The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941 (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This long-anticipated follow-up to The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 tells the story of the U.S. Army's development from a frontier constabulary to the backbone of the force that decided WWII. Between 1898 and 1941, the army conquered and controlled an empire, led a million men into combat on the western front during the Great War and successfully prepared against all odds during the 1920s and '30s to fight Germany and Japan on a global scale. This achievement involved developing superior professional capabilities. University of Wisconsin emeritus historian Coffman brilliantly describes the managerial revolution of the early 20th century that established the basis for the schools system of the interwar years. The heart of the book, however, is its presentation of the army's character during this era of change. Relying heavily on probing interviews, the text tells the story of a small, distinctive community that at the same time never became isolated from the wider society, despite its prevailing antimilitarism. The officers and enlisted men of the U.S. Army were not typical of their countrymen. They moved frequently, often to unlikely places. The lived under comprehensive regulation, where a playground fight or a spouses' quarrel could shape an entire career. And they accepted an ethic of duty and responsibility in many ways anomalous in a country built on individual freedoms and rights. That did not make them perfect; Coffman in particular establishes the congruent patterns of racism in both army and society. Yet that ethic, Coffman shows, helped keep soldiers from losing touch with the democracy they served. In two world wars, the army was able to absorb millions of mobilized civilians with a minimum of friction, while simultaneously creating a fighting machine that successfully challenged the world's two more militarized societies. If WWII saw the emergence of America's "greatest generation," its framework was provided by Coffman's regulars, wonderfully described here.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

The second volume of Coffman's magisterial social history of the U.S. Army covers the period from the Spanish-American War to Pearl Harbor. It opens with Secretary of War Elihu Root's reforms that assembled the motley array of volunteers, National Guardsmen, and regulars of the war into the first large U.S. peacetime army, which thereafter fought colonial wars, was expanded for World War I, then shrunken back to an exiguous though tightly knit force, whose professionalism well prepared it for far greater expansion for World War II. Coffman's clear narrative does full justice to the army's invaluable school system, the African American units, the transpacific troop transports, and other sometimes ignored themes. Although Coffman draws on every conceivable published source and a host of primary material, including interviews with veterans, their wives, and their children, outstanding amid it all are the testimonies of army brat, wife, and mother Adeleide Bolte and African American cavalryman William Banks. Coffman's now two-volume work in turn must be reckoned the outstanding social history of the U.S. Army. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (April 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674024028
• ISBN-13: 978-0674024021
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #228,888 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent history of the american army, March 25, 2004

By	1. "John Henninger" (Littleton, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941 (Hardcover)

Coffman has written an excellent social history of the American army from 1900 to 1940 that puts an emphasis on the educational development of the officer corps. In 1900 a large percentage of the officer corps were from the civil war era and had no interest in further intellectual development, but this changed with an introduction of new junior officers who were educated at Fort Leavanworth, Fort Benning, and the Army War College. These schools encouraged personal intiative in officers and the new study of new technologies such as tanks and airplanes. As a result this new class of officers intellectual interest was the development of the Air Corps and armor in the army.
Coffman also writes about how the army was divided along class and racial lines. The families of officers and enlisted men very rarely intermingled with each other, and officer families only married other officer families and not enlisted men. However some enlisted men such as James Gavin rose to become a general. The army was also divided along race with blacks being gradually eased out of frontline service from 1900 to 1940 and the few black officers such as Benjamin Davis were constantly harassed through their time of duty. This is outstanding book about the American army from 1900-1940 and should be read with the books by Brian Linn.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Changed Army, August 2, 2004

By	Philip L. Bolte (West Union, SC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941 (Hardcover)

This a great sequel to Dr. Coffman's "The Old Army." Through the use of Army records, personal papers, memoirs, biographies, questionnairea, and many interviews, he has told the story of a U.S. Army that evolved as the country developed from an insular nation to a major world power. From 1898 to 1941, the Army changed from a frontier constabulary to a global force. It is a fascinating story told in a lively way that brings to life the participants, both the principals and their families, both the soldiers and their officers. While essentially a social history, underlying it all is the story of the transformation of the Army itself. A fascinating and superbly written book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Low-level perspective, March 19, 2006

By	R. W. Levesque (Germany) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941 (Hardcover)

Coffman's book traces the evolution of the US military from a frontier force to becoming a modern, WWII fighting machine. The book is unique because it tells the story with first person accounts and it includes chapters on what it was like to be a soldier and a dependent at various locations during the period.

From a transformation standpoint, the chapters on the "Managerial Revolution" and "The War to End all Wars" (WWI) are particularly interesting. The last chapter "Mobilizing for War" tells the story of how the Army was able to take itself from a near-broken, depression-era force to one of the most capable armies in the world able to fight major wars on both sides of the world while equipping other armies.

This book is a good complement to Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940, which is a strategic perspective of the Army in the Pacific in the interwar years.