Ways of War

American Military History from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century

Matthew S. Muehlbauer, David J. Ulbrich

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040258002
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Now in its third edition, Ways of War is a comprehensive guide to United States military history and its wider relationship to American society, from the seventeenth century to the present day.

This volume remains an accessible and compelling textbook for students and instructors, combining traditional "drum and bugle" history with "war and society" approaches to highlight the military's influence on American culture, economics, and politics. The new edition contains over 60 maps, both new and revised, to further illustrate military battles, campaigns, and operations. Each chapter also includes a wealth of images alongside chapter timelines identifying key events, text boxes providing biographical information and first-person accounts, and short bibliographies. The final two chapters have been fully updated to include vital material on the end of the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2021, as well as information on new military technology and artifical intelligence that have changed warfare in recent years.

Written by experienced instructors and designed to maximize student engagement, the third edition of Ways of War remains an essential text for American military history and war and society courses.

Instructor and student resources for this book include a test bank of multiple choice, discussion, and essay questions; interactive timelines; annotated and expanded bibliographies for each chapter; and chapter glossaries and flashcards.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• Introduction
• 1 Early Colonization and Conflict, 1607–1689
• 2 Wars Imperial and Regional, 1689–1763
• 3 The American Revolution, 1763–1783
• 4 Challenges in the Early Republic, 1783–1815
• 5 Expansion, 1815–1865
• 6 The American Civil War: Confederate Defiance, 1861–1863
• 7 The American Civil War: Union Triumph, 1863–1865
• 8 Transitions: Force in Domestic, Frontier, and Imperial Contexts, 1865–1902
• 9 Early Twentieth-Century Reforms and the Great War, 1902–1918
• 10 Transformations in the Interwar Years, 1918–1941
• 11 Mobilizing for the Second World War, 1941–1943
• 12 Winning the Second World War, 1943–1945
• 13 American National Security in the Early Cold War, 1945–1961
• 14 Confrontations in the Cold War, 1961–1973
• 15 From Cold War to Pax Americana, 1973–2001
• 16 Global War on Terror and Global Uncertainty, 2001–2024
• Index