>> coming up ne3 >> coming up next, the guggenheim-lehrman military history awards. you can watch the event live on booktv. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. my name is joe seiyu bunting. i am awfully happy to welcome you to this gathering into this event. stephen ambrose once said that he had been struck by how many army veterans of the campaign in

europe, in 1942 through 1945, how many have become teachers. he made the obvious link, which consider the chronology. if you were a 20-year-old rifleman in the forest, you were born in 1924, you are now 90 years old, and if you have become a professor or a teacher, you have probably left the active practice of your profession around 1975 or 1980, give or take a few years greater education was underwritten by the g.i. bill and yours was a generation hospitable, at the very least, to the study of war and military history. a successor generation of men and women in the later 1950s

and 1970s whose experience may or may not have included service in vietnam, people in their 60s and 70s have earnest a large cadre of professors and administrators and universities. the majority would appear to harbor a positive aversion to the discipline of military history. interestingly not in great britain but the famous elite universities of our country. this is appalling to me. this is the grain of bread in my oyster and why we are here this evening. their attitude is the humane equivalent of indulging in aversion to the study of the causes of cancer because the

study is unpleasant. the reason for the establishment for this than military history is to call attention to this most regrettable condition. and ironically the national appetite for military history invariably off campus is constant and voracious. sales of serious works of military history continue at extraordinarily high levels. and we hope that this award will be the beginning of a substantial remedy of the disease. the military history is somehow considered as right-wing or conservative. this is an utterly preposterous

way of looking at the discipline. but it is deep-seated and it will not be remedied overnight. and here and there are bright rays of hope and we have heard from some of the hope later victor davis hanson strategic enterprise at stanford and strong programs at ohio state and duke and other institutions. you may judge for yourself the quality of the understanding and their writing. i wish particularly this evening to thank roger herzog. a constant and enthusiastic supporter of such ventures to home are dead is very large and i wish to thank the president of

the society whose leadership and reinvigoration of the historical society has been nothing less than sterling. we include this with the chairman of the harry guggenheim foundation, a veteran of the second world war whose allegiance to the foundation's purposes, the study of the human propensity for violence has been constant and generous. it is worth noting that our foundation's founder was a veteran of both world wars and served in combat after battering the navy department to allow this at the age of 55 years old and was a close friend of many of the military leaders in our country at that time. finally, i would like to thank

louis lehrman who is here, an old and dear friend from days in pennsylvania and this is where we came by with our sense of interest and a distinguished historian and student of abraham lincoln. he has been a most generous patron. i would like to introduce mr. mr. hertog, who will talk to us a little bit about his interest in this venture. [applause] >> at the tufts act to [applaus] >> at the tufts act to follow. certainly he is a lot taller than i am, which is not that hard. so let me say to all of you,

welcome to this wonderful evening. i do mean wonderful because we are about to an artery what i believe will be enormously important tradition, the annual awarding in military history. in my view, the idea of the prizes inspired and it has the potential to do an enormous amount of good especially at this time. because even our best colleges, i am sad to say, military history is no longer treated as a subject of serious study if it is treated as a study at all.

very few universities today really have courses in military history. of the top 25 colleges in our country, as defined by the u.s. news and world report, who else could you use? only three colleges acquire a survey course on u.s. history, not military history. these are the highest and best schools in america and undergraduates who want to learn more about the sacrifice that men have made in fighting for purposes that they believe in have few places to turn some conflicts have made for a much better world and just think of our history, the revolutionary

war, the civil war, world war ii. these young men and women and soon my grandchildren, and some important and profound way are being deprived of their birth right. learning something more about their country. who we are, why we are here. what are the ideas that created this free people. the man who conceived this prize aims to remedy the situation. knowing their history, i think that they probably will. they are historians of the first order whose careers have fueled in large part their love of country. josiah bunting, president of the guggenheim-lehrman, and louis lehrman, cochairman of

guggenheim-lehrman of american history. josiah bunting has written six highly acclaimed books and edited to others. he is now finishing his major opus, the life of george marshall. a soldier, a general, and the statesman, and a great american. louis lehrman constitutes half of the dynamic duo that built the irreplaceable and indispensable lerman institute. the other half being richard gilder, who i do not believe is here this evening. the sad fact is that most book crisis is our little noted or wrongly remembered.

but sometimes a prize sheds a light on a subject of strategic importance that it helps to stimulate interest on the part of a new generation and equally important, lovers of history both younger and older. gilder and lerman created the gilder lerman prize and the lincoln prize, approximately one quarter of a century ago and then the george washington prior. they attracted formidable new scholarships about the 15th president, the phenomenon of slavery and the age of the founding fathers respectively. and i think the same thing will now happen in the much-needed study of military history.

four books are the carriers of civilization as barbara has written, without books, history is silent and literature is done and science is crippled. without, the development of civilization would not be possible. they are the engines of change in the windows on the world and as the poet said, lighthouses directed on the sea of time. anything that encourages analysis, understanding, of war and peace for generations to come is to be honored, this is what makes the prize such an important idea. given what is going on in the world today, it appears that we needed more than ever.

so in closing i'm particularly proud of the past chairman of the new york historical society were the gilder and lerman archives are housed to be introducing this today. and i look forward to seeing your and my reading list enhanced year after year by the inspired choices of the judges. welcome to the new york historical society. [applause] >> i just whispered to roger that there was a beautiful talk. thank you. i would now like to introduce

into roberts. this is very much an anglo-american enterprise. andrew is a brilliant and prolific practitioner of the craft of history, political, diplomatic and military. a member of the board of directors of the foundation. and i call upon him he has served admirably for the last year and a half is chairman of our panel of judges whose labors have been diligent and long, and these judges have been the beneficiaries of the experience as a judge for new minas literary and historical prizes in britain. he is going to introduce each of our judges and then introduce each of our finalists. again, each of whom will be asked to give a short reading from this book. doctor roberts.

[applause] >> you're welcome. [applause] and the winner is. [laughter] >> it will be announced very shortly. no, seriously, three of my books have been almost listed for prizes. and it is clearly organized in this way. but who am i to break this tradition, and i'm certainly not going to. also, what a better day than st. patrick's day to celebrate history and especially the ancient as someone's that probably when you investigate them closely, actually were part of this. to my job is to introduce the

judge as an impossibly distinguished group. i believe it is probably too distinguished because how on earth can we assemble this, a group distinguished like we are, next year. obviously as englishmen again, i am in favor of a self-perpetuating oligarchy or even perhaps read a terry. i think that i should consider that my run in 16 years old and has nothing else to do at the moment. i can't he why it shouldn't be handed down through the generations. but nonetheless these are decisions for others to take. so the people who have been deciding this fabulous prize include and if you would like

someone who has this, you also have casey brewer who is a brigadier general and we see all the various things that are written in the program. the other great thing is that he brings a sense of sensibility to it we are discussed and are doing today and an emotional side to his presentations and i love that. he wears a green jacket for the st. patrick's day parade which went down very well, except with me. and sadly he wasn't able to be

here today because he is taking a ride of serious and substantial figures in the army and that's exactly what you would hope if military history were not here today. and a family history, it doesn't get much more military than not. and so i have to say that it is always a little bit unnerving as a military historian to have as one of your judges these points and there's no other way as it is in the history of war demands

was to be chairman of the ring and i'm sort of the undersecretary in charge of paper clips. and then of course there is the recorded secretary of princeton. and basically, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't get better than not accept in my job as chairman, which i have loved the first was the evidence of new research and we needed to know that every one of them, every one of the shortlisted works and

we also wanted to know that the books had literally grace. the world grace is a word of size. and it makes a lot of sense. and this has to be read as a work of literature as well as a simple book of military history. which said the 34th division, northwest to engage this as well. that is not what we were after you but a sense of why that was happening and who was taking that decision and why it mattered and how it fitted into the overall scheme otherwise.

in the third was a profession of military history writing it is a terrible, terrible cliché of occasions like this. it's in one of these books, it could've won the prize. but the fact is that that is true. out of the 100. i think that we did choose the ones that were really outstanding.

and these are books and that we have a appreciation of their past. and so in that sense we were anomaly and pressed that it does take a lot of time. so i would like each of the authors to come up and speak. and we have one that is going to start that has written in the

last and i'm going to ask them to speak for no longer than five minutes. and so we kick off with that rick atkinson. and then we are going to go through in alphabetical order and then i'm going to come back again. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for inviting me to be here this evening. i just got a page and this is

june 5, 1944. we are off the southern coast of england. the warcry founded up and we spilled the great affluent of liberation from dartmouth and weymouth, from entangled areas pass the whalebone marshes, all converging on the whitecapped channel. fifty-nine convoys carrying 100 dirty thousand soldiers, 2000 tanks and 12,000 vehicles. for cable laying and smoke making. from the irish seed of

bombardment squadrons and in publishes columns of cruisers and destroyers and even some giving a second life, what the uss nevada, raise and remade after pearl harbor. we covered it from pewter to safire, a luminous rainbow tropical arced above the dappled son turning them into white curtains. but screw scroll the road to the aisles down the river as soldiers lining the street cheered him on. nothing brighten the mood more than reports from the bbc broadcast that rome had fallen out last, at long last.

more than a dozen airfields across england, peer shooting and glider troops also made ready. soldiers from the british sixth airborne division with other graffiti and aircraft while awaiting in red and green navigation lights twinkled across as the sun set at 10:00 p.m. singing voices punctuated by a guttural roar from paratroopers holding their knives aloft and homicidal result. a helpful push from behind, many notes on the floor to rest their commerce and gear by the soft glow of cigarette embers the

propellers popping it glinted off the aluminum these alleged. the light faded and was gone. registrar border, white support. the small craft struggled in the wind. waves washed over the back and the log reported that the stove went now, nothing to eat, explosives what and could not be dried out. and sloshed through troop

compartments. some held their wheels 30 degrees off sure to keep course. several vessels went to one word message. seasick, seasick, seasick. down the 10 channels they plunged, designated for each of the five forces. [inaudible] weeks and weeks. through attending overcast over the port bow and swells livelong every hole down for a better world. hallelujah, hallelujah. thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> the pettigrew's division gave way and unlike their counterparts in the philadelphia brigade, alex hazes men were up and either for the pursuit. the first of delaware spring over the stone wall and charged with the bayonet upon the rebel fugitives led by their cosergeant with the national flag.

as did the surgeon of 125th new york, while the 111th carefully cleared out the many remaining confederates. alex hayes was enraptured. as they captured rebel officer was being prodded past him, the rebel asked consensually if this was all the men that hayes had been able to summon. if i would know that this is all you have, i would not have surrendered. well, the go back and tried try again. a captain in the 126 regimen of new york, the he picked up the regiment which had, among the battle, painted harpers ferry. he's one of this flag and he wanted to flaunt it for the benefit of the harpers ferry

cowards who had finally evened up their scores with the confederacy this afternoon. amid a continuous and deafening cheers, followed by his two surviving staffers captured in the same fashion. he encountered alexander webb with his hat off, excited, picking through the bodies of the 72nd pennsylvania in dark blue uniforms. he shot back with an ironic grin, i will be damned if they

got through mine. but the sharpest irony of all is that the army of virginia's last hope for a victorious breakthrough expired from the property of abraham brian. a free black man and a species of humanity which was by most confederate understandings not even supposed to exist. what alexander later called the best we have in the shop. moving bravely than they had in the end not been able to roll

the stone to the top of the mountain after all. including on cemetery ridge, standing there, they together think together but something had been engraved in the book something that would make every man who had been there and survived raise a toast by kerry that king's happy few on every anniversary of the battle, making everyone a name that they would recognize. the greatest achievement would turn out to be its humblest as well.

in his whitewashed cottage in barn, and he is and his family would live there until he sold the property in 1869. and on would make them afraid for the mouth of the lord had spoken. thank you. [applause] >> i'm going to read a paragraph and a half from the forward of my book. it begins as the british

government was preparing for conflict long before hostilities began in 1793. it continues for over 20 years when the first consul and later emperor napoleon, leaving the french people and the many nations he subjugated and the attempt to invade and conquer britain. starvation and devastation russia, spain, and portugal. it was not the fate of the decisions, but they did experience more than 20 years of hard naval and military conflict in significant casualties.

they faced high taxation and social change in domestic unrest, as well as long. a public anxiety because of a threat of invasion when the dominance was at its height. the war was more expensive than that against revolutionary france. the police action has become a war of national survival. i was brought up on the assumption that although the war against them or was projected, final victory was inevitable. these images and memories are still very much with us. most people think about this as

they print out wars today do not realize how voidable britain was at this time. no order are they aware of how many years of the soldiers and the sea individuals had to fight and civilians had to ensure to survival of the country. the developing your up and also stretching as far as american and india. fighting right to the finish between two systems of government each using every possible source to overcome the other. in the british victory was achieved only through radical efficiencies in the nation's economic and political life. an enormous growth in the quality and quantity of output in the acceptance of taxes by the rich and of military service by the less well-off. much of this is now forgotten,

and i go on to compare it to the second world war. in the last paragraph of the book. the historical headlines by napoleon and wellington, the drummer of waterloo and the congress of vienna and the makers of uniforms and then character. the hard work of those in the arab cultural center who transported the vital stories and the cruise who provide the means of communication throughout the year and none of this could have been achieved without the man who signed contracts across tables and government departments. the civil servants who did this

in the international merchants and dealers who traded in the city. they were all needed as much of the as the tens of thousands of young soldiers and seamen who survived and overcame the threat. [applause] >> to set the stage for my reading, general petraeus had just taken command of a multi-natural force in iraq. this is the next day when he and i and our vast go out on patrol in baghdad.

a newly constructed joint security station housing in american is obese and iraqi counterpart. inside a wall of tall class barriers from a nondescript took this our smoke rose above it as soldiers set fire to it. it came through with prepackaged field reactions. absent were that recreational opportunities with television, movies, fast food outlets and occasional outlet. what had return to this

existence in the spring and summer of 2003 in the and the u.s. army was newly arrived in iraq. general betray us received a briefing from the u.s. and iraqi commanders instead of the high-tech monitors in the facility on camp liberty, these officers used a simple map, radios, in a written law. they had been in this location for only a week or so, but already their situational awareness increased by several orders of magnitude. instead of periodic control drug the neighborhood, u.s. and iraqi soldiers were now conduct in this at the streets. they return to the relative security to maintain their equipment and plan for this. they remained to dominate the urban landscape, equally they

were ardent seeking him out and providing increasingly useful intelligence. the local inhabitants acted cautiously, unsure of the permanency of the defenders outpost. as time went by they ventured forth to provide information and for months the company had operated intermittently and now that scarcity had turned into a torrent of intelligence to begin chipping away at the enemy. time will tell how successful they would be in providing security to and relieving the suffering of the iraqis in gossett. our short visit over we returned to camp liberty for our next patrol in the southern part of

baghdad. after touring the joint base and receiving a patrolled region, we mounted a number of new stryker combat vehicles and set out for the religiously mixed neighborhood of dora. i scanned the rooftops and alleyways for snipers. after a short drive we entered the market. here in the service was unmistakable. it was the scene of one third killings in the iraqi capital. we drove past a former police station that had been blown up by a suicide car bomb. in the market area, their black insides are a grim reminder of the task before us. they moved cautiously aware of the dangers that jeopardize their lives, and the door area

was largely a ghost town. al qaeda terrorists and shia militiamen had intimidated the population of baghdad into submission. the colorless reports and operational summaries that they had read did not do justice to the iraqi capital, its inhabitants, and the iraqi psyche. the severity of the situation just hit us like a ton of bricks. the situation in iraq had spiraled rapidly downward and the u.s. forces and their partners have a limited amount of time to reverse the momentum for the clock ran out. the political battles that had attended the confirmation hearings in washington receded into the distance is the full magnitude of the task ahead of us became apparent. thank you.

[applause] >> this is a stretch from the early part of the book, where the british surrender at yorktown. the subsequent passages going to describe the reception in london. a dinner party given by the secretary of state for america, lord george to remain in which he reveals to his death would happen this afternoon and what he discovered, that britain had indeed been defeated in america. at about 10:00 o'clock on the morning of october 17, 1781, outside the small tobacco port of yorktown, virginia, a loan drummer mounted the besieged british lines beating a rhythm.

the sound of the drum was an audible against the background of constant firing straight if it had not been for the visibility of the redcoat, he might have been a way until doomsday. he was followed by an officer holding up a white handkerchief and proposing negotiations for surrender. the war of american information suddenly ceased. a junior officer described how when the firing ceased i thought i'd never heard a drum equal to it. the most delightful music to us all. troops on either side from a distance of less than 200 yards. the british army led the union and the victors were forced to

wait for the pleasure of seeing their humiliated folk prayed before them. although washington had specified that the time to surrender would take place at 2:00 o'clock precisely, the british and german troops did not appear right away. dressed in smart new uniforms, they formed two columns more than a mile long. the park is bordered on one side by american troops and on the other by the french. there were numerous spectators from this running countryside beaming with satisfaction and joy. including the reddish defeated general charles cornwallis. he was part of this and james thatcher said how every i is ready to gaze on the commander, despite their anxious expectations by pretending

indisposition. after some two hours the vanquished british army began to advance along the hampton road and much of it is slow and solemn instep with shouldered arms and drums beating and hides playing patriotic marches of britain and the german state. as they neared the field of surrender, they became disorderly and exhibited a disorderly conduct. in their ranks were frequently broken. some of them seem to be drinking. when they entered the field when they put this habitat, alaska of the drama was played out. we were unable to conceal their mortification. the platoon officers appeared to be exceedingly aggrieved when giving the order to ground arms. according to a new jersey

officer, the british offices in general behave like boys who had been whipped at school. some biting their lips and pouting while others cried. they beat their drums as if they did not care how. many of the soldiers show temper finally throwing down their arms is that to determine them useless. during the siege and the march of 1500 miles through the south, one threw down his weapon with such violence that it broke as he shouted me never get so good of a master. the broad rimmed hat enabled them to hide their faces out of shame. it was indeed a humiliation that had begun the war with an assumption of its own military prowess. when he beheld the soldiers and

their former glory to such miserable mess, one of reflected that he forgot for a moment their influence, depredation and cruelty. [applause] >> i have brought the doorstep with me. i'm going to read the opening to the chapter on german society under the bonds. after the war in europe ended in may of 1945, many of those who had helped direct the bombing of germany, they are curious to see the destruction for themselves.

the general clue to bavaria on the 10th of may to meet a man who had just been captured by american troops. the american official historian recorded a two-hour interrogation in a small office in the school in which he reflected on why his air force had failed to thwart the bombing. it was a historic meeting of the chiefs of the war. all around was evidence of a destruction of the national economic and civil life of a great nation, doomed, so he thought, to be set back by a century as a result. back, he added, has never happened before in history. other senior american airmen followed suit.

general anderson and ron captured areas of western germany and unloaded a jeep to get a better look at it. the diary record of his trip to target country that was, recorded a shocking catalogue of destruction. is that in shambles, frankfurt, largely roofless. [inaudible] fantastic spectacle. they flew across where the language used to describe this was to stretch two extremes. puzzles board was not even a ghost. cologne, indescribable. one gets the feeling of horror. nothing is left.

his plane took it back to france five days later in his direst breathe a sigh of relief. escape back to civilization the director of bombing operations went to look at hamburg and was greatly impressed but shocked at the sight of people living in wrecked buildings into which i would not care to venture. around the same time solly zuckerman, the british government scientist and champion of the transportation plan visited the same cities where he witnessed a similar desolate landscape. so much construction. one longs for open fields and to get away from the trail of the bombs. here and there he saw women sleeping on the pavement in front of houses. but were no more piles than

rubber. in the eradicated city he is observed people who were in no no obvious cents projected. he was puzzled by this behavior is different than what he was expecting. private civilians stop the bombardment, he wrote a few days later. it is a mystery. the survival of german society under the bombs has generally attracted less attention than explanations of british survival during the blitz. get the general population had to endure more than four years of heavy bombardment, fighting a war that was ever lost before it's and. despite the journalist growing debilitation, industrial production, food supply, welfare, they were all maintained through the last weeks when the allied armies were in soil and allied bombers

were pummeling ruins into ruins. the capacity of the state of the national socialist party to absorb this level of punishment and manage its consequences demonstrated some remarkable strength in the system, as well as its harsh characteristics. the question asked by the allies before 1945 was typically one will germany crack. so the issue needs to be approached the other way around. the real issue is how german civilian life trapped between the bombardment in the serious dictatorship adapted to psychological pressures that had pressured urban obliteration. thank you.

[applause] inequities in government, i hope that all of those readings brings home to you for the difficulty of the task of the judges. they were also part of fine writing and original research and also of the kind of leadership of military historical writing that anyone of them could have written. but it has, in fact, after a good discussion, one book emerged and that is the gettysburg, the last invasion. thank you very much. [applause] >> could you come up and say

hello enact. [applause] >> i'm going to give him a check and also asked him to say a few words and then we will speak later. >> thank you. >> i did not expect that. i'm in the presence of people that i have greatly admired inviting. strong spoke on waterloo is an important influence. as was david's writing on the inner mutiny and other subjects as well. all of these were important rays of light for me because i

believed that the american civil war has too often been written about in a very provincial way. it has been written as though the war only happened to us and with us and for us and it had no parallels to any other national experience that we would shed light on. one in fact of course, the moment we think about it there other great conflicts going on at almost the same time. the permian war fought with virtually the same weapons as the american civil war. the north italian war of 1859,%, which, truth be told, an american military thinking it's hard to talk about about all, the literature available at his very thin. and of course the conflicts that are going on at the same time.

they were probably not well known because it's so difficult to pronounce. and then shortly after the close of that war, the 1866 war between austria and prussia. ..

>> revealing understanding of te nature of combat. many others like him had to give all of these were models that i have attempted to follow that i'm not a soldier. soldier. i'm the son of a soldier. my father was the united states army that served from korea to vietnam. i am ther therefore at least any brat.