The Military Novel

This essay is about military fiction, about war novels. While many are written, little in the way of serious critic ism of the war novel has been produced, and what there is of it is not usually very good. This is especially true of critiques of war novels which were written during wars or immediately thereafter. Critics are inclined to applaud almost anything that endorses their view of war, and their view of war is usually the same as the war novelist\u27s: i.e., war is hateful if not downright bestial, and it is directed by people who do not know what they are doing

A Most Perfect Man\u27: What General Robert E. Lee Can Still Teach Us

To reconstruct the past, through discipline and discrimination, is satisfying to the historian, and possibly useful to those who read him. To make explicit its lessons, somehow to make them useful and instructive, and possibly influential, is more difficult, and perhaps more dangerous. Harry Crocke...