Dwight David Eisenhower proudly claimed that he -came from the very heart of America.- Yet it could be argued that, despite those provincial beginnings, no other American exerted more influence on world history during the twentieth century. From his humble birth in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower rose to the supreme command of the Allied armies that helped destroy Adolf Hitler's Nazi war machine and to the presidency of the United States. Douglas Kinnard's profile of this great soldier-statesman describes his rise through the ranks of the peacetime army of the 1920s and 1930s the recognition of...

One man--Capt. Raphael Semmes--dominates the history of Confederate naval operations in the American Civil War. Although the Confederates were hopelessly outnumbered at sea, Semmes roamed the oceans first in the CSS SUMTER and then the CSS ALABAMA, capturing nearly 100 Federal merchant ships and precipitating a flight from the American flag that decimated the Federal merchant marine. Revered in the South as a hero, the North reviled and feared the Yankee-hating Semmes as a pirate. Regardless of his reputation, his wartime exploits were remarkable.

Noted historian and biographer...

Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), who joined the Prussian Navy in 1865 as a midshipman, was chiefly responsible for rapidly developing and enlarging the German Navy, especially the High Seas Fleet, from 1897 until the years immediately prior to the First World War. Epkenhans uses newly discovered documents to provide a fresh treatment of this important naval leader.

In 1897, Tirpitz became the Secretary of State of the Imperial Navy Department. In four major building acts of 1898, 1900, 1908, and 1912, and, in working closely with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tirpitz expanded the Imperial...

Starting with twenty-eight followers, Francisco Pancho Villa rose out of banditry to become a dynamic strategist who mastered the tactical use of a diverse array of weapons, including modern railroads and cavalry, to contest control of Mexico. In his early days as a brigand, the peasantry idolized him because he often gave them the largesse of his raids on the wealthy haciendas. His military career began in 1910 during the Mexican Revolution, and by the time of his defeat at the Battle of Celaya in 1915 he commanded 15,000 horsemen. Villa could be a generous patron to his loyal followers but...

Few figures in modern French history have aroused more controversy than Marshal Philippe Petain, who rose from obscurity to great fame in the First World War only to fall into infamy during the dark days of Nazi occupation in World War II. Petain's brilliant theories of firepower and flexible defense, as well as his deep empathy for the soldiers of France and the horrific trials they endured on a daily basis, mark him as one of the greatest Allied generals of World War I. Yet today he is best remembered as the nearly senile marshal who was handed the reins of power in France in the midst of...

With his victory over the Russian army at the battle of Tannenberg in August 1914, Paul von Hindenburg became a war hero. By 1916 he had parlayed an exaggerated reputation for decisive victory into near dictatorial powers. After Germany s defeat at Verdun and War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn s dismissal in late 1916, Hindenburg, along with his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff, took over strategic direction of the war. The eponymous Hindenburg Program attempted with some success to mobilize Germany s economy for war. He also oversaw many of Germany s most important wartime decisions, including...

Places Aztec civilization and history in the context of world history Montezuma (ca. 1466-1520), who had been educated as a priest and had served well as a military commander, ascended to the Aztec throne in about 1502 on the basis of his military record and reputation for piety. As Peter G. Tsouras demonstrates, almost immediately Montezuma transformed himself from a man of good judgment to a pitiless autocrat. He killed indiscriminately at home and waged wars of conquest against his neighbors, adding territory in contemporary Honduras and Nicaragua to his empire. In 1519, Hernan Cortes...

Born into a Quaker family, Nathanael Greene had nothing in his background that pointed to a military career. His total military training before mid-1775, when he abandoned pacifism, consisted of serving as a private in the Rhode Island militia for a few hours each week. Yet, no doubt because of his leadership ability, the Rhode Island Assembly in May 1775 appointed Greene commander of the Rhode Island Army of Observation at the siege of Boston. In June, at age thirty-two, Greene became the youngest general in the Continental Army and the only general who had never held a military commission....