Book of the Day: Founding a nation isn't easy.

Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Beginnings of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802 (Free Press, 1st ed. 2d printing, 1975), LOC 74-33092. A provocative study by a Rutgers historian whose chapter on “Washington’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion” won him the 1973 Binkley-Stephenson Award from the Organization of American Historians.

Kohn began his book intending to illuminate what he thought an obscure backwater of the first two decades of the United States’ existence, only to find, as he examined the sources, the remarkable drive of a handful of men to create a standing,  and well-equipped military in a nation founded with significant anti-military sentiment. His conclusion: that the greatest risk to the republic’s existence lay in those twenty years, when the solution to the fledgling union’s problems was thought- by some- to be a strong man on horseback.

Kirkus Reviews declared, “it is Kohn's descriptions of the Indian wars, recurrent border clashes with the British, fears of French invasion during the Haitian revolution, and assorted domestic plots and rebellions that make the book so worthwhile and justify to some degree the national army proponents. Kohn acknowledges, for example, that Shay's Rebellion in 1786 could not be handled by local militia, who in fact, were among its leaders, while Jefferson, arch-opponent of Federalism and militarism, inaugurated the first military academy and developed the Army Corps of Engineers. Kohn's thesis will provoke polemics; the material will command attention; a sturdy accomplishment on both counts.”

Now a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Professor Kohn’s focus has been American military history generally, emphasizing national security and military policy, strategy, the American experience with war-making, and the connections between war, the military, and American society. In recent years his concentration has been on current civil-military relations, particularly civilian control of the military. His long-term projects are studies of presidential war leadership in American history and the American experience of war, but he continues to research, consult, lecture, and publish in the area of contemporary civil-military relations, military professionalism, and professional military education.

Hardcover with unclipped dustjacket. The jacket shows some chips and wear about the edges, otherwise, a very good copy. Inscribed on the dedication page to “John Stanford, a warrior and a thinker in the best tradition of soldiers of the Republic.” Stanford (1938-98) was an African-American Vietnam and Desert Storm veteran who rose to the rank of major general before being recruited to become county executive of Fulton County (Atlanta), Georgia in 1991, and superintendent of Seattle Public Schools in 1995. After a brief service there as a popular and transformative educational leader, he died of leukemia in 1998. Kindly inquire re pricing or to make an offer.

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