John C. McManus – författare

Want to know more about American military history? U.S. Military History For Dummies presents concise and revealing accounts of all of the nation's armed conflicts from the French and Indian War to Iraq. It explains how the U.S. military is organized and how its branches operate, both independently and together.This straightforward guide examines the causes for each of America's wars and reveals how these conflicts have shaped the nation's borders, society, politics, culture, and future. You'll meet heroes, cowards, patriots, and traitors; relive great battles; and get a taste of what combat is really like, as you discover: How the French/Indian war sowed the seeds of the Revolutionary WarWhy America's battle for independence didn't end at YorktownEarly U.S. wars against Indians, tax cheats, and piratesThe War of 1812: guaranteeing U.S. sovereignty"Manifest Destiny" wars that stretched America from sea to shining seaWhy the American Civil War could not be avoidedThe Spanish American War and the U.S. as an emerging global powerWhy World War I failed to "make the world safe for democracy"How World War II changed America's role in the worldKorea and Vietnam: hot wars during the Cold WarFeaturing important insights on technological, political, and social changes that transformed the way America fights its wars U.S. Military History For Dummies is your key to understanding the evolution of the most powerful military force in history.

Only one U.S. Army regiment, the 7th Infantry, has served in every war from 1812 through the present day. In this reissuance of his classic American Courage, American Carnage: 7th Infantry Chronicles 1812 Through World War II, noted military historian and best-selling author John C McManus tells the first part of the 7th’s amazing story, from the Battle of New Orleans through the end of World War II. No American unit has earned more battle streamers and few can boast more Medal of Honor winners.In the months leading up to the War of 1812, Congress authorized the creation of this regiment. It fought with distinction at the Battle of New Orleans, anchoring General Andrew Jackson's main defensive line, forever earning the nickname "Cottonbalers" because the soldiers of the 7th were said to have battled the British from behind large rows of cotton bales. From now on, whenever Americans went to war, the Cottonbalers would always find themselves in the center of the action, where the danger was greatest.Between these covers is the whole story, told through the eyes of the soldiers—the realities of combat expressed in raw human terms. From the marshy grounds of the Chalmette plantation in New Orleans to the daunting heights of Chapultepec in Mexico City; from the bloody horror of the long, stone wall at Fredericksburg to the deadly crossfire of the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, from the shocking gore of Custer's massacre at Little Bighorn to the desperation of dusty frontier battles; from the foggy hills of Santiago in Cuba to the muddy, pockmarked no man's land of Belleau Wood in France; from the invasion of North Africa to Sicily, Anzio, southern France, the Vosges Mountains, the breaching of the Rhine, and the 7th's triumphant capture of Hitler's mountain home at Berchtesgaden in May, 1945, this remarkable book chronicles multiple generations of Cottonbalers who have fought and bled for their country.American Courage, American Carnage is an inside look at the drama, tragedy, fatigue and pathos of war, from America's early nineteenth century struggles as a fledgling republic to its emergence as a superpower in the twentieth. Based on nearly a decade of archival research, battlefield visits, interviews, and intensive study, and illustrated with copious maps and photographs, this book is a moving, authoritative, tale of Americans in combat.

On April 4, 1945, United States Army units from the 89th Infantry Division and the 4th Armored Division seized Ohrdruf, the first of many Nazi concentration camps to be liberated in Germany. In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler's Germany. These men discovered the very depths of human - imposed cruelty and depravity: rail road cars stacked with emaciated, lifeless bodies; ovens full of incinerated human remains; warehouses filled with stolen shoes, clothes, luggage, and even eyeglasses; prison yards littered with implements of torture and dead bodies; and-perhaps most disturbing of all - the half-dead survivors of the camps. For the American soldiers of all ranks who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen, horrified that humans from ostensibly civilized societies were capable of such crimes. Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often overlooked aspect of the Holocaust.Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of first hand accounts-including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections - Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history.