Printable View
Has anyone read, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power? I came across a reference to in the Wall Street Journal. The author/reviewer wrote a positive review for Leonard Wood: Rough Rider, Surgeon, Architect of American Imperialism .
The reason why I consider this a precursor to small wars reading is that any layman will be surprised to see the American environment today is really not much different than America's involvement with small wars throughout its history.
I finished Savage Wars of Peace a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed it. It gives a great historic overview of America's non-sexy actions abroad. I had never heard of some of the operations, so it was really interesting. It also gives some good analysis on what worked, what didn't. History repeats itself, as this book proves.
It's a good book, better than some out there, but you need to read it in conjunction with some other books to get a full perspective. Also, some of Boot's later chapters are less informative and useful than the earlier sections. He tends to get bogged down in "blood and thunder" battle narratives and lose sight of the larger picture on occasions, though. The best section deal with American involvement in Central America and (interestingly enough) Russia after World War I.
Has anyone read the Leonard Wood biography above. I never heard of this guy before but he did a good job with with Cuba and the Moslem regions of the Philippines during his career. Also, gives a good idea of the structure of the Volunteer and Regular Army during that period. Some people might be a little critical of him for what he used or did during his career.