1945. By Steven J. Zaloga, Osprey Publishing, 2024. The first of a two-volume illustrated set of the complete history of American armored tanks, from the first experiments to the end of the Second World War.
US Battle Tanks 1946-2025. By Steven J. Zaloga, Osprey Publishing, 2024. The second of a two-volume illustrated set of the complete history of American armored tanks, from the end of the Second World War to the modern day.
The Vietnam War: A Military History. By Geoffrey Wawro, Basic Books, 2025. The director of the University of North Texas’ Military History Center’s 539 page long account depicts the Vietnam War as a political war doomed from the very beginning, portraying the limits of American power.
The Virginia Continental Line in the Revolution’s Southern Campaigns. By John C. Settle, The History Press, 2025. Focuses on the oft-neglected Virginia Line of the Continental Army, a unit that served honorably but has not seen the same degree of depiction as the Maryland Line or Delaware Regiment. This sets out to rectify such matters, with particular focus on the Virginia Line’s contributions to the Southern front of the Revolutionary War.
Waging War For Freedom With The 54th Massachusetts: The Civil War Memoir of John W.M. Appleton. Edited by James Robbins Jewell and Eugen S. Van Sickle, Potomac Books, 2025. Appleton was one of the first officers to join the 54th Massachusetts on 7 February 1863, commanding Company A. He served with them from February 1863 to August 1864 when wounds forced him home. The editors continue to describe the service of the free 54th past Appleton’s departure until its disbanding in 1865.
Why Vietnam? Reflections on the Effect of War. By Margaret Colbert Brown, Pen & Sword, 2025. Focuses on the reasons for the United States getting involved in the Vietnamese Civil War, starting in 1918 when Woodrow Wilson ignored Ho Chi Minh at the Treat of Versailles, through Lyndon B. Johnson’s commitment to undeclared war, restraining the military to a defensive role.
World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age. By John M. Kinder, University of Chicago Press, 2025. Focuses on how zoos survived the Second World War, the hard decisions made (such as killing hundreds of animals in their care worldwide to prevent escape during air attacks), what was conserved and what was lost along the way. Topics include American zoos on the home front.
The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce: Duty, Terror and Survival. Edited by William J. Welch, Pen & Sword Books, 2024. The diary of a young National Guard enlisted man, a small book he filled with 79,000 words while fighting in the 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division. This is accompanied by six paintings Pierce put to canvas later in his life.
Wounded for Life: Seven Union Veterans of the Civil War. By Robert D. Hicks, Indiana University Press, 2024. A new examination of six soldiers and one physician, with focus on how battlefield wounds, both physical and mental, combined with the changing social circumstances, it examines the impact of war on the wounded warrior of another era.
You’re A Good Man, Sergeant: The World War II Combat Memoir of an Armored Infantry in Patton’s Third Army. By Paul S. Porter, edited by Colleen C. Porter, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2024. A memoir written by an armored infantryman in Company B, 53d Armored Infantry Battalion, during the Second World War, edited by his daughter after his passing forty years ago. (PDF copy only)
Zouave Theaters: Transnational Military Fashion and Performance. By Carole E. Harrison & Thomas J. Brown, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. A military fashion fad of the 19th Century that brought with it a sub-culture of its own, Zouave uniforms were as much costume as uniform, coinciding with a rise of an imperial liberalism. Harrison and Brown give a global perspective of the Zouave uniform, fitting its presence in the Civil War to a worldwide narrative.
