The Gulf Wars against Iraq

Ballard, John R.

doi:10.1002/9781444315066.ch15

A Companion to American Military History 2009

DOI: 10.1002/9781444315066.ch15

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The Gulf Wars against Iraq

John R. Ballard¹

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“…I will briefly evaluate selected chapters to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of CAMH. 8 Awardwinning historian John Grenier, in the first essay, deftly recounts the long story of "Warfare during the Colonial Era, 1607-1765" (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). As he points out, although colonial military history is now usually rather neglected, it was not always so.…”

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“…He stakes out four areas: comprehensive histories; wars and battles; specialized studies (for example, of weapons and wartime behavior); and biographies. Though he confines himself to books, he misses some important ones, such as Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace, 12 Robert Sherrod 15 and Richard Tregaskis. 16 Granted, the announced focus of CAMH is the scholarship of academic historians (2), but most of the essays rightly take account of memoirs and journalism as well.…”

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Coastal Defenses

Floyd

2009

A Companion to American Military History

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Military history has long been viewed as the red-headed stepchild of the broader history profession. Though its demise is often predicted, it has proven resilient and persistently vigorous. The result is that, as Robert Citino has written, "Military history today is in the same curious position it has been in for decades: extremely popular with the American public at large, and relatively marginalized within professional academic circles." 1 This continuing popularity stems in part from the fact that the history of the United States is substantially one of war and warfare. Including internal conflicts, such as with Native Americans, undeclared interventions, as in the Caribbean and Central America in the 1920s and 1930s, and the global "war on terror," US forces have seldom not been engaged somewhere in the world. Not surprisingly, then, American military history has generated countless books, 2 including a number of encyclopedias, handbooks, and "companions." 3 These volumes normally feature material ranging from brief synopses of battles and biographies of commanders to longer essays on wars, campaigns, and other topics. Their organization may be purely chronological or topical. They are routinely touted as "essential" or "must-have" for students and scholars. What then, does still another such volume have to offer? What could be missing from the existing literature? A Companion to American Military History [CAMH], part of the Blackwell Companions to American History series, in fact proves to be a worthwhile undertaking. The sixty-seven essays that comprise its two volumes surpass the typical handbook by a beneficial emphasis on the historiography 4 of each topic. As James Bradford states in his Introduction, the essays "are designed to provide basic information about their subject, but just as importantly to assess the historiography of the topic. They are not meant to be bibliographical in the sense of listing all books, not even all valuable books on a topic, but to identify the major areas of interpretive discussion" (3).CAMH appraises the whole of American military history, from the Colonial era to the "long wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq. Contributors range from well-known military historians to specialists on particular topics and emerging scholars. Although the individual historiographical reviews concentrate on the writings of academic military historians, as opposed to those of popularizers or military professionals, the more comprehensive chapters embrace serious work by various civilian and military leaders as well as individual participants in various campaigns and battles. Many of the essays pinpoint subjects in need of further investigation. In selecting topics, priority goes to "military institutions and practices, the conduct of operations, and links between American service personnel and civilians," not to "topics such as the causes of war and the impact of war on American society…" (3).

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Coastal Defenses

Floyd

2009

A Companion to American Military History

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The Gulf Wars against Iraq

Cited by 1 publication

References 7 publications

Coastal Defenses

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