Bücher der Reihe Modern War Studies

Peter Seaborg Award The heroics of black Union soldiers in the Civil War have been justly celebrated, but their postwar lives largely neglected. Donald Shaffer's illuminating study shines a bright light on this previously obscure part of African American history, revealing for the first time black veterans' valiant but often frustrating efforts to secure true autonomy and equality as civilians.After the Glory shows how black veterans' experiences as soldiers provided them for the first time with a sense of manliness that shaped not only their own lives but also their contributions to the African American community. Shaffer makes clear, however, that their postwar pursuit of citizenship and a dignified manhood was never very easy for black veterans, their triumphs frequently neither complete nor lasting Shaffer chronicles the postwar transition of black veterans from the Union army, as well as their subsequent life patterns, political involvement, family and marital life, experiences with social welfare, comradeship with other veterans, and memories of the war itself. He draws on such sources as Civil War pension records to fashion a collective biography-a social history of both ordinary and notable lives-resurrecting the words and memories of many black veterans to provide an intimate view of their lives and struggles.Like other African Americans from many walks of life, black veterans fought fiercely against disenfranchisement and Jim Crow and were better equipped to do so than most other African Americans. They carried a sense of pride instilled by their military service that made them better prepared to confront racism and discrimination and more respected in their own communities. As Shaffer reveals, they also had nearly equal access to military pensions, financial resources available to few other blacks, and even found acceptance among white Union veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic fraternity.After the Glory is not merely another tale of black struggles in a racist America; it is the story of how a select group of African Americans led a quest for manhood--and often found it within themselves when no one else would give it to them.

A groundbreaking account of the Soviet Air Force in World War II, the original version of this book was hailed by the Washington Post as both 'brilliant' and 'monumental'. That version has now been completely overhauled in the wake of an avalanche of declassified Russian archival sources, combat documents, and statistical information.

The definitive account of the most famous African American fighting unit in World War I and their quest for equality in the United States.

General Walter Krueger is still one of the least-known army commanders of World War II. This book resurrects the brilliant career of this great military leader while deepening our understanding of the Pacific War. By showing how he breathed life into Pacific war strategy, it gives him that credit and fills a gap in American military history.

During the Civil War, thirty-six officers in the Army of the Potomac were assigned corps commands of up to 30,000 men. This book looks at this command cadre, examining who was appointed to these positions, why they were appointed, and why so many of them ultimately failed to fulfill their responsibilities.

Mary Glantz analyzes tensions shaping the policy stance of the US toward the Soviet Union before, during, and immediately after World War II. She shows how career officers were able to resist and shape presidential policy - and how their critical views helped shape the parameters of the subsequent Cold War.

This memoir chronicles the story of James Daly, a young black soldier held captive by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese and subsequently accused (and acquitted) of collaboration with the enemy.

This title covers among other things Desert Storm, the war in Chechnya, and the rise of ""smart weapons"" and related technologies. It traces the evolution of tactics, weapons, and organization in five major militaries, American, British, German, Russian, and French, over 100 years of warfare.

Movingly chronicles the lives, deaths, and memory of nine Marines from the mining community of Morenci, Arizona, who were transformed from happy-go-lucky high schoolers to soldiers in Vietnam. Only three of them survived the war. Their story encompasses pride, loss, grief, and the devastating impact of war on a small town.

November 1917. The American troops were poorly trained, deficient in military equipment and doctrine, not remotely ready for armed conflict on a large scaleand they'd arrived on the Western front to help the French push back the Germans. The story of what happened nextthe American Expeditionary Force's trial by fire on the brutal battlefields of Franceis told in full for the first time in Thunder and Flames.Where history has given us some perspective on the individual battles of the periodat Cantigny, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, the Marne River, Soissons, and little-known Fismettethey appear here as part of a larger series of interconnected operations, all conducted by Americans new to the lethal killing fields of World War I and guided by the battle-tested French. Following the AEF from their initial landing to their emergence as an independent army in late September 1918, this book presents a complex picture of how, learning warfare on the fly, sometimes with devastating consequences, the American force played a critical role in blunting and then rolling back the German army's drive toward Paris. The picture that emerges is at once sweeping in scope and rich in detail, with firsthand testimony conjuring the real mud and blood of the combat that Edward Lengel so vividly describes. Official reports and documents provide the strategic and historical context for these ground-level accounts, from the perspective of the Germans as well as the Americans and French. Battle by battle, Thunder and Flames reveals the cost of the inadequacies in U.S. training, equipment, logistics, intelligence, and command, along with the rifts in the Franco-American military marriage. But it also shows how, by trial and error, through luck and ingenuity, the AEF swiftly became the independent fighting force of General John "e;Blackjack"e; Pershing's long-held dreamits divisions ultimately among the most combat-effective military forces to see the war through.

This title chronicles the struggles leading to the creation of the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces as well as its subsequent efforts to fulfill a difficult and sometimes controversial mission. The work provides a perspective on the uneasy relations between civil and military authority.

Thomas Taylor was a junior officer who fought under Sherman at Vicksburg and Chattanooga and on the march through Georgia. His diaries and letters contain vivid descriptions of numerous skirmishes and battles over four years. This volume interleaves Taylor's words with narrative.

Without what the Allies learned in the Mediterranean air war in 1942-1944, the Normandy landing-and so, perhaps, World War II-would have ended differently. This is one of many lessons of The Mediterranean Air War, the first one-volume history of the vital role of airpower during the three-year struggle for control of the Mediterranean Basin in World War II.

A provacative collection of 11 essays from leading scholars, exploring the transition from war to uneasy peace in the aftermath of World War II. It examines how and why the war ended as it did, whether a different resolution was possible and what the victors actually won.

It was Willaim Tecumseh Sherman who both articulated and practiced the relentless scorched-earth policy that broke the heart of the Confederacy. This work illuminates the emotional as well as the intellectual, ideological and occupational lives of this Victorian American.

This work offers a new and more positive assessment of the leadership qualities of the ""political generals"" (appointed officers with little or no military training) of the Union. In the process it cuts through the stereotype of political generals as superfluous, inept and ambitious schemers.

John Sullivan was one of the CIA's top polygraph examiners during the final four years of the war in Vietnam. In this book he tells what it was like to be an agency officer working in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during those chaotic years, putting a human face on covert operations.

An examination of the American president's constitutional/political roles during wartime. The book analyses the war powers of the presidency as well as the wartime leadership of six presidents - William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Examines the ways in which ULTRA (intelligence from decrypted Japanese radio communications) shaped MacArthur's operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. Drea also clarifies the role of ULTRA in Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.

Focuses on the twelve-month period from North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, through the end of June 1951 - the most active phase of the internationalized 'Korean War'.