Military History

Militarizing Marriage
West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire
By Sarah J. Zimmerman

By prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire.

Militarizing Marriage
West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire
By Sarah J. Zimmerman

By prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire.

The Art of Occupation
Crime and Governance in American-Controlled Germany, 1944–1949
By Thomas J. Kehoe

This important contribution to American and German social, military, and police histories, as well as historical criminology offers the first comprehensive exploration of criminality, policing, and both German and American fears around the realities of conquest and potential resistance amid the looming threat from communism in an emergent Cold War.

Home Front to Battlefront
An Ohio Teenager in World War II
By Frank Lavin
· Foreword by Henry Kissinger

Home Front to Battlefront contributes the rich details of one soldier’s experience to the broader literature on World War II, offering insight into the wartime career of a Jewish Ohioan in the military from enlistment to training through overseas deployment via personal letters, recollections, official military history, and more.

From Disarmament to Rearmament
The Reversal of US Policy toward West Germany, 1946–1955
By Sheldon A. Goldberg
· Foreword by Ingo Trauschweizer

At the end of World War II, the Allies were unanimous in their determination to disarm the former aggressor Germany. As the Cold War intensified, however, the decision whether to reverse that policy and to rearm West Germany led to disagreements both within the US government and among members of the nascent NATO alliance.

Home Front to Battlefront
An Ohio Teenager in World War II
By Frank Lavin
· Foreword by Henry Kissinger

Home Front to Battlefront contributes the rich details of one soldier’s experience to the broader literature on World War II, offering insight into the wartime career of a Jewish Ohioan in the military from enlistment to training through overseas deployment via personal letters, recollections, official military history, and more.

Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War
By John A. Wood

In the decades since the Vietnam War, veteran memoirs have influenced Americans’ understanding of the conflict. Yet few historians or literary scholars have scrutinized how the genre has shaped the nation’s collective memory of the war and its aftermath.

A Young General and the Fall of Richmond
The Life and Career of Godfrey Weitzel
By G. William Quatman

Despite his military achievements and his association with many of the great names of American history, Godfrey Weitzel (1835–1884) is perhaps the least known of all the Union generals. After graduating from West Point, Weitzel, a German immigrant from Cincinnati, was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans.

Violent Intermediaries
African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa
By Michelle R. Moyd

The askari, African soldiers recruited in the 1890s to fill the ranks of the German East African colonial army, occupy a unique space at the intersection of East African history, German colonial history, and military history.Lauded by Germans for their loyalty during the East Africa campaign of World War I, but reviled by Tanzanians for the violence they committed during the making of the colonial state between 1890 and 1918, the askari have been poorly understood as historical agents.

Ohio’s War
The Civil War in Documents
Edited by Christine Dee

In 1860, Ohio was among the most influential states in the nation. As the third-most-populous state and the largest in the middle west, it embraced those elements that were in concert-but also at odds-in American society during the Civil War era. Ohio’s War uses documents from that vibrant and tumultuous time to reveal how Ohio’s soldiers and civilians experienced the Civil War.

Failed States and Fragile Societies
A New World Disorder?
Edited by Ingo Trauschweizer and Steven M. Miner

In case studies from the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq, and Colombia, the contributors argue that early intervention to stabilize social, economic, and political systems offers the greatest promise, whereas military intervention at a later stage is both costlier and less likely to succeed.

Failed States and Fragile Societies
A New World Disorder?
Edited by Ingo Trauschweizer and Steven M. Miner

In case studies from the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq, and Colombia, the contributors argue that early intervention to stabilize social, economic, and political systems offers the greatest promise, whereas military intervention at a later stage is both costlier and less likely to succeed.

Citizen-General
Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era
By Eugene D. Schmiel

The wrenching events of the Civil War transformed not only the United States but also the men unexpectedly called on to lead their fellow citizens in this first modern example of total war. Jacob Dolson Cox, a former divinity student with no formal military training, was among those who rose to the challenge. In a conflict in which “political generals” often proved less than competent, Cox, the consummate citizen general, emerged as one of the best commanders in the Union army.

Protecting the Empire’s Frontier
Officers of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot during Its North American Service, 1767–1776
By Steven M. Baule

Protecting the Empire’s Frontier tells stories of the roughly eighty officers who served in the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot, which served British interests in America during the crucial period from 1767 through 1776.

Hero of the Angry Sky
The World War I Diary and Letters of David S. Ingalls, America’s First Naval Ace
By David S. Ingalls
· Edited by Geoffrey L. Rossano
· Foreword by William F. Trimble

Draws on the unpublished diaries, correspondence, informal memoir, and other personal documents of the U.S. Navy’s only flying “ace” of World War I to tell his unique story.

The Untried Life
The Twenty-Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War
By James T. Fritsch

Told in unflinching detail, this is the story of the Twenty-Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, also known as the Giddings Regiment or the Abolition Regiment, after its founder, radical abolitionist Congressman J. R. Giddings. The men who enlisted in the Twenty-Ninth OVI were, according to its lore, handpicked to ensure each was as pure in his antislavery beliefs as its founder.