The Last of the Doughboys
The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War
by Richard Rubin
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28)
Over 10 years, Rubin tracked down and interviewed the last veterans of the American Expeditionary Force—including one who was 106 years old—to draw a delightful portrait of the generation that fought the Great War.
Airship
Design, Development and Disaster
by John Swinfield
(U.S. Naval Institute, $45.95)
This traces the history of the pioneering inventors and aviators who first took war into the skies with zeppelins and other lighter-than-air craft.
Vietnam
A View From the Front Lines
by Andrew Wiest
(Osprey, $25.95)
The author of the acclaimed The Boys of ’67 compiles a smart and moving oral history that illustrates the range of combat experiences for American troops.
Becoming Confederates
Paths to a New National Loyalty
by Gary W. Gallagher
(University of Georgia, $18.95)
The veteran author and Civil War historian uses Rebel leaders Robert E. Lee, Jubal Early, and Dodson Ramseur as case studies in this slim volume (a collection of Gallagher’s lectures) to explore how Confederate nationalism took root among Southerners.
Fatal Rivalry
Flodden 1513: Henry VIII, James IV and the Decisive Battle for Renaissance Britain
by George Goodwin
(W. W. Norton, $29.95)
Personal enmity between the English and Scottish kings escalates into the bloodiest battle on English soil—one of the last major medieval conflicts.
Shrapnel
A Memoir, by William Wharton
(William Morrow, $23.99)
Five years after the death of this acclaimed novelist (Birdy, A Midnight Clear), his brutally honest account of his less-than-heroic World War II service comes to light. Wharton’s description of an American massacre of German soldiers is making headlines.
FICTION
The Daughters of Mars
by Thomas Keneally
(Atria, $28)
Keneally (Schindler’s List) draws on diaries and deep historical research to craft a vivid story of the grim realities endured by two Australian nurses serving on a hospital ship in the Mediterannean during the Great War.
