America’s Military

Larry Schweikart, America’s Victories: Why the U. S. Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror . New York: Sentinel, 2006. 324 pp.

Many Americans regard the military as a world apart, a strange world of rank and ritual, tradition and respect, everything that the rest of America is not. Not so, argues University of Dayton history professor Larry Schweikart in this unabashedly patriotic book. America has been successful in war largely because the military has been so, well, so American. Illustrating his points with vivid descriptions of individual battles, he claims that America’s military is the most humane, most self-critical, and most democratic in history. Technologies developed in America’s robust private sector are put to military use, and, unlike many other militaries in history, the various branches of the American armed forces actually communicate with one another. Even protest and the hostility of the media and entertainment industries has only strengthened the military, pushing leaders to be more protective of troops and to look for comparatively safer and more efficient ways to fight.