New Books in Military History

Marshall Poe
  • 4.1 (158)
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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  1. 2d ago

    Francesca Lessa and Sebastián Santana, "Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent" (Storia, 2025)

    In Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent (Storia, 2025), Francesca Lessa uncovers the shadowy machinery behind one of the most chilling transnational terror campaigns of the twentieth century. What began as a secret pact among South America's military dictatorships quickly grew into a coordinated system of surveillance, kidnappings, torture, and disappearances that reached across borders and oceans. Through meticulous research and newly unearthed documents, Lessa reveals how those in power built a network designed to eliminate dissent wherever it dared to surface, turning exile into a false refuge and entire nations into hunting grounds. This book is not simply a reconstruction of clandestine meetings and sealed orders, though it excels at that. It is a deeply human story that follows the lives interrupted and the families who refused to surrender to silence. Lessa brings to light parents who never stopped searching, survivors who fought to be heard, and investigators who chipped away at decades of denial. Their voices and struggles give this history its pulse, reminding us that truth is often preserved not by institutions but by ordinary people who refuse to forget. Translated with clarity and grace by Alejandro Reyes, and enriched by Sebastián Santana Camargo's haunting illustrations, this authorized English edition of the acclaimed Plan Cóndor: Viejos secretos y nuevos hallazgos is both a work of history and an act of witness. It confronts a past many hoped would remain in the shadows and insists on remembering, not out of vengeance, but as a defense of democracy and dignity. The result is a gripping, sobering, and ultimately hopeful testament to the enduring power of memory and justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  2. 3d ago

    Charles Lachman, "They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most Wanted" (Diversion Books, 2026)

    May 1945. The Reich is in ruins. Hitler is dead. Yet for the US Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, the real war has just begun.  They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most Wanted (Diversion Books, 2026) by Charles Lachman is the true historical thriller following a secret unit of American agents, drawn from every walk of life, hunting Hitler’s inner circle—the dangerous henchmen still at large and feared to be carrying their Führer’s final political testament, orders for a guerilla resistance, and plans for rocket and nuclear programs hidden in mountain strongholds. It was a race against time to capture World War II’s most notorious Nazis before they could vanish or rally a new resistance.  The CIC men leading the greatest manhunt in history were scholars, motivated college students, an actor, linguists, young draftees and refugees—men like Henry Kissinger—armed not just with guns, but with intellect, intuition, and sheer daring. Their quarry included Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the monstrous Gestapo chief; Julius Streicher, Hitler’s notorious “Jew-baiter”; Robert Ley, master of slave labor; and other high-ranking war criminals desperate to escape justice. Against all odds, the CIC brought them down, ensuring their places in the dock at Nuremberg.   This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  3. 3d ago

    Michael E. Neagle, "Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror" (UNC Press, 2025)

    While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security has long been a part of US history. Drawing on six case studies, Professor Michael E. Neagle spotlights the commonalities of how the United States has leveraged popular understandings of "bandits" to justify incursions abroad as well as rally popular and political support at home. Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror (UNC Press, 2025) puts recent manhunts for such figures as Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi into deep historical context. For more than a century, Americans have designated some enemies as bandits, but chasing them has yielded mixed results. Dr. Michael Neagle is director of history and political science at Nichols College, where he is also co-chair of the terrorism studies program. Dr. Jacob Hagstrom is an army veteran and author of America's Favorite Warlord (Pen and Sword, 2026). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  4. Sep 6

    Emily Matson, "China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

    China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Emily Matson is an in-depth investigation of the Chinese Communist Party’s remapping of China’s World War II timeline from eight years (1937–1945) to fourteen years (1931–1945). Instead of the previously accepted starting date of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, the Chinese Communist Party defined the war’s starting date as the Mukden Incident on September 18, 1931, which triggered the Japanese Kwantung Army’s invasion of Manchuria. Since the 1980s, scholars from Manchuria have demanded a fourteen-year war timeline to encompass the invasion of their homeland. By the 1990s, other scholars took notice and started to counter with claims that the eight-year timeline was the more accurate. Subsequently, a fierce “date debate” emerged between the two sides that was only resolved by the 2017 proclamation from the Ministry of Education. Dr. Matson demonstrates that the decision to set China’s World War II timeline at fourteen years was not merely a top-down decision, but was influenced by decades of Manchurian scholarship on the war. China’s Date Debate recenters Manchuria as a region of critical importance for China’s national identity today and the implications of this “date debate” on the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic legitimacy and international image. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  5. Sep 4

    Valeria Vázquez Guevara, "Truth Commissions and International Law: Jurisdiction, Representation, Authority" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

    Truth Commissions and International Law: Jurisdiction, Representation, Authority (Cambridge University Press, 2026) examines how truth commissions construct authoritative accounts of conflict, and how they account for the plurality of accounts across affected communities. Dr. Valeria Vázquez Guevara examines three of the earliest and most influential truth commissions: Argentina (1983–1984), Chile (1990–1991), and El Salvador (1992–1993), and examines how relevant cultural objects support or counter the official account for each. In doing so, she argues that these truth commissions drew on international law to authorise their accounts of violent conflict, and that this had the consequence of privileging an internationally-authorised truth over other truths, whilst simultaneously strengthening the authority of international law over the post-conflict state. By demonstrating how truth commissions turn to international law for authority, the book shows how this produces an official account of past violence and promises of future community, which fundamentally affects how communities live together in the aftermath of violent conflict. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  6. Sep 3

    Done in a Day with the Vietnam War: Elisa Tamarkin (JP)

    Elisa Tamarkin, an English prof of high repute (Anglophilia and Apropos of Something: A History of Irrelevance and Relevance) at UC Berkeley, joins RTB to discuss Done in a Day: Telex from the Fall of Saigon. It is an extended reflection on the last day of the Vietnam War, set against the imminent disappearance of war coverage in the nation’s city newspapers, and framed through her own stepfather's experience covering the war. Tamarkin anatomizes curious forms of self-delusion that flourished in the American Me generation and traces the subtle trajectory that stretching from the journalistic autonomy of the mid-century to the "embedded reporters" of the US war in Iraq to today's implacable governmental hostility to truthful reportage. Back in the 1960's Hannah Arendt and others warned that bubbles of non-information and delusive self-deceit got propagated within the corridors of power and out in the larger public realm. Now cloudy misinformation is the property of a near-ubiquitous social media realm whose corrosive effect (the power to unthink) is far less circumscribed. Mentioned Hannah Arendt, "Lying in Politics" (subject of an earlier RTB episode) and "Home To Roost". Frank Kermode Sense of an Ending (1967). The philosopher John Pollock published a book called Knowledge and Justification in 1975. Jamie Cohen-Cole The Open Mind Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (1973). Ursula Le Guin The Lathe of Heaven 1971 (Elisa also mentions John's book on Le Guin). R. A. Lafferty, The Fall of Rome (1971). Thomas Harris, I'm OK, You're OK (1967). Recallable Books: Adam Phillips, On Giving Up. Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955). Read the transcript of the episode here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  7. Sep 2

    Whistling Arrows and Heavenly Horses: The Han-Xiongnu War

    John Ross speaks with Scott Forbes Crawford about his book The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC–89 AD (Pen & Sword Military, 2024) For more than two centuries, Han China fought a bitter struggle against the Xiongnu, a powerful confederation of horse-riding nomads from the Asian steppe. This was far more than a border war. It helped shape the future of China, transformed Central Asia, and opened the routes that would become known as the Silk Road. In writing this history, Scott followed the example of China’s greatest historian, Sima Qian (the subject of BOA episode 82 ), and took a biographical approach. We learn about remarkable figures such as Modun, the ruthless founder of the Xiongnu Empire; Li Guang, the legendary “Flying General”; the explorer Zhang Qian; and Princess Jieyou, a royal diplomat/spy who spent decades advancing Han interests deep in Central Asia. Notes: The full title of Scott Crawford’s book is: The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC–89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023) To learn more about Scott’s work, including his novel Silk Road Centurion, visit his website : https://www.scottforbescrawfor... The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

  8. Sep 1

    Muy Lang Lim, "In the Shadow of the Khmer Rouge: A Child Survivor's Memoir" (NUS Press, 2026)

    As a child, Lim Muy Lang grew up in a prosperous Sino-Khmer family in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, her family, along with the entire population of Phnom Penh, was forced to immediately leave the city for the countryside. What followed was a harrowing struggle for survival under the Khmer Rouge’s radical revolutionary regime, which led to the deaths of all of Muy Lang’s immediate family members, and much of her extended family. In the Shadow of the Khmer Rouge: A Child Survivor’s Memoir (NUS Press, 2026), is Muy Lang’s account of what happened. It’s a story of almost unimaginable pain, cruelty, and loss, but also an incredible struggle for survival. And not least, the book is a delightful, deeply personal recollection of childhood and family life in Cambodia before 1975. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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