In the School of War

Fort Leavenworth, where Roger J. Spiller taught the US army's finest for twenty-five years, is indeed a "school of war." There, among military professionals who had experienced war firsthand, Spiller honed his remarkable skills as an analyst and historian, scholar and teacher---skills that have made him one of the best-known and respected military historians of our day. This volume brings together Spiller's original and thought-provoking explorations of wars big and small and armies glorified and ignored. For each of these essays---whether on urban warfare or the Vietnam syndrome, battlefield psychology or the making of military history, and underrated vs. overrated generals---Spiller revisits his topic and his thinking, bringing fresh insight and a new context to an incomparable body of work.In the School of Warfurther reveals the complex relationship between past and present in an understanding of the nature of war.

Roger J. Spiller is the George C. Marshall Distinguished Professor of Military History (retired) at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is the author or editor of numerous publications, including his latest work, An Instinct for War: Scenes from the Battlefields of History. Most recently, he was an advisor for Ken Burns’s PBS documentary, The War. John W. Shy, professor emeritus of history at the University of Michigan, is the author of A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence.