American Military History, first published in 1956 as a one-volume textbook for ROTC courses and updated by countless historians through the years, intends to provide the United States Army with a fully comprehensive but brief account of its past in support of the military history education of young officers, NCOs, and cadets.
Just as the history of an active organization inevitably expands, so too has this new edition under the oversight of general editor Richard W. Stewart. Revised to reflect the challenging period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational change in the Army during the post-Vietnam years through the Global War on Terrorism, the resulting two volumes are highly readable and graphically handsome with many colorful maps and illustrations of period artwork and military artifacts that enhance the narrative. Those with an interest in learning about the Army and its campaigns will enjoy having and reading these visually pleasing and instructive volumes.
The second volume continues the saga, finding the Army facing complex challenges of creating, equipping, transporting, and supplying huge citizen armies across the globe during World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Then in the post-Vietnam years the Army transformed itself into a smaller all-volunteer professional force that has deployed for dozens of contingencies throughout the world, undertaking missions as diverse as humanitarian assistance/intervention, peace operations, nation building, and reconstruction. Now committed to prosecuting the Global War on Terrorism while fulfilling its essential homeland security responsibilities, the Army serves as an instrument of American power in the defense of freedom—a story that is still unfolding.
