New Books in Military History

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'? A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

There is a popular notion that the Italian armed forces of the Second World War were an inferior fighting force. Despite the vast numbers taken prisoner, detailed studies of the experiences of these soldiers remain relatively uncommon and the value of this group to furthering our understanding of the Italian experience of war under Fascism is also rarely acknowledged. The existence in the National Archives of hundreds of pages of transcripts of covert British surveillance of Italian POWs has made it possible to engage with their experiences and opinions in much greater depth. The euphemistically termed 'Special Reports' present historians with a unique insight into how all levels of Italian soldiery viewed Fascist Italy's experience of war, 1940-1943. Alexander Henry's book War Through Italian Eyes: Fighting for Mussolini, 1940-1943 (Routledge, 2021) examines reactions to Italian political leadership, the progress of the war, as well as Italian soldiers' 'everyday' views on sex, war, the enemy, death, food, their allies, bravery, race, and killing. These fascinating documents reveal the complexity of the outlook of these men, which persistent - and influential - national stereotypes and historiographical trends fail to acknowledge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Daphna Sharfman's book Jerusalem in the Second World War (Routledge, 2024) is the first to present the unique story of the city of Jerusalem during the events of the Second World War and how it played a unique role in both the military and civilian aspects of the war.Whilst Jerusalem is usually known for topics such as religion, archaeology, or the politics of the Israeli-Arab conflict, this volume provides an in-depth analysis of this exceptional and temporary situation in Jerusalem, offering a perspective that is different from the usual political-strategic-military analysis. Although battles were raging in the nearby countries of Syria and Lebanon, and the war in Egypt and the Western Desert, the people who came to Jerusalem, as well as those who lived there, had different agendas and perspectives. Some were spies and intelligence officers, other were exiles or refugee immigrants from Europe who managed at the last moment to escape Nazi persecution. Journalists and writers described life in the city at this time. All were probably conscious of the fact that when the war came to an end, local rivalry and mounting conflict would take the centre stage again. This was a time of a special, magical drawn-out moment that may shed light on an alternative, more peaceful, kind of Jerusalem that unfortunately was not to be.This volume seeks to find an alternative approach and to contribute to the development of insightful research into life in an unordinary city in an unordinary situation. It will be of value to those interested in military history and the history of the Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's licence who could afford to pay for their own transportation, training, and uniforms. Despite their highly developed skill set, rigorous training, and often dangerous work, the women of WASP were not granted military status until 1977, denied over three decades of Army Air Force benefits as well as the honour and respect given to male and female World War II veterans of other branches. In Earning Their Wings: The WASPS of World War II and the Fight for Veteran Recognition (UNC Press, 2023), Dr. Sarah Parry Myers not only offers a history of this short-lived program but considers its long-term consequences for the women who participated and subsequent generations of servicewomen and activists.Dr. Myers shows us how those in the WASP program bonded through their training, living together in barracks, sharing the dangers of risky flights, and struggling to be recognized as military personnel, and the friendships they forged lasted well after the Army Air Force dissolved the program. Despite the WASP program's short duration, its fliers formed activist networks and spent the next thirty years lobbying for recognition as veterans. Their efforts were finally recognized when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law granting WASP participants retroactive veteran status, entitling them to military benefits and burials.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win?Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7.Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

We begin this new season of International Horizons with an interview by RBI Director John Torpey with Neta Crawford from Oxford University and the Cost of War Project. Prof. Crawford argues that conflict is less lethal than in the past, although the overall costs of war exceed the duration of previous wars in many dimensions. The conversation delves into the possibilities of a conflict with China and Crawford's concern that the U.S's overreaction to the Chinese challenge could be extremely perilous. That said, misperceptions and misconceptions of the so-called "China threat" can be mitigated through diplomatic exchanges. Finally, Professor Crawford discusses the costs of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, arguing that war has both domestic and external causes and consequences – a point that needs to be better understood when we think about war today.International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in our weekly episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

On October 1922 Mussolini became head of the Italian government, a situation that would last for twenty years. That power was obtained was largely due to the widespread violence perpetrated by blackshirts throughout Italy (squadristi). Violence however did not end. Old and new blackshirts played a major role in making Italy a fascist country. Contrary to the claims of many scholars that have depicted blackshirts after the March on Rome only as troublemakers for Mussolini, Matteo Millan's The Blackshirts' Dictatorship: Armed Squads, Political Violence, and the Consolidation of Mussolini's Regime (Routledge, 2022) shows that they played a crucial role in establishing a full and totalitarian dictatorship. Squadristi carried out processes of fascistisation, crushed opponents and convinced bystanders and dubious people, consolidating fascist power in many aspects of social, political and even intimate life. By resorting to new archives, a long chronology and a focus on individual perspectives, this book gives voice to the perpetrators of fascist violence and offers new insights into the lives of squadristi throughout the dictatorship, outlining their beliefs, outlooks and expectations. The Blackshirts' Dictatorship: shows that post-1922 squadrismo was not a side effect of Fascism's twenty-year history. On the contrary, violence represents one of the essential components of any definition of Italian Fascism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

In her new book Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway (Princeton University Press, 2020), Despina Stratigakos investigates the Nazi occupation of Norway. Between 1940 and 1945, German occupiers transformed Norway into a vast construction zone. This remarkable building campaign, largely unknown today, was designed to extend the Greater German Reich beyond the Arctic Circle and turn the Scandinavian country into a racial utopia. From ideal new cities to a scenic superhighway stretching from Berlin to northern Norway, plans to remake the country into a model “Aryan” society fired the imaginations of Hitler, his architect Albert Speer, and other Nazi leaders. In Hitler’s Northern Utopia, Despina Stratigakos provides the first major history of Nazi efforts to build a Nordic empire—one that they believed would improve their genetic stock and confirm their destiny as a new order of Vikings.Drawing on extraordinary unpublished diaries, photographs, and maps, as well as newspapers from the period, Hitler’s Northern Utopia tells the story of a broad range of completed and unrealized architectural and infrastructure projects far beyond the well-known German military defenses built on Norway’s Atlantic coast. These ventures included maternity centers, cultural and recreational facilities for German soldiers, and a plan to create quintessential National Socialist communities out of twenty-three towns damaged in the German invasion, an overhaul Norwegian architects were expected to lead. The most ambitious scheme—a German cultural capital and naval base—remained a closely guarded secret for fear of provoking Norwegian resistance.A gripping account of the rise of a Nazi landscape in occupied Norway, Hitler’s Northern Utopia reveals a haunting vision of what might have been—a world colonized under the swastika.Despina Stratigakos is vice provost and professor of architecture at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.Craig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.com or on twitter @craig_sorvillo.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

My Father's War: Confronting Norway's Nazi Past (U Wisconsin Press, 2023) is simultaneously a history of the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II and a son's sincere attempt to understand the silences, motivations, and experiences of an estranged father. In this carefully researched book, combining family memoir and historical retelling, Bjørn Westlie uncovers his father's actions as a volunteer soldier for the Waffen-SS, the military wing of the infamous Schutzstaffel (SS), in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Balancing his role as both son and critical investigator, Westlie unflinchingly interrogates his father's fascist convictions, which speak to the appeal Hitler's ideology held for a small, disgraced segment of Norway's mid-century population. A story of collaboration, tragedy, and treason, My Father's War reveals the little-known history of Norway's frontkjempere (front fighters), the atrocities the Waffen-SS committed against Ukrainian Jews, and the complex legacies of ethnonationalism in Norway.With an insightful introduction from translator Dean Krouk, My Father's War is a contemporary classic of war literature. Committed to genuine understanding without falling into undue sympathizing, this sober and reflective book presents an eye-opening, moving, intense, and necessary account of the allure of fascism in a world at war--and its personal costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization regularly appears in newspapers and political science scholarship. Surprisingly, historians have yet to devote the attention that the organization’s history merits. Timothy A. Sayle, an Assistant Professor of history at the University of Toronto, attempts to correct this. His fascinating new book, Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order (Cornell University Press, 2019), examines the history of NATO from its founding in the late 1940s through to its expansion in the post-Cold War era. Sayle shows how NATO wasn’t just any organization; it was, he writes, “an instrument of great-power politics and the basis for a Pax Atlantica.”Taking his readers deep into the decision-making of NATO and its member states from the 1940s to the 1990s, Sayle provides a new, innovative international history of the second half of the twentieth century. Enduring Alliance should interest historians and scholars from across subfields—military history, U.S. foreign policy history, Cold War history, and global governance studies.Dexter Fergie is a PhD student of US and global history at Northwestern University. He is currently researching the 20th century geopolitical history of information and communications networks. He can be reached by email at dexter.fergie@u.northwestern.edu or on Twitter @DexterFergie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history