Customer Reviews

A Country Made by War

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

January 2004

I've read a lot of history books and when I came across this one 15 years after it was published I thought it would be outdated, especially current history and personal projections around the time it was published, but I was wrong. The entire book brings back academic studies and refreshes the reader's memory of the history of America and the final chapters conclude with eerie philosophy, prophecies, and conclusions that makes one realize in hindsight that the author was right on target. He should write a sequel.

Complete timeline and strories from beginning to SE Asia. The author's style of interjecting his own fact-based impressions really help lighten up what could be an otherwise long winded topic. I have read several books on US military history, but none as thorough and cross-service as this. Most just covering one conflict or one branch of service. This has it all. A MUST FOR ALL MILITARY HISTORY BUFFS!

This is a subject that is worthy of multiple volumes. Nothing in our history is more controversial than the wars we have participated in. That Perret covered this subject in one volume creates a good news/bad news situation. Bad news: There is no room for any depth of discussion on his part and that leads quite often to conclusions that are, at the very least, misleading if for no other reason than they aren't explored thoroughly. Also he is moving along so fast that there is often a kind of breezy smugness in his approach which tended to make me the reader defensive.
Good news: The entire narrative is is very readable. Perret stays strictly on his subject throughout which is no easy task when dealing with military/political issues of any nature. Finally, he makes a very strong arguement against the Uptonian view that has held sway for so long. I've always been a bit of a centrist when it comes to Upton and Perret has me leaning toward the "anti" camp. That, in my case, is no small thing. For that reason alone, four stars!

This is the ONE book you should read if you are interested in American History. Perret links society and culture to an exposition of the American military experience, showing how both are intertwined, and how each affects the course of the other

If you like your historians bland and boring, don't buy this book. Perret is a fabulous writer, a great storyteller, and a highly insightful and opinionated observer. The book is worth buying for the quality of the writing alone, but Perret's unique perspectives will make the read a truly joyful experience. I taught citizenship classes for awhile in addition to my usual job, and I've told the story of the Star Spangled Banner to new Americans many times. Yet Perret comes up with a totally different take - one I'd never heard before - that we owe the Star Spangled Banner to British inability to cut bomb fuses to the proper length! A story about Raphael Semmes raiding a Union ship he thought was bringing gold from California ends up with a handsome young Confederate naval officer losing his jacket buttons to admiring females armed with scissors. And I could go on and on. Steven Ambrose says this is the best single-volume military history of the US. I'll go one further - it is the best single-volume US history I've ever read. And I read James Truslow Adam's The Epic of America when I was nine, so it'll always keep a place in my heart, but Perret is the best.