Full Reviews

John Frémont’s 100 Days: Clashes and Convictions in Civil War Missouri (Gregory Wolk, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 208 pp., 25 halftones, 11 line drawings, 3 maps, Sept. 29, 2025 $22 SC)

Patton and the Battle for Sicily: The General, The Navy, and Operation Husky (Flint Whitlock, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 320 pp., 5 Maps, 12 b/w photos, Nov. 18, 2025 $29.95 HC)

The Killing Season: The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War (Robert Cowley, Penguin Random House, New York, NY, 752 pp., photos, maps, index Sept. 2, 2025 $40 HC)

The Road to Cisterna: Darby’s Rangers and Their Most Consequential Battle in World War II (David Lyle Williams, LSU Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 401 pp., 22 illustrations, 12 maps, Sept. 26, 2025, $44.95 HC)

Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor (Christine Kuehn, Celadon Books, New York, NY, 272 pp., Nov. 25, 2025 $29.99 HC)

Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and the Birth of American Empire (Joe Jackson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 816 pp. Oct. 14, 2025 $35 HC)

The American Revolution and the Fate of the World (Richard Bell, Riverhead Books, New York, NY, 416 pp., Nov. 4, 2025 $35 HC)

The Atlanta Campaign: Volume 2: From the Etowah River to Kennesaw Mountain, May 21 to June 27, 1864 (David A. Powell, Savas Beatie, El Dorado Hill, CA, 608 pp., photos and maps, Oct. 2, 2025 $39.95 HC)

Rustic Warriors: Warfare and the Provincial Soldier on the New England Frontier, 1689-1748 (Steven C. Eames, NYU Press, New York, NY, 320pp., maps, notes, index, Sept. 9, 2025, $35 SC)

Short Bursts

Nemesis: Medieval England’s Greatest Enemy (Catherine Hanley, Osprey/Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY., 304pp., b/w illustrations, maps, tables, family trees, Sept. 9, $35 HC) Over 40 years France’s King Philip II played a part in the downfall of four Plantagenet kings: Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, John and Henry III.

Into the Reich: The Red Army’s advance to the Oder in 1945 (Prit Buttar, Osprey/Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY, 448pp., 8 pp. b/w illustrations, maps, Sept. 9, $35 HC) A fascinating account of Stalin’s power play during the dying days of the Third Reich by a former British Army doctor and Eastern Front expert.

The Blood in Winter: England on the Brink of Civil War, 1642 (Jonathan Healey, Penguin Random House (Knopf), New York, NY, 432 pp., Sept. 16, $32 HC) Chronicles the events that led to England’s great political awakening in the face of King Charles I trying to retake absolute power.

The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War (Tom Zoellner, The New Press, New York, NY, 320pp., Sept. 30, $34.99 HC) A National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Zoellner details how the confiscation of three enslaved men as contraband led to the Emancipation Proclamation.

War Without Mercy: Liberty or Death in the American Revolution (Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin, Osprey/Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY, 288 pp., 8 pp. color illustrations, Oct. 7, $32 HC) Explores the idea that American fear of “political, cultural and even physical extinction” led to the violence of the Revolution.

The Maginot Line: A New History (Kevin Passmore, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 512pp., 22 b/w illustrations, 19 maps, Oct. 14, $40 HC) A fresh look at the 1930s French engineering marvel, so formidable and innovative for its time, yet France fell to Germany within six weeks.

(David Nasaw, Penguin Press, New York, NY, 496 pp., Oct. 14, $35 HC) Using memoirs, oral histories, and government documents, Nasaw details the experience of World War II vets suffering from social isolation, nightmares, and rages decades before PTSD was understood.

Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta: The Bandit Chief Who Terrorized California and Launched the Legend of Zorro (John Boessenecker, Hanover Square Press (HarperCollins), New York, NY, 512 pp., Oct. 21, $32 HC) Violent bandit or folk hero? The truth about the California Goldrush figure obscured by legend.

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