
Taking its title from The Face of Battle, John Keegan's canonical book on the nature of warfare, The Other Face of Battle illuminates the American experience of fighting in "irregular" and "intercultural" wars over the centuries. Sometimes known as "forgotten" wars, in part because they lacked triumphant clarity, they are the focus of the book. David Preston, David Silbey, and Anthony Carlson focus on, respectively, the Battle of Monongahela (1755), the Battle of Manila (1898), and the Battle of Makuan, Afghanistan (2020)--conflicts in which American soldiers were forced to engage in "irregular" warfare, confronting an enemy entirely alien to them. This enemy rejected the Western conventions of warfare and defined success and failure--victory and defeat--in entirely different ways. Symmetry of any kind is lost. Here was not ennobling engagement but atrocity, unanticipated insurgencies, and strategic stalemate. War is always hell. These wars, however, profoundly undermined any sense of purpose or proportion. Nightmarish and existentially bewildering, they nonetheless characterize how Americans have experienced combat and what its effects have been. They are therefore worth comparing for what they hold in common as well as what they reveal about our attitude toward war itself. The Other Face of Battle reminds us that "irregular" or "asymmetrical" warfare is now not the exception but the rule. Understanding its roots seems more crucial than ever.
This work investigates the nature of irregular and intercultural warfare by examining how American soldiers have navigated combat environments that defy traditional Western military conventions. The authors, a team of historians including Anthony E. Carlson, David L. Preston, and David Silbey, utilize a comparative framework to analyze three distinct conflicts spanning over two centuries. By focusing on the lived experience of combatants in asymmetrical settings, the text argues that these 'forgotten' wars are not anomalies but are central to understanding the American military experience.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts recognize this work as a significant contribution to military history that successfully updates the framework established by John Keegan for the modern era. Readers frequently note the analytical depth of the prose and the effectiveness of the comparative approach in highlighting the persistent challenges of asymmetrical conflict.
Page Count:
269
Publication Date:
2021-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190920661
ISBN-13:
9780190920661
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