“THE WAR OF 1812”, by Carl Benn. Osprey Publishing/Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: 2024, 144pages, softcover, 6” x 8 ¼”, $29.“RUSSIA’S WARS IN CHECHNYA 1994-2009”, by Mark Galeotti. Osprey Publishing/BloomsburyPublishing Plc: 2024, 144 pages, softcover, 6” x 8 ¼”, $20.Okay, dedicated battle buff, and be honest about it, how much do you know of the War of1812? Sure, you may know our boys were 50% of the combatants, but who were the others?Italians? British? French? Puerto Ricans? Finnish? Etc. A dollar bill will be sent to you, if you getit right. But you must stop reading my unimpassioned, unimaginative prose. So, here’s theanswer: the British and some Indigenous forces.We know author Carl Benn from two of his excellent books, “Warriors: Native Memoirs fromthe War of 1812”, John Hopkins UP, 2014, and “A Mohawk Memoir from the War of 1812: JohnNorton – -Teyoninhokarawen”, U. of Toronto Press P., 2019. A reader couldn’t find a betterscholar to teach him the full story of the battles abbreviated. They raged across America’seastern frontier, Britain’s Canadian colonies, the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, to saynothing of the world’s oceans. Literally, the war shaped the future of North America as weknow her today. A beautiful little softcover you’ll want to add to that fledgling library of yours,ready and clean for the day someone asks, “Do you know anything at all about ‘1812’?” Newscholarly research has uncovered much hitherto unknown, but, other than Osprey and a fewuniversity presses, publishers feel there is no profit to be made tackling the subject.Now that you are committed to ordering from Osprey or Amazon the “War of 1812”, whatdo you know of Russia’s wars in Chechnya between 1994 and 2009? Like me, you know nothing,nada, niente about them. The genius- editors of Osprey have complied another brilliantabbreviation featuring, like “1812”, full-color maps and over 50 new images, especially sincethey draw upon a wide range of sources to write succinct account on modern Russia explainingthe origins, history, and consequences of those battles. And, lucky us, no finer author thanprolific Mark Galeotti, a top scholar in Russian security affairs, and one of Osprey’s most respectresearchers, patiently tells it all in terms of easy-to-grasp narrative prose.Then see if this reviewer isn’t right in demanding you check the other titles in EssentialHistories. Give up dinners for a week and you’ll save enough for five to seven titles for thatslowly expanding library of yours: E-mail: info@ospreypublishing.com, and/or
www.ospreypublishing.com.
