Sources:
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Our most frequently used sources include: The Official Marine Corps Chronology, Contested Plains by E. West, Endless Enemies by J. Kwitney, Semper Fidelis by Allan R. Millett, and American Naval History by J. Sweetman. A more complete list can be found below, both explained in context and as lists divided by period and subject.

A small but key role has been played by extensive conversations with combat veterans of actions from the Battle of the Bulge, through the Gulf War, and up to Haitian and Bosnian peacekeeping missions. Patrick Gorham, Matthew Phair, and Carlin Uretsky in particular each contributed significantly to my understanding.

Of course, a crucial role has been played by primary written sources, from congressional debate before the War of 1812 to base newsletters from such underappreciated actions as Joint Task Force Bravo and Exercise Balikatan. Until you've read the words of the politicians doing the deciding and the soldiers in the field, you're always too dependant on other's conclusions and choices of what to edit out.

A great deal of the original structured data available comes out of the mid-1970’s when Congressional investigations demanded, and got, overviews and chronologies from the various service branches. The Marine Corps Chronology in particular has become a widely-used reference.
That having been said, it has been our experience, in dealing with the Marine Chronology and its fellows (such as the reports of the Congressional Research Service) that they are incomplete, understandably biased, and sometimes unintentionally misleading.
They are far better than what came before, but not entirely trustworthy and far from complete.

Further information, as well as different slants on the data already in hand, came from A Diplomatic History of the American People by Thomas Bailey, Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts, Cruising the Caribbean by Ronald Fernandez, Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, and American Revolution: a People’s History, by Ray Raphael.

(Do not, by the way, mistake this last for The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, which while it may be useful for the novice, is too warped by bias to be nearly as sufficient as it presents itself as being.)

Reporting from the major news media such as the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Al Jazeera’s surprisingly reasonable English-language site has helped us to see what events needed our attention.
CNN has also provided quite a few head’s ups, though, even more than the sources above, their accuracy is somewhat spotty and their coverage intermittant.


Our Recommendations:
overview of our sources | our recommendations | lists by period and subject | fiction | links back to our site

More links can be found on our links pages. And we genuinely recommend that if you have found this chronology to be useful then you should probably buy our timeline poster. And no matter what issue you're planning to research, get plenty of maps. You can never have too many maps.

But beyond that, two good places to get useful perspective are the U.S. military, and the anti-imperialism pages of BoondocksNet (no relation to the comic). As always, Stars and Stripes, the semi-official newspaper for servicemembers, deserves attention though by now their record of mixing insightful coverage with flat out propaganda has been very well documented.

All of the books listed in our Sources section above are useful, most notably American Naval History, Endless Enemies, Semper Fidelis, and Cruising the Caribbean. We also recommend The Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal, which, while predictably right-wing, prone to occasional bouts of Kipling, and dismissive of many Latin American actions, still provides a solid understanding of the context and details of many of the events listed here.

An excellent overview of the dangers of institutional thinking (always a key to understanding military action) is Barbara Garson's two books on the subject, All The Livelong Day, and The Electronic Sweatshop. She gets a bit waylaid by leftist ideology but her portrayal of organizational dynamics is right on the mark. (And I speak as a former corporate workflow consultant.)
Related are the documents of GWU’s National Security Archive, which has online, downloadable copies of hundreds of original documents by U.S. government officials on foreign policy, warmaking, and intelligence.

Three books that between them give an involving view of the life of the common front line footslogger are A People’s Army by Fred Anderson, about soldiers in the French-Indian Wars, The Marines of Autumn by James Brady, the very respected novel of the Korean War's infamous Chosin Reservoir Campaign, and Brave Men, a collection of field dispatches from the front lines of World War II by legendary correspondent, Ernie Pyle.

If you're curious about the whole weapons of mass destruction in Iraq debate, then you might want to start here, a collection of images of Iraq from satellite photos.

An excellent chance to get usefully conflicting views on American interventionism can be gotten by reading Battle Ready, the book that Anthony Zinni wrote with Tom Clancy, along with Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden's far more narrowly focused book on a now famous few days of intense conflict in Somalia. You will find contradictions, as well as reason to question some of what can seem obviously right if you've only read Bowden's work. A quite useful way to fill in the picture is with P.J. O'Rourke's book of essays, Holidays In Hell, which gives an earthy and productive sense of some of the pathologies that keep war such a constant.

For those of you looking to learn about the Civil War, a good way to learn is with a few maps from the Rainfall Collection.
I notably do not recommend The Civil War, A History, by Harry Hansen, which is rambling, worshipful of the bloodspilling “gallantry” of impulsive commanders, jumps around incomprehensively mid-topic, and manages to, in 654 pages of obsessive detail, mostly give the reader an enduring headache and a deep desire to find a better book.
On the other hand, The American Civil War, by Winston Churchill, while giving short shrift to the western campaigns and appallingly pro-south (to the point of claiming that slaves were better off as slaves than living in “African barbarism”) is nonetheless a brisk and coherent narrative that gives a good basic understanding of the war's issues and campaigns.

But when it comes right down to it, if you really want to begin to understand military history then you really should talk to veterans. And not just U.S. ones. Talk to the folks who have really been there. Don't rush them, let them set the pace. Don't ask generic stuff like “what is war really like?” or if it was cool or scary. Certainly don't say that you know what it’s like unless you, too were in a similar action. Let them say what they want, how they want, when they want. Just do your best to read up first and listen attentively. In short, treat them with the respect that they've earned.

Also look for chances to talk to normal folks who were there when shooting broke out. There are plenty of Dominicans who remember 1965. Lebanese who remember 1958, ’76, and ’85. Haitians who remember ’94, ’04, or any of a dozen others. Look around you and just ask. You might be surprised what the guy making your sandwich at the deli can and is eager to teach you.

And lastly, ask older folks who were around when a particular event occurred. Remember Clinton ramping up bombing of Iraq to distract from Monicagate? Bush senior invading Panama to fight the wimp label? This problem is nothing new and to understand what our soldiers did, it sure helps to know what our politicians were doing.

Overall, if I have one recommendation, it is to take your time. Conflicts, even little ones, provide seductive opportunities to reach conclusions that are brief, straightforward, and wrong. So always take as much time as you can to get multiple views on as many aspects of the time your studying as possible. In the long run, you'll be glad that you did.

Rustin H. Wright, archivist, editor, writer, and publisher.


Lists of Resources by Subject
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By no means is this list comprehensive. What we list here are the books that we have found useful and would recommend to others. There are literally thousands of competent books about every major war and dozens about just about every conflict. The vast majority of them are certainly not listed below. What we can guarantee is that every book listed below can help you to understand the complex and vital subject of American military history.

- The Nature Of War and Military Culture
- Chronologies, Overviews, and General Reference
- The Revolutionary War and Earlier Insurrections
- The Barbary Wars
- Indian Wars
- Smaller Conflicts
- The Civil War
- World War II
- The Korean War
- The Cold War
- The Indochina Wars
- Recent Interventions
- Afghanistan
- War In the Middle East
- Different Perpectives
- Works of Fiction


The Nature Of War and Military Culture
A People’s Army by Fred Anderson
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Brave Men by Ernie Pyle
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts
The Profession of Arms by Sir John Hackett
Proud To Be by Kelly Flinn
Small Wars Manual by the U.S. Marine Corps

Chronologies, Overviews, and General Reference
United States Military Combat Around the World, 1775 - 2007, our own timeline poster, is quite comprehensive, as complete as we could make it. We do not cover actions by irregulars or by non-uniformed groups like the CIA. But for a complete reference of military actions, it is all there on one sheet of paper.
Air Wars and Aircraft by Victor Flintham
American Naval History The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps 1775 - Present by Jack Sweetman
The American Way of War by Russell F. Weigley
U.S. Army Center For Military History Map Collection - An astounding resource, as is the parent site. These atlases can make an enormous difference in you understanding of a given conflict. I recommend them highly.
Cruising the Caribbean by Ronald Fernandez
A Diplomatic History of the American People by Thomas Bailey
Endless Enemies by Jonathan Kwitny
Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy by Craig Symonds
Honor the Brave by Victor Brooks
Semper Fidelis The History of the U.S. Marine Corps by Allan R. Millett
The Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal


The Revolutionary War and Earlier Insurrections
A People’s Army by Fred Anderson
The Glorious Cause - The American Revolution, 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauff

The Barbary Wars
Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation by Joshua E. London

Indian Wars
A History of the Indians of the United States by Angie Debo Comprehensive and, while not recent, a solid one volume overview. While not meant as a military history text, it serves admirably as such.
The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini
Contested Plains by E. West

Smaller Conflicts
Small Wars Manual by the U.S. Marine Corps
Cruising the Caribbean by Ronald Fernandez
The Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal


The Civil War
The American Civil War, by Winston Churchill - While giving short shrift to the western campaigns and extremely pro-south, this is a brisk, coherent narrative that gives a good basic understanding of the war's issues and campaigns.
The Rainfall Collection of Civil War maps is the best that we've found.

World War II
Of all the wars in history, none has been the subject of as many books as World War II. Frankly, there are plenty of good overviews out there and most of what's readily available from any good distributor is fine. We recommend Stone&Stone for books on this period. As for particular selections, we suggest the following:
Brave Men by Ernie Pyle
The Corps by William E. Butterworth, better known as W.E.B. Griffin
Flight To Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Korean War
The Compact History of the Korean War by Harry J. Middleton
The Marines of Autumn by James Brady

The Cold War
Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, with Annette Lawrence Drew
Memoirs, 1950 - 1963 by George F. Kennan
Private Warriors by Ken Silverstein

The Indochina Wars
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason
Live From the Battlefield by Peter Arnett
The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam 1945-1975 by Michael Maclear
Vietnam, A History by Stanley Karnow


Recent Interventions
Battle Ready by Gen. Anthony Zinni with Tom Clancy
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Afghanistan
Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile

War In the Middle East
The International Struggle Over Iraq - Politics in the UN Security Council 1980-2005 by David M. Malone
GWU National Security Archive collection of images of Iraq from satellite photos.
Live From the Battlefield by Peter Arnett


Different Perpectives
Holidays In Hell by P.J. O'Rourke
Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen
American Revolution: a People’s History: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence by Ray Raphael


Works of Fiction
overview of our sources | our recommendations | lists by period and subject | fiction | links back to our site

War At Bent's Fort - 1832-1869 by John Legg
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The Corps by William E. Butterworth, better known as W.E.B. Griffin
Hamburger Hill
The Marines of Autumn by James Brady

The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford, inspiration for the movie Full Metal Jacket.


Other Parts of Our Site
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Reed&Wright web site and publications, both text and graphics, are copyright Rustin H. Wright, 2007