Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Winter 2011
Document Type
Article
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 31:1 (Winter 2011).
Abstract
Given the vast breadth and depth of American military historiography, well-organized and well-written narrative overviews of the field are always welcome. Robert Wooster's recently released The American Military Frontiers certainly fits that description. Wooster, a professor of history at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, and the author of four other books on western military history, synthesizes several generations of previous scholarship to support his most fundamental theme: that the Army served not only as the executor of nineteenth century national policy, but also as an important catalytic "shaper" of that policy. In its attention to the multiple roles played by the Army on the frontier, Wooster's work is most reminiscent of Michael Tate's award-winning The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West (1999). Wooster also draws from, and ably summarizes, a wide array of primary archival sources as well as scores of secondary books and articles by noted scholars such as Robert Utley, Colin Calloway, Francis Prucha, and William Dobak, among many others. Indeed, one of the greatest values of the volume may be found in its extensive bibliography, which would serve as an extremely useful starting point for anyone seeking to explore specific topics in more detail. In addition, Wooster provides a large collection of wonderful maps and illustrations-many of them unique and rarely, if ever, previously published-that should be destined to find their way onto projector screens in history classrooms across the country.
Comments
Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.