Books March 2023
Fit for duty
A review of Team America by Robert L. O'connell.
The subject of military history in our colleges and universities is in a sad state, as Victor Davis Hanson recently demonstrated in these pages (“Uses & abuses of military history,” The New Criterion of January 2023). But the writing of military history, particularly that of America’s role in World War II, has attracted some of the best scholars and also some lively books in recent years. To mention just a few of the luminaries: Carlo d’Este, Craig Symonds, Martin Blumenson, and Rick Atkinson. Joining them is Robert L. O’Connell, who has recently produced an outstanding group biography, Team America—his sobriquet for the four men who led America to victory in the Second World War: George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, and Dwight Eisenhower.
This...
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