America's Wars & Military Excursions

by Edwin P. Hoyt

An overview of the military excursions and wars undertaken in the course of United States history includes the Seminole War, the nineteenth-century assault on Japan, and interventions in Latin America and Vietnam

Genres: History, American History, Military Fiction

539 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1987

About the author

Edwin P. Hoyt was a prolific American writer who specialized in military history. He was born in Portland, Oregon to the publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt (1897–1979) and his wife, the former Cecile DeVore (1901–1970). A younger brother, Charles Richard, was born in 1928. Hoyt attended the University of Oregon from 1940 to 1943.

In 1943, Hoyt's father, then the editor and publisher of The Oregonian, was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the director of the Domestic Branch, Office of War Information. The younger Hoyt served with the Office of War Information during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. In 1945 and 1946, he served as a foreign correspondent for The Denver Post (of which his father became editor and publisher in 1946) and the United Press, reporting from locations in China, Thailand, Burma, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and Korea.

Edwin Hoyt subsequently worked as an ABC broadcaster, covering the 1948 revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1949 to 1951, he was the editor of the editorial page at The Denver Post. He was the editor and publisher of the Colorado Springs Free Press from 1951 to 1955, and an associate editor of Collier's Weekly in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1957 he was a television producer and writer-director at CBS, and in 1958 he was an assistant publisher of American Heritage magazine in New York.

Starting in 1958, Hoyt became a writer full-time, and for a few years (1976 to 1980) served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hawaii. In the 40 years since his first publication in 1960, he produced nearly 200 published works.

While Hoyt wrote about 20 novels (many published under pseudonyms Christopher Martin and Cabot L. Forbes) the vast majority of his works are biographies and other forms of non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on World War II military history.

Hoyt died in Tokyo, Japan on July 29, 2005, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by his wife Hiroko, of Tokyo, and three children, Diana, Helga, and Christopher, all residing in the U.S.

Reviews

[Steve Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not worth the time, sorry. A couple examples of editorial errors: He refers to the Civil War Battle of Seven Pines as the Battle of Seven Pikes. He refers to US 155mm artillery as 144mm. This is more a 545 page opinion piece than history of American military adventures. He cites sources but provides no footnotes. His assessment of the US military of the post Vietnam era is not entirely inaccurate but his analysis of what is needed to improve it, a return to the draft, could not be more wrong. Even here he implies that the draft has a long history yet the first peacetime draft in American history came in 1940 when much of the world was at war. It lasted until 1971. Published in 1987 there is no hint in his analysis of the steadily increasing quality that led to the superb Desert Shield/Desert Storm professional military force. Instead he refers to the soldiers as "virtually illiterate" and unable to get any other job. There is more but you get the drift...

[Steve Rosemier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding summary of 200+ years of American political and military brilliance and buffoonery.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read during my Army years.