Challenging previous accounts, Geoffrey Megargee shatters the myth that German generals would have prevailed in World War II if only Hitler had not meddled in their affairs. Indeed, Megargee argues, the German high command was much more flawed than many have suspected or acknowledged. Inside Hitler's High Command reveals that while Hitler was the central figure in many military decisions, his generals were equal partners in Germany's catastrophic defeat.

Megargee exposes the structure, processes, and personalities that governed the Third Reich's military decision making and shows...

The signing of the Paris Agreement in 1973 ended not only America's Vietnam War but also Richard Nixon's best laid plans. After years of secret negotiations, threats of massive bombing, and secret diplomacy designed to shatter strained Communist alliances, the president had to settle for a peace that fell far short of his original aims.

This is the first book to focus exclusively on Nixon's direction of the Vietnam War. Based on extensive interviews with principal players and original research in Vietnam, it goes behind the scenes in Washington and into the minds of America's leaders to...

While war is most effectively waged as a united effort, the United States has consistently waged military conflict without firm central direction. Throughout our history, observes Michael Pearlman, the waging of war has been subject to continuous bargaining and compromise among competing governmental and military factions. What passes for strategy emerged from this process.

Warmaking and American Democracy is the first comprehensive study of American war strategy in its domestic context. It shows how internal divisions--between political parties, presidents and Congress, elected...

This year begins the centennial of the Philippine War, one of the most controversial and poorly understood events in American history. The war thrust the U.S. into the center of Pacific and Asian politics, with important and sometimes tragic consequences. It kept the Filipinos under colonial overlordship for another five decades and subjected them to American political, cultural, and economic domination.

In the first comprehensive study in over six decades, Linn provides a definitive treatment of military operations in the Philippines. From the pitched battles of the early war to the...

The German Wehrmacht was one of the most capable fighting forces the world has ever known, but in the end it was no match for the Allies. Some historians contend that the Allies achieved victory through brute force and material superiority. But, as Peter Mansoor argues, all of the material produced by U.S. industry was useless without trained soldiers to operate it, a coherent doctrine for its use, and leaders who could effectively command the formations into which it was organized.

This book provides a comprehensive study of America's infantry combat performance in Europe during World...

The use of airpower in wartime calls to mind the massive bombings of World War II, but airplanes have long been instrumental in small wars as well. Ever since its use by the French to put down rebellious Moroccan tribes in 1913, airpower has been employed to fight in limited but often lengthy small conflicts around the globe.

This is the first comprehensive history of airpower in small wars-conflicts pitting states against non-state groups such as insurgents, bandits, factions, and terrorists-tracing it from the early years of the twentieth century to the present day. It examines dozens...

They were there at Concord Bridge. They shaped the vast volunteer armies of the Civil War. They have fought in America's major wars around the world. And they made the first military response on 9/11 after the World Trade Center towers crashed in Manhattan.

The National Guard has had a singular place in American history as citizen-soldiers responding both to homeland crises and to the need for fighting power overseas. Michael Doubler now offers the first comprehensive history of the Guard to appear in over thirty years, tracing its role from the days of colonial militias to the dawn of a...

For nearly a quarter of a century, Pulitzer Prize nominee William C. Davis has been one of our best writers on the Civil War. His books--including Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol; Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour; and "A Government of Our Own": The Making of the Confederacy--have garnered numerous awards and enlightened and entertained an avid readership. The Cause Lost extends that tradition of excellence with provocative new insights into the myths and realities of an endlessly fascinating subject.

In these pages, Davis brings into sharp focus...

For as long as the Vietnamese people fought against foreign enemies, women were a vital part of that struggle. The victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu is said to have involved hundreds of thousands of women, and many of the names in Viet Cong unit rosters were female. These women were living out the ancient saying of their country, "When war comes, even women have to fight."

Women from Hanoi and the countryside fought alongside their male counterparts in both the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese military in their wars against the South Vietnamese government and its French and American...

Grant. Pershing. Eisenhower. Schwartzkopf. The United States Military Academy has shaped America's senior military leaders from the sons-and now daughters-of farmers and shopkeepers, laborers and bankers. Now celebrating its two hundredth anniversary, West Point and its legacy continue to support and reflect the nation it serves.

Authored by Theodore Crackel, one of the nation's premier authorities on the academy, West Point: A Bicentennial History celebrates one of America's most prominent establishments. A revision and refinement of the author's earlier Illustrated History of...