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Ten Best Books I Read This Year

December is the month in which popular journals publish their “Ten Best Books of 2009”, as the New York Times did last week. I too use December to consolidate my reading for the year (which is usually between seventy to eighty books, some that are new and some that I am re-reading), collect my notes, and update my bibliographic and research software (I use Citation – but there are several good programs available). Never wanting to be upstaged by the New York Times , here is my list of the “Ten Best Books I Read This Year”. Appleman, Roy E. East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950. (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press), 1987. Baggini, Julian. What’s It All About?: Philosophy & The Meaning of Life. (New York: Oxford University Press), 2004. Bak, Per. How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality. (New York: Oxford University Press), 1997. Coyne, Jerry A. Why Evolution is True. (New York: Viking), 2009. Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Re

The Scholarly Apparatus in a Popular History Book

In a recent post I called attention to three history books that were based on primary sources and, through the scholarly apparatus, let the reader check the interpretation against the sources. Moreover, all three books contributed a new and deeper understanding of their subjects and a provided fresh interpretations. The direct relationship between the usefulness of the interpretation and the reliance on primary sources is unavoidable. Let us consider a recent history book that was well reviewed and successful in the market place that did not contribute a new and deeper understanding or suggested a fresh interpretation: David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion), 2007. Halberstam was a long-time, successful journalist, a capable narrative writer, and winner of many awards. He was intelligent, a good interviewer, and an above average writer. The book is based mostly on secondary sources with a few author interviews. Halberstam’s book has 20

What Should I Read Next?

Educated readers and students often ask, “How do I select a good history book?” Michèle Lamont, in her new book How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts), 2009, explores how various disciplines evaluate scholarship within their fields. Drawing upon her research on grant proposals, she suggests that within the “humanities”, historians as a professional group are more likely to agree on the quality of a particular research proposal or its product, a book, than are other fields. That is to say, historians know a good history book when they read it. Understanding how historians agree on what are good books helps the non-historian in selecting books. Why do historians have a wider agreement on superior scholarship than do scholars in political science, sociology, or literature? Dr. Lamont’s answer is no surprise to historians: history is evidence based where other fields are theory based. For the historian

Veteran's Day 2009

A good friend with whom I served in Southeast Asia (SEA) in 1968 and 1969, made, during a recent email conversation, an observation about many in the draftee Army of that era. He wrote that many of the men with whom we served were draftees (as he was; I was RA and we were both enlisted) were upset about being drafted, being in the Army, and being in SEA. They resented that their lives and careers had not only been interrupted, but put on hold; that they had been placed in conditions that were at worst very dangerous and at best very miserable. Many, such as my friend, were college graduates who wanted to get on with the careers. Many had some college or technical school and wanted to complete their degree. Many were married or engaged and wanted to move on with their personal lives. They all had lives that markedly differed from the Army’s agenda. However, my friend went on to write that the vast majority of those with whom he served no matter how much they hated the Army, hated being

Remembering 11 September 2001

Americans remember 11 September 2001 in many different ways. One, but by no means the only way, is to ask, “Where were you on….?” That question appeared on my Facebook account this morning and I intended to make a “comment”. However, Facebook, like similar social networking platforms , is not able to handle too many words and thus not too many thoughts. So, below is what I would have posted had the technology been able to support it: One wonders how many times in one’s life is it necessary to recall where they were on a given date? To be sure, on 7 and 8 December 1941, staff members of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C., conducted a series of oral history interviews with people randomly selected as they walked up or down The Mall. The interviews were recorded on “wire” recorders and remain a fascinating source of popular history for the period. For the second half of the twentieth century, those interviews reinforced the habit of asking, “Where were you when. . . .?

The Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, 2009

The annual meeting for the Society for Military History at Middle Tennessee State University this past weekend was enjoyable and successful. My paper, “The National Guard as Community, 1903-2008”, was well received. The other two presenters on the panel, Shawn Fisher (University of Memphis) and Eric Jarvis (King’s University College) were extremely interesting and it was an honor to be on a panel with two such excellent scholars. I was especially impressed by the panel chairperson, Professor Jeff Roberts (Tennessee Technology University) whose comments were insightful and helpful. Thank you, Jeff! The conference was also a splendid opportunity to meet old friends (Peter Kindsvatter, Allen Millett, Steve Bourque, and especially Jim Williams) as well as to make new contacts. I especially enjoyed visiting the Indiana University Press (IUP) booth and Bob Sloan, the Press’s Editorial Director. I have many fond memories from when I was an Acquisitions Editor at IUP. It was a delight to se

The Second Moroccan Crisis, 1911

For the past several days there has been an interesting discussion on the LSTSRV H-WAR concerning the importance of the Agadir Affair, also called the Second Moroccan Crisis, in terms of the causes of World War I. In the decade and a half prior to World War I there were a series of international disputes that involved or affected the major European powers that in 1914 went to war as members of either the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Great Britain). An important question concerning World War I has been to gauge the relative importance of these various diplomatic crisis’s and evaluate them in terms of the so-called Alliance System that developed as each participant attempted to guarantee its own security and protect its own national and dynastic interests. The Second Moroccan Crisis and Agadir Affair are interesting because they led to results that the Germans, French, and British had not intended or anticipated. Belo

A Soldier's Pay

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ constant dollar calculator, twenty-five cents in 1913 has the same buying power of $5.36 in 2008. In 1913 an enlisted member of the Ohio National Guard received twenty-five cents in pay for attendance at each scheduled drill. According to Article XV, Section 5272, of Regulations for the Ohio National Guard , 1912, members of the Guard were required to meet for the purpose of “drill and instruction” at least once a week but not to exceed 48 days per year. Article XVII, Section 5288 of the same regulation stipulates that enlisted members will receive twenty-five cents for each drill day, paid quarterly. In addition to weekly drills, Ohio Guardsman also attended the annual “encampment”, which would last from eight to fourteen days. According to Paul H. Douglas, Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926 (Houghton Mifflin: Boston), 1930, p. 108, real wages in all manufacturing in the United States in 1913 averaged $2.09 per day

Tennessee in April

Today the Society for Military History published the program for their annual conference, 2 – 5 April 2009, at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN. My paper, “The National Guard as Community, 1903 – 2008”, will be presented in the panel “Changing Role of the Militia and National Guard”, Session 7-6, 3:30 PM 4 April. There are two other papers in this panel: “Helmets in the Halls: The Arkansas National Guard at Little Rock Central High” by Shawn Fisher (University of Memphis), and “In Defense of Our City and Our Nation: Military Preparations by the Citizens of Philadelphia following the Burning of Washington, 1814 – 1815” by Eric Jarvis (King’s University College). Both are highly respected scholars and I look forward to hearing their papers. The Chair and Commentator is Jeffrey J.Roberts, chairman of the Department of History at Tennessee Technology University. Dr. Roberts did his Ph.D. at Ohio State University, long known for producing excellent historians. I am very p