New Books in Military History

Was the War for American Independence really about American independence? It depends on who you ask. In his new book, Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It (Knopf, 2016), Larrie Ferreiro draws on decades of new research in archives and on battlefields across the US and Europe to detail the smuggling, espionage, gun running, and politicking that wrested the United States from British control. A revision of the national myth that the American colonies rose up and threw off imperial oversight solely by the unity found in the strength of their convictions, this globalist return to the 1760s and 70s weaves together military, economic, diplomatic, and social history with fascinating stories of the European soldiers, sailors, merchants, and ministers who conspired and collaborated to give the north American colonies a fighting chance. In Brothers at Arms, and in this interview, Dr. Ferreiro advances the argument that for the governments of France and Spain, defeating the British in the American colonies was as much about achieving their own interests in the sphere of European power as it was about heeding the call to advance the ideals of liberty and justice across the Atlantic, and that the relationships that developed between France, Spain, and the new United States did more to shape American institutions and ways of life that we often acknowledge. Carl Nellis is an academic editor and writing instructor working north of Boston, where he researches contemporary American community formation around appropriations of medieval European culture. You can learn more about Carls work at carlnellis.wordpress.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Our guest for this interview combines his academic expertise in American military history with his professional experience as an employee of the National Park Service. Marc Blackburn is the author of Interpreting American Military History at Museums and Historical Sites (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). An expert in the interpretation and presentation of historical narratives and themes through material artifacts, archives, and exhibit space, Marc offers both a fresh perspective blending public and academic history in his book. Offering a series of observations on the state of public history in the United States, he also provides a short yet comprehensive chronological narrative of the nation’s military past. Like myself, a former student of Russell F. Weigley, Marc provides a refreshing conversation about the current and future states of the craft. One disclaimer: the thoughts that Marc Blackburn expresses in this interview and in his book are his own, and in no way reflect the policies or opinions of the National Park Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Jelena Batinic’s Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance (Cambridge University Press, 2015) examines the role women played in the Communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance. By placing gender and gender relations at the forefront of her analysis, Batinic provides insightful history of a unique phenomenon—guerrilla warfare in which tens of thousands of women took direct military roles. Based on vast amount of archival sources, Batinic demonstrated how gender was the main organising force of the Partisan movement. In this interview, we have talked about the main arguments of the book, particularly focusing on gender relations within the movement. Additionally, the interview will also introduce our listeners to the Balkan conflict during the Second World War and explore how and why the remarkable story of the Partisan women fell into oblivion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Jimmy Stewart has a well-deserved reputation as one of the major stars of the classic film era. Yet his life was greatly affected by his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. Robert Matzen, author of the book, Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe (GoodKnight Books, 2016), reviews Stewart’s life in a military family and his role in the allied victory in Europe. He also discusses how the war affected Stewarts immediate post-war film career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Narratives of the Pacific War frequently examine the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf from the operational perspective, focusing on the desperate actions of the US Seventh Fleets escort carriers, Task Unit 77.4.3 (“Taffy 3”) against the much larger Japanese Center Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita. The ensuing drama, including the famous call for help and rebuke of US Third Fleet commander, Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., has become legend. In his latest book, Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy (NAL, 2016), seasoned historian John Prados places Leyte Gulf as the denouement of a larger campaign for control of the Central Pacific Ocean, one which was the swan song of Japanese naval power. Incorporating the naval intelligence of both sides, he restores agency to the Imperial Japanese Navy as the unwitting architect of its own destruction. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, including many hitherto unseen Japanese primary documents, memoirs, and interviews, Prados unveils one of the most comprehensive comparative treatments of this controversial campaign. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2016) examines how, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the cinematic figure of the black soldier helped change the ways American moviegoers saw black men, for the first time presenting African Americans as vital and integrated members of the nation. In the process, Elizabeth Reich reveals how the image of the proud and powerful African American serviceman was crafted by an unexpected alliance of government propagandists, civil rights activists, and black filmmakers. Contextualizing the figure in a genealogy of black radicalism and internationalism, Reich shows the evolving images of black soldiers to be inherently transnational ones, shaped by the displacements of Diaspora, Third World revolutionary philosophy, and a legacy of black artistry and performance. Offering a nuanced reading of a figure that was simultaneously conservative and radical, Reich considers how the cinematic black soldier lent a human face to ongoing debates about racial integration, black internationalism, and American militarism. Militant Visions thus not only presents a new history of how American cinema represented race, but also demonstrates how film images helped to make history, shaping the progress of the civil rights movement itself. In addition to this work, previously in 2015 Reich co-edited a special issue of Film Criticism, titled “New Approaches to Cinematic Identification,” which brings together works on one of Reich’s other primary interests: identification and film spectatorship. Reich’s own articles appear in Screen, African American Review, Film Criticism and Women and Performance, and she has a chapter forthcoming in Black Cinema Aesthetics, edited by Michael Gillespi and Akil Huston. She also serves on the editorial boards of Criticism and Film Criticism. Reich is also currently at work on two new projects: co-editing a book collection on Afrofuturism, Justice In Time: Critical Afrofuturism and Black Freedom Struggles, and writing another monograph on global cinema, temporality and reparations, tentatively titled Reparative Time. In addition to her film studies scholarship, Reich is also a noted documentary director. Her feature-length documentaries include “Milton and Charlotte: A Baliwood Love Story” and “very Queer kids.” James Stancil is an independent scholar, freelance journalist, and the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area non-profit dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Best remembered as the nineteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Clifton B. Cates began his long and distinguished military career as a second lieutenant in World War I. In I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, From Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War (NAL, 2016), journalist and author James Carl Nelson recounts Cates’ early life and service in the war. Cates was studying to take the Tennessee bar when the United States joined the war in April 1917, an event which led Cates to set aside his studies and answer the call to service. After training in the rapidly-expanding Marine Corps, Cates was sent to France in January 1918, and within a few short months he found himself at the heart of combat at the battle of Belleau Wood. Despite being in the thick fighting, Clifton escaped serious injury, and with his unit he participated in the Soissons offensive later that summer. Nelson’s book offers a look at the war Cates fought against the Germans, one in which he demonstrated his natural leadership skills and won some of the highest honors our nation could bestow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Akiko Takenaka’s new book looks carefully at Yasukuni Shrine as a war memorial, examining its role in waging war, honoring the dead, promoting peace, and building a modern national identity. Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) pays special attention to the significance of memory and spatial practice in shaping Yasukuni as belief, site, and issue. The chapters guide readers from the pre-history of Yasukuni tracing the origin of an important myth that developed around Yasukuni Shrine during the Asia-Pacific War: the idea that dying for the emperor would result in enshrinement at Yasukuni as a god through the very different uses of the space as a venue for popular entertainments and celebrations, the popularization of beliefs associated with the shrine outside of Tokyo and the nationalization of the Yasukuni myth, the practices associated with Yasukuni during total war mobilization during the Asia-Pacific War, the politics and legalities of enshrinement at Yasukuni, and postmemory at Yasukuni today. Its a clear and compelling study of an important issue that will be of interest to many readers. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Ruling as he did during the Five Dynasties period of Chinese history, the emperor Mingzong (r. 926-933) has not received the same degree attention from historians as have many of his counterparts. In From Warhorses to Ploughshares: The Later Tang Reign of Emperor Mingzong (Hong Kong University Press, 2015), Richard L. Davis provides readers with the first modern biography of Mingzong. Born Miaojilie, Mingzong grew up among his fellow Shatuo Turks and rose to become a leading commander of the forces of the Tang dynasty. After taking the throne in the aftermath of a military rebellion, he managed relations with other states with success and instituted a series of economic reforms designed to encourage trade. Though the territories of the Tang prospered during this period, peace was cut short by Mingzong’s death, with his dynastic line coming to a violent end less than a decade later. Davis’ book offers a window into a dramatic era in China’s past, one in which Mingzong’s reign stood out for its stability amidst the tumult. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

I teach at a Catholic university and last semester co-taught (with a theologian) a class titled The Holocaust and its Legacies. Once my students became comfortable with me, they began to pepper me with questions about the role of the Catholic church during the Holocaust. Some of these questions–about the church and antisemitism, about the role of the Pope–I was able to answer effectively. But when they started asking me about the behaviors and beliefs of the bishops and priests-the people in the church who interacted with ordinary people on an everyday basis–I was at a loss. Thanks to Lauren Faulkner Rossi’s new book Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation (Harvard University Press, 2015), I can now give a much more informed and thoughtful answer to these questions. While Rossi spends some time looking at the macro level, she devotes most of her book to ‘ordinary’ priests who served in the German army. Some of these men were chaplains specifically entrusted with the pastoral care of the men in their units. Many others were priests who served in the army in other roles, who were specifically prohibited from offering such care to their fellow soldiers. Her book offers a nuanced, well-researched and convincing portrait of ordinary people trying to integrate their religious faith and their positions in the church with their service in a nazified army. It’s a compelling story, one that Rossi tells well. I will be recommending it to my students for a long time to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history