For the Common Defense

Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781439118276
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Now fully updated and totally revised, this highly regarded classic remains the most comprehensive study available of America's military history. Called "the preeminent survey of American military history" by Russell F. Weigley, America's foremost military historian, For the Common Defense is an essential contribution to the field of military history. This carefully researched third edition provides the most complete and current history of United States defense policy and military institutions and the conduct of America's wars. Without diminishing the value of its earlier editions, authors Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis provide a fresh perspective on the continuing issues that characterize national security policy. They have updated the work with new material covering nearly twenty years of scholarship, including the history of the American military experience in the Balkans and Somalia, analyzing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2012, and providing two new chapters on the Vietnam War. For the Common Defense examines the nation's pluralistic military institutions in both peace and war, the tangled civil-military relations that created the country's commitment to civilian control of the military, the armed forces' increasing nationalization and professionalization, and America's growing reliance on sophisticated technologies spawned by the Industrial Revolution and the Computer and Information Ages. This edition is also a timely reminder that vigilance is indeed the price of liberty but that vigilance has always been—and continues to be—a costly, complex, and contentious undertaking in a world that continually tests America's willingness and ability to provide for the common defense.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: A Dangerous New World, 1607–1689
• Chapter 2: The Colonial Wars, 1689–1763
• Chapter 3: The American Revolution, 1763–1783
• Chapter 4: Preserving the New Republic’s Independence, 1783–1815
• Chapter 5: The Armed Forces and National Expansion, 1815–1860
• Chapter 6: The Civil War, 1861–1862
• Chapter 7: The Civil War, 1863–1865
• Chapter 8: From Postwar Demobilization Toward Great Power Status, 1865–1898
• Chapter 9: The Birth of an American Empire, 1898–1902
• Chapter 10: Building the Military Forces of a World Power, 1899–1917
• Chapter 11: The United States Fights in the “War to End All Wars,” 1917–1918
• Chapter 12: Military Policy Between the Two World Wars, 1919–1939
• Chapter 13: The United States and World War II: From the Edge of Defeat to the Edge of Victory, 1939–1943
• Chapter 14: The United States and World War II: The Road to Victory, 1943–1945
• Chapter 15: Cold War and Hot War: The United States Enters the Age of Nuclear Deterrence and Collective Security, 1945–1953
• Chapter 16: Waging Cold War: American Defense Policy for Extended Deterrence and Containment, 1953–1965
• Chapter 17: In Dubious Battle: Vietnam, 1961–1967
• Chapter 18: The Lost War: Vietnam, 1968–1975
• Chapter 19: The Common Defense and the End of the Cold War, 1976–1993
• Chapter 20: World Disorder New and Old, 1993–2001
• Chapter 21: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001–2011
• Photographs
• Appendices
• About Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis
• Index
• Copyright