scholarship, standard, revised, or controversial, the two above titles will please, not necessarilyin rapturous emotion, but in gratifying new insight and information an inordinate few knowanything about. How much more refreshing, hence enjoyable, can it be than struggle withinfluential interpretations of Confederate General James Longstreet’s performance at the Battleof Gettysburg? Or be introduced to humor in depiction of the bloodletting American Civil War,not to excite the reader into a giggle or two, but to share with our grieving nation the humancosts of that unnecessary conflict if only our country’s most brilliant, creative, resolute,sincerely heart-provoking leaders had been thrown into a locked closet at gunpoint: “No oneleaves to eat, sleep, or relieve until all our fathers’ dreams have been negotiated”.Readers, between here and the first of 2024, this reviewer will continue to highly recommendTWO military history book sets as near perfect, inexpensive, Christmas books for loved andrespected friends, family, and self – – books that once read will remain in the home to be rereada decade or two later “lest the content fade in memory”, confirming decline. The editors andpublishers at Casemate, Schiffer, Osprey, dear McFarland, and, not too long ago, the greatNaval Institute Press, concur with Richard Holmes, CBE, TD, Professor of Military and SecurityStudies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science in the UK, who hasdevoted much of his literary career writing a complete overview of military history fromclassical times to the present day, when he writes simply, “The history of war underpins thehistory of the world”. Every one of their published war books, and his especially, demandreading to understand how our world, our nation has been shaped, and “ . . . continues to be
shaped by conflict”.
