News - Category Parameters Bookshelf

Book Review: Waging a Good War: How the Civil Rights Movement Won Its Battles, 1954–1968
February 22, 2024 — Leadership | Author: Thomas E. Ricks| Reviewed by Keith Nightingale, retired colonel, US Army | Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas E. Ricks frames the American civil rights movement in terms of a (nonviolent) war, examining the leadership, strategy, and tactics required for success. Ricks also discusses the postwar-like effects the movement had on its...

Book Review: Small Armies, Big Cities: Rethinking Urban Warfare
February 22, 2024 — Dr. John P. Sullivan gives an overview of Louise A. Tumchewics's anthology on the "persistent challenge" of urban warfare and highlights the work's strongest chapters and their value to "commanders and planners of future urban operations." Sullivan mentions chapter author Patrick Finnegan's discussion of "liminality" as particularly valuable and also calls John Spencer's siege discussion "one of the book's core contributions."...

Book Review: Forging the Anglo-American Alliance: The British and American Armies, 1917–1941
January 17, 2024 — Professor and historian Dean Nowowiejski presents a thoughtful review of historian Tyler R. Bamford’s study on the “long-term impact of the interwar relationship between army officers” of the United States and Great Britain, which “endured despite tensions” and “despite the absence of guidance and in advance of the political approval that would later lead to the formal alliance.” Nowowiejski highlights Bamford’s emphasis on military exchanges, mechanization, military attachés, and intelligence sharing and notes the refreshing significance of the book’s focus on army—rather than navy or executive-level—relationships, which makes this title of particular value...

Book Review: Boots and Suits: Historical Cases and Contemporary Lessons in Military Diplomacy
January 17, 2024 — Historian and professor Kenneth Weisbrode reviews retired US ambassador Philip S. Kosnett’s anthology on “just how contested, and how significant,” military diplomacy is. After highlighting the value of General Kenneth F. McKenzie’s (US Marine Corps, retired) instructive foreword, which defines military diplomacy, Weisbrode outlines the book’s range of case studies across history (from the Confederacy to Afghanistan), author perspectives (“academics and government officials”), and subject matter (“strategy, operations, and tactics”). He distills some of the book’s essential policy lessons for readers and notes the book’s wide-ranging utility for “teachers, students, and aspiring (or even veteran) military diplomats.”...

Book Review: Military Dogs of World War II
December 20, 2023 — Author: Susan Bulanda | Reviewed by Reverend Dr. Wylie W. Johnson, chaplain (retired), US Army War College class of 2010 |In total war, the nation calls on everyone to direct all resources toward victory—during World War II, that call extended to man’s best friend. Retired military chaplain Dr. Wylie W. Johnson reviews certified animal behavior...

Book Review: Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare
December 20, 2023 — Author: Nathaniel L. Moir | Reviewed by John A. Nagl, professor of warfighting studies, US Army War College | Counterinsurgency expert John A. Nagl reviews the “long-overdue” biography of the American political scientist Bernard Fall who, as Nagl writes, was “always a couple years ahead of informed US public opinion” about the Vietnam War. Author...

Book Review: War of Supply
November 22, 2023 — Author: David D. Dworak | Reviewed by Dr. John A. Bonin, consultant, US Army War College | The reviewer notes, “While there are thousands of books about World War II, there are relatively few on the war in the Mediterranean and fewer on its logistics.” Dworak provides just that, with a chronological account of Operation Torch in North Africa;...

Book Review: Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931–1945
November 22, 2023 — Author: Richard Overy | Reviewed by Jonathan Klug, colonel, US Army, and assistant professor, Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, US Army War College | Many track the start of World War II to Poland in 1939. In Blood Ruins, Richard Overy contends the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria was the start of an Asian war that later...

Book Review: The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers
October 17, 2023 — Author: Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. | Reviewed by Zachery Tyson Brown, defense analyst, Office of the Secretary of Defense | Andrew F. Krepinevich has questions for policymakers when it comes to emerging technologies and warfare. In The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers, Krepinevich asks: How...

Book Review: Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
October 17, 2023 — Author: Paul Scharre| Reviewed by Dr. Robert J. Bunker, director of research and analysis, managing partner, C/O Futures, LLC | Award-winning author Paul Scharre’s latest work, Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, envisions artificial intelligence as ushering in a “new industrial revolution” with big military, economic,...