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Book Review
| The Regulars: The American Army, 1898–1941. By Edward M. Coffman. (Cambridge: Belknap, 2004. viii, 519 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-674-01299-2.)
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| Edward M. Coffman's The Regulars is the sequel to his much celebrated The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 (1986), and just like its predecessor it is an outstanding piece of scholarship. Based on an incredible host of primary sources (official reports, memoirs, letters, personal papers, and many interviews), the book provides an extraordinarily rich history of the United States Army from the Spanish-American War of 1898 to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Coffman describes the U.S. regular army's evolution from a small frontier constabulary to the nucleus of what probably became the most powerful military land force in the world. It is a multilevel narration, interweaving institutional, organizational, and doctrinal developments, descriptions of major combat experiences, and the stories of a great number of soldiers and officers to make us familiar with the daily life of the American military people. Much attention is given to personal experiences and to the community rituals, African American soldiers, race relations, women, and children that were very much a part of military life. |
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