In the School of War

by Spiller, Roger J.

• ISBN13: 9780803228160
• ISBN10: 0803228163
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Fort Leavenworth, where Roger J. Spiller taught the US army's finest for twenty-five years, is indeed a "school of war." There, among military professionals who had experienced war firsthand, Spiller honed his remarkable skills as an analyst and historian, scholar and teacher---skills that have made him one of the best-known and respected military historians of our day. This volume brings together Spiller's original and thought-provoking explorations of wars big and small and armies glorified and ignored. For each of these essays---whether on urban warfare or the Vietnam syndrome, battlefield psychology or the making of military history, and underrated vs. overrated generals---Spiller revisits his topic and his thinking, bringing fresh insight and a new context to an incomparable body of work.In the School of Warfurther reveals the complex relationship between past and present in an understanding of the nature of war.

Author Biography

Roger J. Spiller is the George C. Marshall Distinguished Professor of Military History (retired) at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is the author or editor of numerous publications, including his latest work, An Instinct for War: Scenes from the Battlefields of History. Most recently, he was an advisor for Ken Burns’s PBS documentary, The War. John W. Shy, professor emeritus of history at the University of Michigan, is the author of A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Introduction	p. xiii
On Combat
Introduction	p. 3
Isen's Run: Human Dimensions of Warfare in the Twentieth Century (1988)	p. 13
My Guns (1991)	p. 29
S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire (1991)	p. 44
The Price of Valor (1993)	p. 68
Cherry Blossoms Falling: Japanese Combat Behavior at War's End (1999)	p. 87
The Psychological Battlefield (2005)	p. 118
In the School of War
Introduction	p. 143
War History and the History Wars: Establishing the Combat Studies Institute (1988)	p. 159
Armies in History, History in Armies (2001)	p. 183
The Vietnam Syndrome: A Brief History (2002)	p. 199
In the Shadow of the Dragon: Doctrine and the U.S. Army after Vietnam (1997)	p. 220
Urban Warfare: Its History and Its Future (1003)	p. 258
Going Public
Introduction	p. 275
Overrated and Underrated: General (1998)	p. 283
Overrated and Underrated: World War II General (2002)	p. 285
War in the Dark (1999)	p. 287
A War against History (2001)	p. 301
Experimental History
Introduction	p. 311
Military History and Its Fictions (2006)	p. 319
The Führer in the Dock: A Speculation on the Banality of Evil (2001)	p. 339
The Real War: An Interview with Paul Fussell (1989)	p. 360
Rain Stops Play (2005)	p. 378
Acknowledgments	p. 399
Source Acknowledgments	p. 401
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