The Military Heritage of America: A Review of the 1984 Revised Edition,
Abstract
The virtues of 'Military Heritage of America,' by Ernest and Trevor Dupuy, first published in 1956, are substantial and well known. In a single readable volume of 21 chapters and 800 pages it introduced college students to the study of warfare, the principles of war, the concepts of strategy and tactics, the evolution of military theory, and--nine-tenths of the book--the history of American wars and campaigns from King William's War in the 1690s to the 1953 Armistice in Korea. It did all this while paying some regard to military developments abroad and the evolution of military technology. It drew extensively on instructional materials developed at West Point and--it was well illustrated with diagrams and maps. The text was supplemented by helpful chronologies of military events and the evolution of military materiel. Finally, it provided a good bibliography of works in English and a particularly useful index. What has just been said about the 1956 edition applies almost equally well to the 1984 revised edition, because the two are similar. What is new (some 75 pages) is distinguishable by a slight difference in type face and consists of an additional preface, three new chapters, and a brief supplementary index to the new material. The titles of the three added chapters (as given in the table of contents) are (1) 'cold War Abroad; Controversy at Home; 1947-1965,' (2) 'The Vietnam War,' and (3) 'Living with Nuclear Confrontation.' The chronological tables have not been updated, nor has the bibliography, where the most recent item is dated 1955.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA154356
Entities
People
- E. Dews
Organizations
- RAND Corporation