The Mexican War 1846-1848 [Paperback]

Douglas Meed (Author)

Book Description

Series: Essential Histories | Publication Date: July 25, 2002

The war with Mexico was the one of the most decisive conflicts in American history. After smashing Mexico's armies the young republic bestrode the North American continent like a colossus with one leg anchored on the Atlantic seaboard and the other on the Pacific. It was a bitter, hard fought war that raged across Mexico through the northern deserts, the fever-ridden Gulf cities and the balmy haciendas of California. This book covers the full course of the war, ending with General Winfield Scott's march from the captured port of Vera Cruz to Mexico City, fighting all the way.

Editorial Reviews

Review

‘far and away the best short treatment of the Mexican War that I have seen . . . quite remarkable.’ -- David Niven (Author of Meriwether, The Mexican War, Eagle’s Cry etc)

From the Publisher

This unique series studies every major war in history looking at all the aspects of war, from how it felt to be a soldier to the lasting impact of the conflict on the world around it.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing (July 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841764728
• ISBN-13: 978-1841764726
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 0.2 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Sharp Turn Toward Irrelevance, September 6, 2002

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mexican War 1846-1848 (Paperback)

The new Osprey Essential Histories series on the Mexican War starts out fairly well, but falters mid-way through its narrative of the conflict and never regains its footing. Although the author's writing style and background are journalistic, he does succeed in delivering the essential elements that brought the conflict about, but his touch is less sure in dealing with the war itself. If one desires a "cliff notes" volume on the Mexican War, this is it. However, for a series that purports to engender a "deeper understanding of war," this volume fails to deliver.

The Mexican War begins with an 11-page section that lays out the background of the war. The author does make a good point in citing Mexican intransigence and American land-greed as the proximate causes of the war; he notes, "they [the Mexicans] allowed their pride to cloud their judgment of potential American military strength. The Mexican government therefore refused to negotiate..." Nature abhors a vacuum, as is said, and the vast open, sparsely populated Mexican northern territories were a great temptation to an expanding American republic. The section on opposing sides is woefully inadequate, with the equivalent of only three pages on the subject. While the author depicts the essential conditions of each country's military forces in cultural terms, he fails to provide much in the way of specifics. An order of battle for at least the two main campaigns would have been nice, but the omission of military details quickly reveals this as a watered-down account. The next section covers the actual outbreak of war on the Rio Grande and is fairly accurate. The bulk of the military campaigns are covered in the 30-page middle section. Aside from the lack of any order of battle type information or even specifics about how much cavalry or artillery each side had in various battles, the reader should note how few maps are used to support the text. The critical battles around Mexico City are particularly poorly supported by the few generalized maps. A 3-page section, entitled "portrait of a soldier," is interesting in its discussion of the wartime career of one Lieutenant Sam Grant (later U S Grant).

Unfortunately, the Mexican War makes a sharp turn off into irrelevance in a long-winded section entitled, "the world around the war," which was intended to demonstrate the progress being made elsewhere in the world in comparison to the stagnation in Mexico. This section covers an incredible array of non-issues for the Mexican War: the trapped Donner Party, the Mormons, the Revolution of 1848 in Europe, Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, Charles Darwin, etc. The author compounds this shot-gun approach to history with a follow-up section intended to give a portrait of a civilian (who had no direct involvement in the war), spending time detailing the birth of each of her children. I thought this book was supposed to be about the Mexican War? The author finally gets back to the climax of the war and the resulting peace treaty. The incredible amount of space devoted to items totally unrelated to the conflict - fully 15% of the book - is inexcusable. In Osprey volumes there is no doubt that size constraints limit the amount of detail that could be included, but when space is flagrantly wasted the format should not be used as an excuse. This author should have included more detail on the war, on military leaders, on casualties rather than discussing nonsense like French ballet. History requires focus to be intelligible.

One major point that the author neglects in favor of above-mentioned nonsense is the uniqueness of Scott's Mexico City expedition. This expedition was one of the best armies that the United States ever fielded: primarily regular in composition, with both troops and officers having recent combat experience. Also, Scott's march on Mexico City required him to virtually sever his line of communication to the sea, which has only happened twice in US military history that a commander has voluntarily severed his supply lines (the other occasion was Sherman's March to the Sea). Scott was one of the best American battlefield generals ever - the author should have made some mention of his exceptional victories in 1814 rather than just focusing on side issues like Scott's political problems. Readers desiring a short history of the Mexican War will get that in these pages, but only that.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Quick and Balanced Overview, March 20, 2009

By 

Mike Dillemuth (Virginia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Mexican War 1846-1848 (Paperback)

The author, Douglas Meed, did a great job of summarizing the Mexican War. This book is well written, logically organized, and easy to read. Although it lacks detail, it does provide a high level overview of the conflict. This book also contains historical information on world events of that period. Although this information is interesting, it is also irrelevant. Thus, it is wasted space.

The book contains several battle maps, which clearly show the movements of the various forces. The maps are in color, easy to understand, and uncluttered with extraneous detail. The author also included numerous color and black & white illustrations. These illustrations are detailed and make a worthwhile contribution to the book. There are also photos and drawings of several politicians and military officers.

The book has a logical flow and each campaign is described in chronological order. In addition, the author spends time describing organizations such as the Texas Rangers and the San Patricios. The San Patricios were a group of Irish immigrants who defected to the Mexican side. Finally, the author included information on several Civil War officers, such as Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.

The main shortcoming of this book is that its battle coverage is weak. The storming of Chapultepec Castle by the U.S. Marines should have received significant coverage. Instead, the entire battle of Mexico City, which included Chapultepec Castle, is covered in only the briefest of detail. This vague coverage was unnecessary given that the author wasted space on irrelevant topics. The chapter on "Portrait of a Civilian" covers a woman who really had nothing to do with the war. When describing the world during this period, the author talks about the industrial revolution, Charles Darwin, and Karl Marx. This space would have been better spent on some of the major battles.

Bottom line: this is an easy to read summary of the Mexican War. The maps are clear and the illustrations add to the book. Although the book lacks meaningful detail on the battles, it does contain interesting historical information of the time. If nothing else, this book will certainly provide the reader with a basic understanding of the war.

3.0 out of 5 stars succinct enough for basic intro but lacking, November 1, 2009

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Yoda (Hadera, Israel) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Mexican War 1846-1848 (Paperback)

This book give a very basic intro to the conflict that can bring the new reader up to speed on the subject in only about an hour or so. Unfortunately, it is not up to par with other books in Osprey's "Essential Histories" series.

The book starts off by giving a vert succinct overview of the geopolitical situation (in terms of politics and international relations) of Mexico and the U.S. immediately before the war and what eventually led to the war. However, it does a poor job at describing the condition of each nation's armed forces in terms of number of men, quality of troops, equipment, morale, middle range officer corps and military leadership at the pinnacles of both armed forces. There is no discussion of what, if any, strategies the equivalent of chiefs of staffs were planning to pursue (ie., how they were even planning on fighting the war at the beginning). Even worse, there is no discussion of the relative states of each nation's finances, economies, industrial production and population levels, the real determinants of each nation's capacity to sustain wars in the long term. On the positive side the book does adequately (but again, very succinctly) describe how the military aspects of the war played out in terms of campaigns and the geographic areas they covered. The strategic maps provide some useful perspective here but unfortunately there are no tactical maps showing how the main battles played out.