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 750 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
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.
The Army Under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era. By Cecily N. Zander, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. Scrutinizes the extent that antimilitarism had during and after the Civil War, particularly during Reconstruction, and how such attitudes were affected or utilized for political goals.
The Blood-Tinted Waters of the Shenandoah: The 1864 Valley Campaign’s Battle of Cool Spring, July 17-18, 1864. By Jonathan A. Noyalas, Savas Beatie, 2024. Part of the Emerging Civil War series, Blood-Tinted Waters focuses on General Horatio Wright’s pursuit of General Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley in summer 1864. A battle usually treated as a footnote, Cool Spring was the deadliest engagement in Clarke County, Virginia.
Bringing Davy Home: In the Shadow of War, a Soldier’s Daughter Remembers. By Sherri Steward, Texas A&M University Press, 2024. Written by a daughter about her father and uncle, this is the story of two Texan brothers, one who fought in WWII and Korea, and the second, who paid the ultimate pride so far from home, falling in battle in the Korean War. Much of it is drawn from letters sent home.
By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy. By Michael G. Vickers, Alfred A. Knopf, 2023. A memoir by a former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Vickers served as a Green Beret for ten years before joining the Central Intelligence Agency in 1983, and was a key figure in arming the Mujahideen opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Cassville Affairs: Johnston, Hood, and the Failed Confederate Strategy in the Atlanta Campaigns, 19 May 1864. By Robert D. Jenkins, Sr., Mercer University Press, 2024. A new look into the Civil War Cassville controversies during the fighting in Northern Georgia, which ended in a Union strategic victory, examining the leadership failures of Confederate command.
Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare. By Early J. Hess, Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. A study of the history of landmine development during the Civil War, focused on the themes of morality, tactics, technology, and placing Civil War landmines in the context of global history. (‘Torpedoes’ here refers to the older use of the term, not the naval variety known today.)
Clearing the Way: U.S. Army Engineers in World War II. By Chris Mcnab. Casemate Publishers, 2023. Utilizing primary sources, including manuals and reports, this text aims to provide insight to the work of U.S. Army Engineers during World War II.
Colorado In The Civil War. By John Steinle, Arcadia Publishing, 2023. Part of the Images of America series, this book is a pictorial history of Colorado’s participation in the Civil War.
Confessions of a Weekend Warrior: Thirty-Five Years in the National Guard. By Brigadier General Paul smith, USA-Ret., McFarland & Company Inc., 2024. The memoir of a general officer who began service in 1979 and retired in 2014. Written to paint a portrait of the National Guard, offer a few lessons, and depict his own military career.
Duty To Serve, Duty To Conscience: The Story of Two Conscientious Objector Combat Medics during the Vietnam War. By James C. Kearney and William H. Clamurro. University of North Texas Press, 2023. Part of the North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series, a joint memoir of two 1-A-0 conscientious objectors that provides perception on ethical questions as well as witness to the Vietnam War.
Epidemics And The American Military: Five Times Disease Changed the Course of War. By Jack E. McCallum, Naval Institute Press, 2023. Focuses on how common wartime epidemics are, how easily disease is propagated by military presence and how it’s affected the course of military strategy. Key focus points include Washington’s immunization of the Continental Army against smallpox, the devastation of typhoid and the triumph over yellow fever in the Spanish-American War, and more.
Expectation of Valor: Planning for the Iraq War. By Colonel Kevin C. M. Benson, USA-Ret., Casemate Publishers, 2024. Written by the Director of Plans for United States Third Army, this book details how the invasion plan was developed and its execution from D-Day in March 2003 to Third Army’s departure in June 2003. It combats the belief that the Army did not plan for what came after, portraying the disinterest on Capitol Hill in the extensive plans that were proposed.
Eyes on the Enemy: U.S. Military Intelligence in World War II. By Chris McNab, Casemate Publishers, 2023. Documents the rise of the myriad organizations that collectively can be called American military intelligence during the Second World War, from the frontline G2 to the Pentagon code-breaker. Particular attention is paid to combat intelligence, the Army’s bread and butter.
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 Fevered Fight: Medical History of the American Revolution 1775-1783. By Martin R. Howard, Pen & Sword, 2023. A study of military medicine during the Revolutionary War from Lexington to Yorktown, with views from both sides of the war, including the impact of disease on black soldiers and Native Americans.
Flawed Commanders And Strategy: In the Battles for Italy, 1943-45. By Andrew Sangster & Pier Paolo Battistelli, Casemate Publishers, 2023. Examines the personalities of five military leaders in the Italian Campaigns of the Second World War; General Bernard Montgomery, George Patton, Mark Clark, Harold Alexander, and Field Marshal Alfred Kesselring.
F*ck The Army! How Soldiers and Civilians Staged the GI Movement to End the Vietnam War. By Lindsay Goss, New York University Press, 2024. Through the lens of theater history (particularly the Free Theater Associates led by Jane Fonda), this book focuses on the internal anti-Vietnam War movement within the military.
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.
George Washington’s Momentous Year: Twelve Months that Transformed the Revolution, Volume I: The Philadelphia Campaign, July to December 1777. By Gary Ecelbarger, Westholme Publishing, 2024. Depicting the year between 4 July 1777 and 4 July 1778, Ecelbarger’s two volumes are split in half. This first volume focuses on the Philadelphia Campaign from Washington’s perspective.
Great American World War II Stories. Edited by Tom McCarthy, Lyons Press, 2024. Ten true stories of the Second World War on air, land, and sea; from Omaha Beach to Mount Suribachi, the air over Tokyo to stalking enemy ships from below the ocean surface.
The Greatest Military Mission Stories Ever Told. Edited by Tom McCarthy, Lyons Press, 2023. A collection of essays that capture the essence of military bravery, courage and discipline in the face of overwhelming danger.
The Gunner and The Grunt: Two Boston Boys in Vietnam with the First Cavalry Division Airmobile. By Michael L. Kelley and Peter Burbank. Casemate Publishers, 2023. A detailed look at two soldiers who participated in the same battles in Vietnam, from their first combat missions to the Search and Destroy operations in Cambodia.
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.
Immigrant Warrior: A Challenging Life in War and Peace. By Henrik O. Lunde. Casemate Publishers, 2023. A detailed memoir providing a unique look into a highly decorated soldier who served three tours in Vietnam and beyond.
The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863. By Timothy B. Smith, University of Kansas Press, 2024. The fifth and final volume on the Vicksburg Campaign by Timothy Smith, The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg focuses on when Ulysses S. Grant’s army “[tore] the heart out of the state of Mississippi and the Confederacy” during the Civil War. It boasts being the first standalone investigation of those profoundly important seventeen days.
In Strange Company: An American Soldier with Multinational Forces in the Middle East and Iraq. By Colonel Roland J. Tiso Jr. Casemate Publishers, 2023. A detailed look into the planning and execution of Coalition warfare during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
July 22: The Civil War Battle of Atlanta. By Earl J. Hess, University Press of Kansas, 2023. Professionally examines the “greatest day of fighting by the Union Army of the Tennessee” in the Civil War, 22 July, 1864.
The Korean War Remembered: Contested Memories of an Unended Conflict. By Michael J. Devine, University of Nebraska Press, 2023. A chronological overview which focuses on American memory of the Korean War in an international context, examining the events via subjects ranging from popular culture to monuments and museums, comparing and contrasting with how it’s remembered in China and both Koreas.
The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower. By Michel Paradis, Mariner Books, 2024. A fresh look into General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the world-changing decisions he made, while illuminating a larger look into his private moments and internal conflicts than ever before; drawn from never-before publicly seen first-hand accounts and archival records.
The Limits of the Lost Cause: Essays on Civil War Memory. By Gaines M. Foster, Louisiana State University Press, 2024. A compilation of eight essays on the Lost Cause, in which Foster himself states are contrarian view. The first three speak of C. Vann Woodward’s perception of Southern identity “shaped by defeat;” the the rest focus on the more modern perception of the “South still fighting the Civil War.”
The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam. By George Black, Alfred A. Knopf, 2023. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the last American soldier departing Vietnam, The Long Reckoning depicts the years since the Vietnam War ended, particularly the ongoing struggle with Agent Orange and explosive remnants of war.
MacArthur and West Point: How the General and the Academy Shaped Each Other. By Sherman L. Fleek, Texas A&M Press, 2024. Written by a recently retired command historian and military history instructor of the US Military Academy at West Point, on the relationship between MacArthur and Academy. MacArthur, who idolized the institution, formed a reciprocal relationship with it, which is focused on and viewed with how it influenced military history.
Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779. By A. Lynn Smith, University of Nebraska Press, 2023. A historical and ethnographic exploration of how interpretive sites – museums, memorials, monuments, etc – shape the historical understanding of General John Sullivan’s expedition against the Iroquois Confederacy during the Revolutionary War.
Miserable Little Conglomeration: A Social History of the Port Hudson Campaign. By Christopher Thrasher, University of Tennessee Press, 2023. Drawing from archival sources, this book depicts the longest-running siege of the Civil War through the eyes of the common soldier and civilian.
My Dearest Lilla: Letters Home from Civil War General Jacob D. Cox. Edited by Gene Schmiel, University of Tennessee Press, 2023. Part of the Voices of the Civil War Series, these letters depict the love of an officer and the wife who supported him, both the Eastern and Western Theaters, and General Cox’s exploits.
On Warriors’ Wings: Army Vietnam War Helicopters and the Native Americans they were Named to Honor. By David Napoliello, Global Collective Publishers, 2023. Focuses on the Vietnam-era helicopters named for Native American tribes through development, mission, real-world use, and the history of the tribe for which the helicopter is named.
Pacific Fortress: A History of the Seacoast Defenses of Hawaii. By Glen M. Williford. Redoubt Press, 2023. A revealing account of the U.S. Army’s coastal defenses of Oahu, Hawaii, spanning the Interwar Period, World War II and expanding throughout the Cold War.
A Quaker Colonel, His Fiancée, and Their Connections: Selected Civil War Correspondence. Edited by Richard Upsher Smith, Jr., Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2023. Published letters from the Civil War exchanged between Pennsylvanian Charles Burleigh Lamborn of the 15th Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry and his fiancée, Emma Taylor. The papers show their subjects’ deep Quaker beliefs.
Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence. By Shirley L. Green, Westholme, 2023. From joining the Second Rhode Island Regiment in 1777, this follows the personal journey of the Frank brothers as they fight in the Revolutionary War due to George Washington’s authorization to allow former slaves to serve in the military.
The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943. By James Holland. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024. Holland traces the opening months of the Italian Campaign of World War II through the eyes of soldiers and civilians, Allied and Axis alike, from the generals down to the enlisted infantry.
The Sergeant: The Incredible Life of Nicholas Said: Son of an African General, Slave of the Ottomans, Free Man Under the Tsars, Hero of the Union Army. By Dean Calbreath, Pegasus Books, 2023. Written by a Pulitzer and Polk Award winning journalist; a biography of Sergeant Nicholas Said, who served in the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War.
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.
Sign Here for Sacrifice: The Untold Story of the Third Battalion, 506th Airborne, Vietnam 1968. By Ian Gardner, Osprey Publishing, 2023. The third book by Ian Gardner chronicling the history of 3/506, focusing on the unit’s reactivation and deployment to the Vietnam War.
Silent Cavalry: How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta — and then got Written Out of History. By Howell Raines, Crown, 2023. A focused acknowledgment of the efforts of the First Alabama Cavalry, USA, which led General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea during the Civil War. A journalist’s efforts to both learn about and highlight Alabaman Unionists, and uncovering the tale of how they were buried in historical narratives.
The Soldiers Fell Like Autumn Leaves: The Battle of the Wabash, The United States’ Greatest Defeat in the Wars Against Indigenous Peoples. By Rick M. Schoenfield, Westholme Publishing, 2024. Presents the 4 November 1791 defeat of the American Army under General Arthur St. Clair by the Maumee Confederation, known as the worst disaster of the Indian Wars. It triggered the first Congressional investigation and first use of executive privilege. This places the event into cultural, economic, and political context and its impact, including ecological, using primary sources even including archaeology.
The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II. By David Chrisinger, Penguin Press, 2023. A new examination of a “supremely private man,” what General Eisenhower called one of the G.I.’s “best and most understanding friends.” The Soldier’s Truth follows in both Ernie Pyle’s and the author’s footsteps from Kasserine Pass to Ie Shima.
“Strong Men of the Regiment Sobbed Like Children”: John Reynolds’ I Corps at Gettsysburg on July 1, 1863. By John Michael Priest, Savas Beatie, 2024. Focuses on the rank and file who fought the first day of Gettysburg during the Civil War, “putting the reader in the shoes of the men who did the actual fighting.” John Reynolds died early in the fighting, his I Corps in shambles and retreating by the end, but its bold stand bought time for the Army of the Potomac. This covers both Reynolds’ I Corps and the Confederate units that eventually overwhelmed them.
Super Slick: Life and Death in a Huey Helicopter in Vietnam. By Tom Feigel & Larry Weill, Stackpole Books, 2024. A ghostwritten memoir of Tom Feigel, the crew chief of an upgunned UH-1 Iroquois named Super Slick during the Vietnam War, augmented by stories of other pilots and crew in the 336th Assault Helicopter Company. It is as much personal memoir as it is a tribute to the helicopter, which now lives in front of the Marion County Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Fairmont, West Virginia.
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.
Task Force Hogan: The World War II Tank Battalion that Spearheaded the Liberation of Europe. By William R. Hogan. William Morrow, 2023. This book depicts 3d Battalion, 33d Armored Regiment, 3d Armored Division leading the charge across Europe in the Second World War, especially their daring escape from a trap during the Battle of the Bulge. Written by the son of Task Force Hogan’s commanding officer, it is a tribute to his father and the men he led.
“Tell Mother Not to Worry”: Soldier Stories From Gettysburg’s George Spangler Farm. By Ronald D. Kirkwood, Savas Beatie, 2024. A sequel to “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle for Gettsyburg. It profiles soldiers and events at Gettysburg during the Civil War, as well as the lives of the Spangler Family – as well as modern-day descendants found after the first book was published.
Twelve Days: How The Union Nearly Lost Washington in the First Days of the Civil War. By Tony Silber, Potomac Books, 2023. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln calling for 75,000 militia troops on 14 April 1861, Twelve Days depicts the dire situation Washington D.C. was in when the Civil War erupted from the perspective of Lincoln, rebellious Maryland, the Union Army, and the Confederate Army.
Till The Extinction Of This Rebellion: George Rogers Clark, Frontier Warfare, and the Illinois Campaign of 1778-1779. By Eric Sterner, Westholme Publishing, 2024. Illustrates the impact of the Revolutionary War west of Appalachia, viewing Clark’s campaign in Illinois Country from American, British, and Native perspectives, culminating in the Battle of Fort Sackville/Vincennes.
‘Tis Not Our War: Avoiding Military Service in the Civil War North. By Paul Taylor, Stackpole Books, 2024. Why men fought the Civil War is well known, not so much is the reasons not to fight. Sixty percent of service-eligible Northern men did not fight; Taylor asks why, and digs through a number of primary sources to answer it.
Union General: Samuel Ryan Curtis and Victory in the West. By William L. Shea, Potomac Books, 2023. The first biography of Samuel Ryan Curtis, an abolitionist general in the Union Army during the Civil War, who fought slavery before the Emancipation Proclamation. He was one of the most important generals of the war west of the Mississippi.
Under the Double Eagle: Citizen Employees of the U.S. Army on the Texas Frontier, 1846-1899. By Thomas T. Smith. Texas State Historical Association, 2023. Provides a look into over 1,721 civilian employees of the U.S. Army in Texas during the 19th century.
U. S. Army Divisions of the Pacific War. By Stephen R. Taaffe, Casemate Publishers, 2024. Taaffe uses a narrative approach through the Second World War in the Pacific to depict each of the twenty Army divisions deployed to the theater, from the legendary 25th to the discriminated 93d, Regular and National Guard alike. Each unit is analyzed, their conduct and effectiveness assessed with the benefit of hindsight.
Unraveling the Myth of Sgt. Alvin York: The Other Sixteen. By James P. Gregory, Jr., Texas A&M University Press, 2023. Tells the story of the men who were with Sergeant Alvin York, contesting the popular narrative that York single-handedly accomplished his deeds to create a more balanced look into a legendary Army event.
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.
War in the Western Theater: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War. Edited by Sarah Kay Bierle and Chris Mackowski, Savas Beatie, 2024. Commemorating Emerging Civil War’s tenth anniversary is this compendium of Civil War tales and perspectives, putting to paper a number of blog posts, podcast transcripts, transcripts of talks at ECW symposiums, and more. ECW’s mission is to promote new scholars entering the professional field, and their works make up this book.
When The Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day. Edited by Garrett M. Graff, Avid Reader Press, 2024. Released just before the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Graff’s oral history by the writer of The Only Plane in the Sky, this oral history depicts D-Day from its origins to the fateful day of days, featuring the words of hundreds of men and women who participated or contributed to the invasion.
A Wilderness of Destruction: Confederate Guerrillas in East and South Florida, 1861-1865. By Zack C. Waters, Mercer University Press, 2023. Focused on the Confederate guerrillas in the Civil War who defended Florida against Union incursions, after the Confederate government abandoned Florida’s coastal regions.
With My Shield: An Army Ranger in Somalia. By James Lechner, Osprey Publishing, 2023. A memoir by an officer of the 3d Ranger Battalion during Operation GOTHIC SERPENT, depicting his personal experience and much of the surrounding events as well, thirty years later.
Without Concealment, Without Compromise: The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons. By Jill L. Newmark, Southern Illinois University Press, 2023. The first book about black military surgeons during the Civil War, it depicts the lives of fourteen men who wore the Union blue and made American medical history.
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.
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.
