Departments

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military history

  • 4/18/2021

    Who Won the American Revolution?

    by Guy Chet

    Almost since the smoke cleared after the Battle of Lexington, Americans have debated the relative merits of the militias and the Continental Army in fighting the British. The relative esteem of each group has followed changes in the politics of the nation. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    4/14/2021

    Registering Women for the Draft Wouldn’t be a Big Departure from the Past

    by Kara Dixon Vuic

    An odd alliance of the ACLU and the antifeminist National Coalition for Men is petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling exempting women from registering with the Selective Service and potentially being drafted into the military. Many voices have long advocated this change. 

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    4/8/2021

    Black Soldiers and the Civil War

    by Aston Gonzalez

    Deborah Willis's book "The Black Civil War Soldier" utilizes visual imagery other historians have often passed over to describe how Black soldiers understood military service in relation to their hopes for future economic, political, and familial security. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    4/8/2021

    Back to the Future at the Pentagon

    by William Astore

    The Pentagon's shift away from planning for asymmetrical warfare toward "near-peer" conventional conflict is reviving the defense contracting gravy train for big-ticket weapons systems, with a revival of Cold War nuclear danger as a side effect. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    3/20/2021

    I Don’t Want My Role Models Erased

    by Elizabeth Becker

    The work of women journalists covering the war in Vietnam has been obscured in remembrance of the war and its place in American history and culture. The author seeks to recover the stories of Frances FitzGerald, Kate Webb and Catherine Leroy.

  • SOURCE: War on the Rocks
    3/16/2021

    The Mythical War Scare of 1983

    by Simon Miles

    "Nuclear weapons are not without danger, to be sure. An overinflation of the risk of Able Archer should not be necessary to remind policymakers of that point."

  • 3/14/2021

    The Long History of Women Warriors

    by Fred Zilian

    Archaeological discoveries dating to the 5th century BCE show that the Amazons of Greek lore were based on the nomadic Scythians of Eurasia, part of a body of evidence that confounds the idea that rigidly demarcated gender roles are universal or inevitable.

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    3/4/2021

    Rewarding Failure

    by William Astore

    One place a little cancel culture could come in handy is in the halls of the Pentagon, where costly and pointless weapons programs prove impossible to kill off. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    2/28/2021

    African-American Sacrifice in the Killing Fields of France

    For their bravery in capturing Séchault from the Germans on Sept. 29, 1918, and for other combat action, the regiment known as the "Harlem Hellfighters" was awarded France’s highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre, soon after the war. 

  • SOURCE: History.com
    2/11/2021

    New Documentary: Tuskegee Airmen: Legacy of Courage

    TV journalist Robin Roberts produces a documentary on the famed Tuskegee Airmen – including her father – whose service in World War II supported the long movement for civil rights. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    2/5/2021

    A Southerner who abandoned the Lost Cause (Review)

    West Point historian Ty Seidule's book traces his own personal path from venerating the Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy to rejecting it, including questioning the number of monuments to Robert E. Lee at the US Military Academy.