LeftOfCenter

Okay, But Not Great

Revisado: 09-19-24

I was introduced to Mr. Cozzens's history writing through his wonderful 2015 book, "The Earth is Weeping, The Epic Story of The Indian Wars for The American West," and happily gave it five stars. But this 2020 book, "Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation," I give only 3 stars. The book is too long, repetitive, and frankly not very interesting in parts. To be sure, Tecumseh's story is worthy of telling, and the author's decision to give his brother, Tenskwatawa, the Prophet, co-billing, was correct, but I struggled to finish it (which I did).

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Still the best one volume history of Civil War

Revisado: 08-19-24

Almost 40 years on, James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" is still the best one-volume narrative history of the U.S. Civil War. That's a real achievement, since the writing of American history has changed so much in the last few decades.

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A disappointment

Revisado: 01-07-24

This book (audiobook in my case) was disappointing.

First, the title is misleading. This is not a book about the "evolution of warfare from 1945 to Ukraine." It is, instead, a grab bag of conflicts that don't support the promise of a narrative that describes an "evolution." (An entire chapter is dedicated to an account of the two-month Falklands War in 1982, apparently only because this was probably the last war Britain will ever fight more or less alone. Odd.)

Petraeus's prose is especially leaden, resembling U.S. Army operational reports from the field. (His approach to writing history reminded me of Joe Friday from the 1950s TV series, Dragnet. "Just the facts. Ma'am," Friday always counseled witnesses.) His love of military jargon and acronyms appears to be boundless. The result is a narrative that was often a slog. Andrews, by contrast, is an accomplished and talented historian, but most of the book was written by Petraeus.

Petraeus authors the longest chapters about America's mistakes in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But instead of insights into the evolution of warfare, he writes mainly about Army generals who are tasked by their civilian masters with impossible security and state building goals. Indeed, Petraeus, who led American military forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, uses this book to blame political leaders for the failures and praises the generals for doing their level best with too few resources and support from the American public. Ordinarily I would expect to read Petraeus's score settling in a memoir rather than a purported narrative history.

To conclude, I can't and don't recommend this book. It falls to others to write an informed history of the evolution of warfare in the postwar era.

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