American Military History and the Evolution of Western Warfare

by Doughty, Robert; Gruber, Ira; Flint, Roy; Grimsley, Mark; Herring, George

• ISBN13: 9780669416831
• ISBN10: 0669416835
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-01-02
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing

Summary

This highly readable and authoritative history of American military operations examines the campaigns and the changing practices that have helped to define Western warfare. Beginning with Anglo-American skirmishes in the early seventeenth century, the narrative moves on through the War for American Independence and the development of a professional officer corps in the early nineteenth century to the Civil War and the two great total wars of the twentieth century. The volume concludes with five chapters on the more limited wars of the nuclear age. The text is supported by a wealth of photographs and maps throughout. Robert A. Doughty, U.S. Military Academy, and Ira Gruber, Rice University, led a team of eminent military historians in the development of this text. Each of the authors, drawing on his own field of expertise and focusing on specific campaigns, examines not only military operations but the technological, social, and political developments that affected those operations. The result is a uniquely valuable account of warfare in the Western World.

Table of Contents

Anglo-American Warfare, 1607--1763: The Emergence of the People in Arms	1	(28)
The War for American Independence, 1775--1783: The People at War	29	(40)
American Military Policy, 1783--1860: The Beginnings of Professionalism	69	(32)
The Civil War, 1861--1862: The Lethal Face of Battle	101	(28)
The Civil War, 1862: Ending the Limited War	129	(32)
The Civil War, 1863: Moving Democracies Toward Total War	161	(36)
The Civil War, 1864--1865: Total War	197	(34)
Making War More Lethal, 1871--1914	231	(28)
The Great War: An Indecisive Beginning	259	(30)
Attempting to End the Stalemate, 1914--1916	289	(32)
1917: The Year of Desperation and Anticipation	321	(26)
Breaking the Hold of the Trenches, 1918	347	(24)
Germany Triumphant: Restoring Mobility to War	371	(30)
Germany Arrested: The Limits of Expansion	401	(34)
The Atlantic and the Pacific: Producing and Projecting Military Power	435	(40)
The Eastern and Mediterranean Fronts: Winning Battles of Men and Machines	475	(34)
Victory in Europe: Brute Force in the Air and on the Ground	509	(34)
Victory in the Pacific: Naval and Amphibious War on the Operational Level	543	(34)
The Cold War and the Nuclear Era: Adjusting Warfare to Weapons of Mass Destruction	577	(28)
Korea: Limiting War to Avoid Armageddon	605	(28)
The Vietnam War, 1961--1975: Revolutionary and Conventional Warfare in an Era of Limited War	633	(34)
War in the Middle East: Violence Across the Spectrum of Conflict	667	(30)
The Age of Interventions: Projecting Power and Maintaining Peace	697