Studying War Lots More

Whenever I can sneak away from my assigned school readings and collateral readings relating to my classes, I usually revert to some aspect of history that is different from what I am currently covering for school. Right now, I am trying each night after the homework assignments are read and the children are in bed--in those last few moments of consciousness--to read a few pages from Thomas Fleming's The Perils of Peace. All too often, we read about the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 and mentally close the War for Independence right there. But it was two years before a peace treaty was signed. Cornwallis's army may have surrendered, but there was still a large British troop presence in America. A British military surge might have erased the gains at Yorktown. Thomas Fleming's book The Perils of Peace recounts the dangers of this neglected period.





Victor Davis Hanson is without question, one of the most brilliant military historians of our time. A War Like No Other is his treatment of the Peloponessian War. This book has been in my "need to read" stack for a long time. I am now even more compelled to read this book, since I am teaching all things Greek in my Humanities class.





Currently, my own children and I are enjoying Jesse Stuart's great novel Hie to the Hunters. We generally cannot wait at night to find out what is happening to Did and Sparkie. Any Jesse Stuart description of country food will whet a true Southerners appetite. Stuart is a much neglected writer whose heyday was the 50s and 60s.