Throughout history, battlefields have placed a soldier’s instinct for self-preservation in direct opposition to the army’s insistence that he do his duty and put himself in harm’s way. Enduring Battle looks beyond advances in weaponry to examine changes in warfare at the very personal level. Drawing on the combat experiences of American soldiers in three widely separated wars—the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II—Christopher Hamner explores why soldiers fight in the face...

The Art of Maneuver shows how true maneuver-warfare theory has been applied in campaigns throughout history. With a genius for apt analogy the author shows how our obsession with fighting and winning set-piece battles causes us to overlook an enemy’s true vulnerabilities. But as low-intensity conflicts promise to become the dominant warfare of the future, the importance of maneuver in attacking an enemy’s critical vulnerability will render attrition approaches to warfighting ever ...

In his book Men Against Fire, [historian S. L. A.] Marshall asserted that only 15 to 25 percent of American soldiers ever fired their weapons in combat in World War II. . . .Shooting at the enemy made a man part of the “team,” or “brotherhood.” There were, of course, many times when soldiers did not want to shoot, suchas at night when they did not want to give away a position or on reconnaissance patrols. But, in the main, no combat soldier in his right mind would ha...

What essential leadership lessons do we learn by distilling the actions and ideas of great military commanders such as George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Colin Powell? That is the fundamental question underlying The Art of Command: Military Leadership from George Washington to Colin Powell. The book illustrates that great leaders become great through conscious effort—a commitment not only to develop vital skills but also to surmount personal shortcomings. Harry S. Laver, Jeffrey ...

“What does it take to make a great general or a great leader in any field? . . . An excellent contribution to the study of leadership among those who make life-and-death decisions in the most challenging situations—one that could well serve as required reading in both military and business schools.”—Kirkus ReviewsThroughout his life, Edgar F. “Beau” Puryear has studied America’s top military leaders. In his research for this book, he has sought to discover...

The Boys’ Crusade is the great historian Paul Fussell’s unflinching and unforgettable account of the American infantryman’s experiences in Europe during World War II. Based in part on the author’s own experiences, it provides a stirring narrative of what the war was actually like, from the point of view of the children—for children they were—who fought it. While dealing definitively with issues of strategy, leadership, context, and tactics, Fussell has an additional purpose: to te...

Infantrymen have been the sledgehammer of land warfare throughout the twentieth century but precisely how they fought at the tactical level has been difficult to determine. American historian S.L.A. Marshall for instance famously claimed that most Allied soldiers would not fight at all even when their lives were at stake.

S.L.A. "Slam" Marshall was a veteran of World War I and a combat historian during World War II. He startled the military and civilian world in 1947 by announcing that, in an average infantry company, no more than one in four soldiers actually fired their weapons while in contact with the enemy. His contention was based on interviews he conducted immediately after combat in both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II.To remedy the gunfire imbalance he proposed changes to ...

In this riveting insider's chronicle, legendary Marine General Brute Krulak submits an unprecedented examination of U.S. Marines-their fights on the battlefield and off, their extraordinary esprit de corps. Deftly blending history with autobiography, action with analysis, and separating fact from fable, General Krulak touches the very essence of the Corps: what it means to be a Marine and the reason behind its consistently outstanding performance and reputation. Krulak also addresses the m...

Men from all over North America and beyond – whether regulars, volunteers, or draftees – found themselves fighting for their lives on a host of bloody battlefields during the Civil War.The enthusiastic but largely inexperienced soldiers serving on both sides had to adapt quickly to the appalling realities of warfare in the industrial age. Author Ron Field, an authority on the Civil War, investigates three clashes that illustrate the changing realities of combat.

A unique visual account: "The hour-by-hour maps of the maneuvering and fighting provide the clearest cartographic picture of the battle in existence." —James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of FreedomIn this extraordinary book, seventy crystal-clear color maps and insightful text tell the hour-by-hour story of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg. Each map shows the same three-and-a-half-by-four-and-a-half-mile view of the battlefie...

Warfighting is an authentic American philosophy of action that will thrill the millions of fans of SunTzu's The Art of War and Musashi's The Book of Five Rings. This modern classic of strategy and philosophy is the quintessential guide to prevailing in competitive situations, be it war, work, play, or daily living.Sometimes life is war and sometimes business is war and sometimes you need to call in the Marines. Over the past two hundred years, the Marines...