Book Review: Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors are Sabotaging America’s Military by James Hasson

Unless you have been living in a cave you should be aware that political correctness and the “war for social justice” is everywhere in the last 10-15 years.  This book details how the social justice warriors (SJWs) have infiltrated the American military and the corrosive effect SJW policies has had on military readiness. The author is a former US Army officer and combat veteran.  The numbers: there are 182 pages of text divided into 9 topical chapters with 38 pages of notes and an index.  The first chapter defines the problems that the author sees and chapters 2-8 describe the various issues and how the SJW influence has affected the … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson

I have been a fan of Dr. Hanson’s work since I first read The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece years ago while pursuing my undergrad degree in Military History.  Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power is almost 20 years old at this point and I wish I had read it back then.  Since I did not, let me review it now. First the facts: the book is 464 pages of text divided into ten topical chapters with a preface, epilogue, and afterword.  There is a glossary, further reading section, and index as well. The book is an examination of nine land … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Future of Land Warfare by Michael O’Hanlon

There is no end of speculation among policymakers and think tanks about what the future of warfare will look like and what the future US military should look like.  The Future of Land Warfare is another entry in that speculation. The facts.  The book is 202 pages of text divided into six topical chapters with a couple of appendices plus extensive notes and an index. The layout of this book is pretty straightforward and it almost reads as a slightly less dry White Paper.  O’Hanlon starts out by examining the historical context of US force structure and chapter 2 examines potential and likely adversaries in the coming decades.  The analysis … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Introduction to cyber-warfare: A multidisciplinary approach by Paulo Shakarian, Jana Shakarian, and Andrew Ruef

All leaders in the United States military should be required to read Introduction to cyber-warfare: A multidisciplinary approach.[1]  Paulo Shakarian, Jana Shakarian, and Andrew Ruef authored this book to address the need for knowledge and an understanding of the complexity of Cyber warfare from more than a computer science or information technology perspective.  The authors examine key areas of Cyber warfare that are extremely important for a leader in the United States military to understand from more than a military application alone.  As stated in the title, the book uses a multidisciplinary approach to explaining Cyber warfare by using case studies, technical information, as well as the military, political, scientific, … More after the Jump…

Book Review – The Last Battle: Victory, Defeat, and the End of World War I by Peter Hart

The Last Battle is the latest of the excellent histories of World War I that Peter Hart has produced.  This book is an account of the last year of World War I on the Western Front with an emphasis on the final Allied campaign known now as The 100 Days. My copy is a pre-publication review copy so some of this can change.  The facts: there are 395 pages of text divided into 12 chronological chapters. Like his earlier work this is an excellently written history that does not indulge in the blame games so many histories of World War I engage in.  Peter Hart presents a narrative account of … More after the Jump…

Book Review: D-Day Through German Eyes edited by Holger Eckhertz

An often overlooked aspect of World War II is the war as seen from the enemy side.  There have been a plethora of books published about the snail’s eye view of the war from the Allied side from intimate unit histories like “Band of Brothers” to collections of oral histories. There is an absolute dearth of such works on the side of the Axis powers in English but also in their native tongue at least as far as German goes to my knowledge. The facts: the book is 320 pages of text split between two books and 13 chapters with an introduction and postscript for each book. D-Day Through German … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves

In the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s several books about World War I came out that have become seminal works in their own right.  Among these is Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves, his autobiography written and published in 1929 that mainly covers his time as a British officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers on the Western Front during the war. As opposed to other memoirs or semi-autobiographical accounts of the war such as Storm of Steel or All Quiet on the Western Front, Goodbye To All That is essentially an unvarnished account of what the war was like for an unconventional English gentleman.  Graves was from … More after the Jump…

Book Review – The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Peter Hart

Since 2014 there have been a whole slew of books released dealing with World War I in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the war.  This volume is one of them.  In The Great War Peter Hart has produced a book that should have been written half a century ago at a minimum. The stats: the book is 476 pages of text separated into 16 chronologically arranged thematic chapters with maps, notes, and a preface. This book does what few other books I have read about manage.  That is, it examines World War I combat from the perspective of what was achievable at the time instead of criticizing commanders for … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Hannibal’s Road: The Second Punic War in Italy 213-203 B.C. by Mike Roberts

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author and/or publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] Hannibal’s Road covers a period in history that is often only briefly described, if not glossed over entirely.  That period is the 10 years between 213-203 B.C. after his stunning victories at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae until his evacuation of the Italian peninsula. The stats.  There are 249 pages of text divided into an introduction, 11 chapters, and an epilogue.  There are also several maps, notes, a bibliography, and an index. The period between the Roman defeats at Trebia, Trasimene, … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Mortal Wounds: The Human Skeleton as Evidence for Conflict in the Past by Martin Smith

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author and/or publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] As interesting books go Mortal Wounds is way up there. I will admit that when I first saw the title on a list of potential books for review I was skeptical but then the title and description made it somewhat intriguing. I am pleased to say that I am happy I decided to review this work as it is infinitely more interesting than the title implies. First the facts. The book is 248 pages of text divided into an introduction, … More after the Jump…

Terror and Counterinsurgency

I thought that the victory laps the press and others are doing about the supposed defeat of ISIS in Iraq was a good time to post this. Apparently the leaders of the West and most of the Western population has decided that several hundred dead and wounded every year due to terrorism is acceptable as the West collectively is unwilling to exert the effort to effectively defeat terrorism. It can be defeated if we are willing to be realistic and understand that you can only defeat terror by out-terroring the terrorists. Now three questions about insurgency and counterinsurgency please reply in the comments: How many people have heard of the … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Battlefields of the First World War: The Unseen Panoramas of the Western Front by Peter Barton

The Battlefields of the First World War: The Unseen Panoramas of the Western Front by Peter Barton is one of the most visually stunning books about WWI I have ever read.  This work is more than just a history of British participation on the Western Front.  It makes use of officially produced trench panoramas to illuminate conditions of trench warfare better than almost any other pictorial record of WWI I have run across. The book itself is 358 pages in length with a bibliography, picture credits, list of further reading, and index.  In addition, and one of the things that makes this book outstanding it includes two CD-ROMs that contain … More after the Jump…

Book Review: At the Edge of the World: The Heroic Century of the French Foreign Legion by Jean-Vincent Blanchard

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author and/or publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] I would hazard to guess that when most people think of the French Foreign Legion they think of hard faced mercenaries doing France’s dirty work, the idealized Beau Geste bringing civilization to the North African Desert or legionnaires fighting to the last man at Camerone.  At the Edge of the World  by Jean-Vincent Blanchard tells the real story of the French Foreign Legion and it needs no embellishment. The stats: the book is 222 pages of text separated into two … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Thai Way of Counterinsurgency by Jeff M. Moore PhD

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author and/or publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] Anybody who has read this blog over the past few years will know that I am not a big fan of COIN doctrine as currently espoused by the US Army.  My objections to COIN are mainly that it doesn’t work, not because the US gets it wrong but because the US is the wrong vehicle to execute the COIN fight in a foreign land.  Foreigners are automatically hamstrung in implementing a successful COIN strategy by the fact that they are … More after the Jump…

The Limes – Relics of an Empire

Many people have heard of Hadrian’s Wall in the UK and same have even heard of the Antonine Wall a little farther north.  What many people have never heard of or if they have heard of do not know where they are located are the Roman Limes(pronounced leem-ez) that stretched around the entire periphery of the ancient Roman Empire.  In many places the Limes ran along rivers or inaccessible mountains but in places where this was not possible the Romans built and garrisoned physical fortifications to mark the extent of their territory and prevent outside invaders from getting in an attacking or raiding within Roman territory. Because my wife and … More after the Jump…