Beginning in September, the Great Lakes e-mail list will host monthly book discussions. Books will be announced several months in advance, and to participate, all one has to do is read the book for that month and be willing to talk about it.

Books for the list will be chosen from the more important scholarly works in the field of military history. Many are somewhat controversial, allowing for lots of debate over there relative merits. All books chosen for the Book club will be currently available on Amazon.com, to make certain everyone has a chance to purchase them, though one could likely also find them at some of the better local book stores.

The discussion will cover the books readability, historical accuracy, historical analysis, and of course, usefulness to the military wargamer. A primary purpose of the Book Club is to help wargamers stay up to date on current works in professional military historical circles. In order to facilitate this, I will endeavor to find scholarly reviews of the works and post them to the mailing list so that the reviews can be discussed as well.

Here are the first three books, listed under the month we will be discussing them.

September

The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece by Victor Davis Hanson. Paperback - 285 pages, 2nd edition (February 11, 2000). Univ California Press; ISBN: 0520219112.
-- A controversial piece on ancient hoplite warfare which has forced scholars to reconsider what we think we know about the ancient battle, and warfare in general.

October

The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 by Geoffrey Parker. Paperback - 265 pages, 2nd edition (May 1996). Cambridge Univ Pr (Trd); ISBN: 0521479584.
-- Considered a true classic in the field, yet the conclusions are still hotly debated.

November

Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace by Edward N. Luttwak. Paperback, Reprint edition (March 1990). Belknap Pr; ISBN: 067483996X
-- Luttwak is a policy analyst, not really a historian, yet this work is especially interesting for wargamers given his theory of decreasing gain.

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