The Embattled Past

"This collection makes evident Coffman's importance in defining the field of modern American military history. Lucid, astute, and immensely entertaining." —Brian Linn, Texas A&M University, author of The Echo of Battle: The Army's Way of War

Distinguished military historian Edward M. Coffman is a dedicated and much-admired teacher and mentor. In The Embattled Past, several of his most important essays have been assembled into a collection that serves as an essential reference to the discipline and an initiation to the study of military history for aspiring scholars.


The essays explore a range of critical issues in military historiography?such as strategies for conducting oral history and research methodologies?and examine questions at the heart of the field. Included are two seminal essays on World War I, which provide a fascinating overview of American war strategies and illuminate the reasons why so many historians have ignored this critical turning point in twentieth-century history. The volume concludes with an unpublished essay detailing Coffman's experience of interviewing General Douglas MacArthur in 1960.


Offering readers insights into more than two hundred years of United States military history,The Embattled Past is a primer on the profession from one of the most honored scholars of our time.


"No one who professes to work in this field, especially as it relates to the history of the Army in the 19th and 20th centuries, can go very far without consulting what Professor Coffman has written on his subject." —Roger Spiller, George C. Marshall Professor of Military History, emeritus, US Army Command and General Staff College


"Displays Coffman's years of scholarly expertise and personal experiences as a preeminent historian." —Quarterly Journal of Military History