PEN & SWORD ~ to each its appointed role

Professor John France teaches war studies at Swansea University in Swansea, Wales, in the western UK. He is also a prolific writer with many titles to his credit. On April 27, 2012, he spoke at the New York Military Affairs Symposium (NYMAS) on Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300, and created a very interesting portrait of the sort of warfare conducted by the crusaders when they encountered Middle Eastern opponents.

Sometimes the human race knows the exact moment when it has entered a new age. July 16, 2012, is the 67th anniversary of the first atomic bomb test. This was one of those times. The test took place in the early morning in the desert near Alamogordo, NM, and the blast shook windows miles and miles away.

J. Robert Oppenheimer in this video remembered the significance of the moment: "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

You can read my latest review, Patrick J. Kelly's Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy, at the Michigan War Studies Review site. The book is a very interesting look at the father of the modern German Navy.

MWSR contains many excellent reviews of recent writing in military history. It's worth a visit.

Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy

Would you like to know what or how military professionals think? Take a look at what they read. This is one place, though certainly not the only place, where they find and refine their thoughts about human behavior and other topics important to the profession.

I recently saw this quote attributed to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” Yamamoto was the Japanese naval officer who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. He had attended Harvard University and believed he knew something of the American people. While I have not verified the quote, it sounds like something a visitor might pick up during a stay.