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New dimensions in military history: An anthology
Weigley, Russell F., Ed., New Dimensions In Military History
- GenresHistoryMilitary Fiction
419 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
11 people want to read
About the author
Russell F. Weigley
26 books17 followersRussell Frank Weigley, PhD, was the Distinguished University Professor of History at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a noted military historian. His research and teaching interests centered on American and world military history, World War II, and the American Civil War. One of Weigley's most widely received contributions to research is his hypothesis of a specifically American Way of War, i.e. an approach to strategy and military operations, that, while not predetermined, is distinct to the United States because of cultural and historical constraints.
Weigley was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on July 2, 1930. He graduated from Albright College in 1952, attended the University of Pennsylvania for his masters degree and doctorate, and wrote his dissertation under Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Roy F. Nichols. It was published as Quartermaster General of the Union Army: A Biography of M.C. Meigs (Columbia University Press, 1959). After receiving his degree, Weigley taught at Penn from 1956 to 1958, and from 1958 to 1962 at Drexel University. Then he joined the faculty at Temple as an associate professor and remained until his retirement in 1998 as Distinguished University Professor. The school considered him the heart and soul of the History department, and at one point he had over 30 PhD candidates working under him concurrently. He also was a visiting professor at Dartmouth College and the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Weigley's graduate teaching emphasized military history defined in a broadly comprehensive way, including operational, combat history but also extending to the larger issues of war and its significance; to the history of ideas about war, peace, and the armed forces; and to the place of the soldier in the state and in society.
Weigley was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1969-70. He received the Athenaeum of Philadelphia Award for Non-Fiction in 1983 and the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize of the American Military Institute in 1989. His Age of Battles received the Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History for 1992 for a work in non-American military history. He has served as President of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the American Military Institute. In recognition of his scholarly achievements, Weigley was named Distinguished University Professor at Temple in 1985.
- from Wikipedia
Weigley was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on July 2, 1930. He graduated from Albright College in 1952, attended the University of Pennsylvania for his masters degree and doctorate, and wrote his dissertation under Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Roy F. Nichols. It was published as Quartermaster General of the Union Army: A Biography of M.C. Meigs (Columbia University Press, 1959). After receiving his degree, Weigley taught at Penn from 1956 to 1958, and from 1958 to 1962 at Drexel University. Then he joined the faculty at Temple as an associate professor and remained until his retirement in 1998 as Distinguished University Professor. The school considered him the heart and soul of the History department, and at one point he had over 30 PhD candidates working under him concurrently. He also was a visiting professor at Dartmouth College and the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Weigley's graduate teaching emphasized military history defined in a broadly comprehensive way, including operational, combat history but also extending to the larger issues of war and its significance; to the history of ideas about war, peace, and the armed forces; and to the place of the soldier in the state and in society.
Weigley was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1969-70. He received the Athenaeum of Philadelphia Award for Non-Fiction in 1983 and the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize of the American Military Institute in 1989. His Age of Battles received the Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History for 1992 for a work in non-American military history. He has served as President of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the American Military Institute. In recognition of his scholarly achievements, Weigley was named Distinguished University Professor at Temple in 1985.
- from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 19, 2018
This book was, predictably, a bit of a mixed bag, but I was actually somewhat surprised that parts of it were so good. I was particularly impressed by the sections authored by Jay Luvaas, Gunther E. Rothenberg and J. Bowyer Bell, the last named also having a pervasive and pronounced sense of humour which I was not expecting. I was surprised to find the essay by Alvin D. Coox on the history of the Imperial Japanese Army quite fascinating as well.
Sadly, most (if not all) of the men who contributed to this collection are now deceased. This is particularly unfortunate, in my view anyway, in the case of Professor Rothenberg, primarily because he never wrote a memoir (or at any rate, never had one published). The reason I find that regrettable is that Professor Rothenberg lived an extraordinary life that in many ways could be considered emblematic of the times in which he lived. He was born in Berlin during the era of the Weimar Republic, his family escaped Germany before the outbreak of World War II (his parents ultimately emigrated to the U.S. in 1941), and he went to Mandatory Palestine where he volunteered for the British Army. After serving in North Africa (where he was wounded in action), Italy, Yugoslavia and Austria he was discharged in 1946 and immediately found employment with the U.S. intelligence establishment in occupied Austria. In 1948, he returned to Palestine and joined the Haganah, just in time to serve in the First Arab-Israeli War which began that year. He rose to the rank of Captain in the Israel Defense Forces, and after the armistice agreements of 1949 ended hostilities, he emigrated first to Canada and then to the U.S., where his by then widowed mother had become a naturalised citizen. He volunteered for the U.S. Army, transferred to the Air Force, and served in the Korean War. After leaving the U.S. Air Force in 1955, he studied for his bachelors degree at the University of Illinois, his masters degree at the University of Chicago, and received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Rothenberg taught at several universities, and became the foremost English-language scholar to specialise in the history of the Austro-Hungarian K.u.K. Armee and a noted expert on Napoleonic warfare. He wrote many books, two of which were collaborations with the late Professor Béla K. Király, whose life was just as extraordinary as Professor Rothenberg's (but who, happily, was able to complete a memoir which was published a few years before he died). Professor Rothenberg was a visiting Fulbright fellow in the Department of History in the Faculty of Military Studies at the Australian Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1985; he was appointed Professor Emeritus on his retirement from Purdue University in 1999, and moved to Australia, where from 1995–2001 he was a visiting fellow at the School of Historical Studies, Monash University. At the end of his life he was living in Canberra, ACT, where his wife, Professor Eleanor Hancock, taught at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
I'm aware that some of the other contributors to this collection also, as the saying goes, lived "in interesting times", but though I was familiar with his scholarship I had previously not been aware of the details of Professor Rothenberg's life, and thought it was too good a story not to tell here. I'm glad I took the trouble to look into his life & career, because it gives me a more accurate and nuanced perspective on his work as a scholar, and I have one of his books sitting here as yet unread...
Sadly, most (if not all) of the men who contributed to this collection are now deceased. This is particularly unfortunate, in my view anyway, in the case of Professor Rothenberg, primarily because he never wrote a memoir (or at any rate, never had one published). The reason I find that regrettable is that Professor Rothenberg lived an extraordinary life that in many ways could be considered emblematic of the times in which he lived. He was born in Berlin during the era of the Weimar Republic, his family escaped Germany before the outbreak of World War II (his parents ultimately emigrated to the U.S. in 1941), and he went to Mandatory Palestine where he volunteered for the British Army. After serving in North Africa (where he was wounded in action), Italy, Yugoslavia and Austria he was discharged in 1946 and immediately found employment with the U.S. intelligence establishment in occupied Austria. In 1948, he returned to Palestine and joined the Haganah, just in time to serve in the First Arab-Israeli War which began that year. He rose to the rank of Captain in the Israel Defense Forces, and after the armistice agreements of 1949 ended hostilities, he emigrated first to Canada and then to the U.S., where his by then widowed mother had become a naturalised citizen. He volunteered for the U.S. Army, transferred to the Air Force, and served in the Korean War. After leaving the U.S. Air Force in 1955, he studied for his bachelors degree at the University of Illinois, his masters degree at the University of Chicago, and received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Rothenberg taught at several universities, and became the foremost English-language scholar to specialise in the history of the Austro-Hungarian K.u.K. Armee and a noted expert on Napoleonic warfare. He wrote many books, two of which were collaborations with the late Professor Béla K. Király, whose life was just as extraordinary as Professor Rothenberg's (but who, happily, was able to complete a memoir which was published a few years before he died). Professor Rothenberg was a visiting Fulbright fellow in the Department of History in the Faculty of Military Studies at the Australian Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1985; he was appointed Professor Emeritus on his retirement from Purdue University in 1999, and moved to Australia, where from 1995–2001 he was a visiting fellow at the School of Historical Studies, Monash University. At the end of his life he was living in Canberra, ACT, where his wife, Professor Eleanor Hancock, taught at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
I'm aware that some of the other contributors to this collection also, as the saying goes, lived "in interesting times", but though I was familiar with his scholarship I had previously not been aware of the details of Professor Rothenberg's life, and thought it was too good a story not to tell here. I'm glad I took the trouble to look into his life & career, because it gives me a more accurate and nuanced perspective on his work as a scholar, and I have one of his books sitting here as yet unread...
Displaying 1 of 1 review