San Antonio College Library

I read this book on the recommendation from a fellow officer in order to gain a better historical perspective of the military profession. This book develops the lineage from Armies of the ancient world to today's modern Armies in a rather concise and insightful manner. Sir John Hackett focuses a lot on the relationship between the military forces and the countries they represent on the battlefield. He also offers some interesting opinions about training...

"For nearly 1,000 years, Rome's army embodied the nation it protected and expanded. But beyond the battlefield, the Roman army was a fundamental social force as well, becoming the world's first fully compensated standing army and providing an essential career path for ambitious men of society. Written by a leading scholar of Roman military history, The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History is the first ever portrait of this legendary fighting...

A folklorist who taught as a civilian professor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for seven years, Carol Burke analyzes the military as an occupational folk group, arguing that every detail of military culture --from the "high and tight" haircut to the chants sung in basic training -- is laden with significance. Exploring the minute ways that "the cult of masculinity" persists in all branches of the United States military today, Burke unearths...

In Creating GI Jane, Leisa Meyer traces the roots of a cultural anxiety at the core of the American psyche, providing the historical perspective needed to understand the controversies still surrounding the gendered military. Drawing upon a rich array of sources including oral histories, army papers, congressional hearings, cartoons, and editorials, Meyer paints nuanced portraits of the experiences of women soldiers against the backdrop of strife and...

When one thinks of those institutions in America that have been at the vanguard of social change, the U.S. Army does not spring readily to mind. And yet, over the past two decades, the Army has become the most successfully integrated institution in America - from the ranks of the lowliest privates to the highest level of command. What has made the Army's experience so striking is that this success was achieved without resort to numerical quotas or...

Details of a 1945 protest at Freeman Field, Indiana, precede a study based on unpublished records that show how Air Force integration proceeded from then through the administrations of Presidents Truman and Kennedy. A preface addresses the changes in the last two decades.

Military historians are, quite rightly, concerned with war, but the Army does not simply cease to exist between the treaty ending one conflict and the opening guns of the next. The people who made up the "garrison world" during the peacetime intervals between the War for Independence and the Spanish-American War are the subject of this book. These were men collected mostly from the streets of Northern cities. Although the occasional Indian war made...