Description
Book SynopsisInnovation shapes wars, and twelve studies by former faculty members of West Point's United States Military Academy examine specific cases of past and present military innovation. The complex, competitive, and dynamic environment that defines war drives combatants to seek solutions to potentially lethal problems. As some solutions prove effective, gain traction, and win emulation, they follow a path of innovation. The chapters address a broad array of innovations, including in weapon technology, strategy, research and development philosophy, organization of the military instrument, and leveraging maps for strategic goals. Geographically, the examples in this volume span four continents and the Mediterranean Sea, and chronologically they proceed from the twelfth century to the twenty first. Collectively, the studies point to the interconnected value of pursuing constructive solutions to challenges, networking interdisciplinary forms of knowledge, appropriately balancing expectations and
Trade ReviewThis very interesting and timely edited volume looks at pathways for innovations in warfare across history. As the authors describe, innovation is a process that is vital, but exceptionally challenging, to master. With chapters ranging from the Crusades to the Texas Rangers to Boko Haram, the contributors present a variety of perspectives on how innovations in weapons, tactics, and warfare occur. This book offers important and helpful lessons that should shape the way we think about innovation in warfare moving forward. -- Michael Horowitz, University of Pennsylvania
This stimulating, heterogeneous collection of case studies defines innovation broadly and explores it across a grand sweep of international history. It moves from medieval cartography during the Crusades and grand strategy in the American Revolution to racial integration of combat units and contemporary media warfare in Nigeria. Editor Nicholas Michael Sambaluk concludes the volume with conceptual threads that he finds running through the case studies. -- Alex Roland, Duke University
Nicholas Michael Sambaluk provides a range of fresh scholarship on a wide array of military innovations—defining the term broadly—and forces us all to reconsider the very term ‘innovation.’ Here one finds ideas, processes, institutions, and technologies, all in their full interaction with social and cultural forces. Innovation emerges not as a stroke of genius, but as a complex response to complex problems, from medieval mapmaking to the militarization of slaves and the invention of lawfare. There is much to digest here. -- Guy Berthiaume, Librarian and Archivist of Canada
Table of ContentsIntroduction, Nicholas Michael Sambaluk Chapter 1: Mapping the Mediterranean in the Age of the Crusades, Stuart H. Peebles Chapter 2: “To Avoid Any Considerable Misfortune:” George Washington, Charles Lee, and Grand Strategy in the American Revolution, Adrienne M. Harrison Chapter 3: The Texas Rangers and Samuel Colt: Partners in Combat Innovation, Nathan A. Jennings Chapter 4: Ben Butler’s Black Battalions: Political Generalship and Military Experimentation with African-Americans during the Civil War, Mark Ehlers Chapter 5: New Frontiers: Making Alaska a Terra Cognita, Russ Vanderlugt Chapter 6: Building Peace: Civil Affairs and Military Government in the Second World War, Dave Musick Chapter 7: Mixing Spanners with Wrenches: SPOBS and the Establishment of an Anglo-American Aircraft Maintenance Program in Britain during World War II, Richard H. Anderson Chapter 8: Managing Innovation: Protecting, Promoting, and Propagating Science and Technology in World War II, Nicholas Michael Sambaluk Chapter 9: Innovating “Lawfare”: The Use of Law as a Weapon in Cyprus, 1955–1959, Brian Drohan Chapter 10: The Party Army as Innovation: Tracing the Origins of China’s Modern Military, Jason Halub Chapter 11: War by Tweet, Hashtag, and Media Messaging: Boko Haram’s Media Warfare Challenges Nigeria’s Information Campaign (2012–2015), John P. Ringquist Chapter 12: Atrocity Early Warning: A Historiographical Study of the Prevention of Mass Atrocities, Charles Costanzo Conclusion, Nicholas Michael Sambaluk
