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An introduction to this military history, military strategy and foreign policy resource.

About

About acclaimed miiltary historican and author Bevin Alexander.

Books

The fourteen volumes of Bevin Alexander cover a vast range of military history and military strategy.

  • Such Troops as These: The Genius and Leadership of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson

    Offers a fresh and cogent analysis of Stonewall Jackson’s military genius and reveals how the Civil War might have ended differently if Jackson’s strategies had been adopted.

  • MacArthur's War: The Flawed Genius Who Challenged The American Political System

    Details MacArthur’s military and political battles, from the alliances he made with Republican leaders to the threatening ultimatum he delivered to China against orders—the action that directly led to his dismissal on April 11, 1951.

  • Sun Tzu at Gettysburg: Ancient Military Wisdom in the Modern World

    Surveys ten major battles or campaigns that could have been won by using the principles of The Art of War.

  • Inside the Nazi War Machine: How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg Upon the World

    Examines the groundbreaking martial concepts developed by Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein, and Heinz Guderian.

  • How The South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat

    Shows why there is nothing inevitable about military victory, even for a state with overwhelming strength. Alexander provides a startling account of how a relatively small number of tactical and strategic mistakes cost the South the war—and changed the course of history.

  • How America Got It Right

    Left-wing critics—both at home and abroad—relish blasting our country for being the world’s sole superpower, or even an “imperialist” power. Acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander shows that these criticisms are completely off the mark.

  • How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror

    Even as we head into twenty-first-century warfare, thirteen time-tested rules for waging war remain relevant.

  • Robert E. Lee's Civil War

    This vivid depiction of the fiercest battles ever fought on American soil presents the Civil War as you've never seen it before-with a provocative re-examination of the military genius of Robert E. Lee, and a critical, pragmatic re-evaluation of the performance of the generals who led the armies of both South and North.

  • The Future of Warfare

    The United States faces no threat of aggression from any great power. The kinds of conflicts we will enter and the ways we will fight them have changed. Highly accurate weapons and great mobility have made it impossible for troops to survive on battlefields like in World War II and Korea.

  • How Great Generals Win

    Throughout history great generals have done what their enemies have least expected. Instead of direct, predictable attack, they have deceived, encircled, outflanked, out-thought, and triumphed over often superior armies commanded by conventional thinkers.

  • Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson

    The prevailing view of the American Civil War holds that Robert E. Lee was the Confederacy’s preeminent military strategist, the South’s mythic hero who achieved all that was possible against vastly superior forces. This fresh and authoritative account of the Civil War’s first two years challenges that assumption.

  • The Strange Connection: U.S. Intervention in China, 1944-1972

    This book provides an analysis of American intervention in China from World War II to the rapprochement Richard Nixon began in 1972. It traces the origins of U.S. interest in China, based on Roosevelt's hope of using China as a partner to preserve peace in East Asia.

  • How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

    Most of us rally around the glory of the Allies' victory over the Nazis in World War II. The story is often told of how the good fight was won by an astonishing array of manpower and stunning tactics. However, what is often overlooked is how the intersection between Adolf Hitler's influential personality and his military strategy was critical in causing Germany to lose the war.

  • Korea: The First War We Lost

    Now updated with photographs and a new Preface by the author! Korea: The First War We Lost is a balanced, perceptive, and superb account of the Korean conflict written by a professional military historian.

Excerpts

These short passages provide examples of the scope and depth of material contained in Bevin Alexander’s books.

  • Rules of War

    The principles that guide warfare have not changed since prehistoric times.

  • Early Wars

    These examples range from ancient Greece and Alexander the Great to wars into the early nineteenth century.

  • Napoleonic Wars

    The conflicts that raged from the French Revolution in 1789 to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815 reveal immense changes in warfare and the profound effect that military genius can have on history.

  • Civil War

    This bitter fraternal conflict affected the psyche of the American people deeply while new weapons and new techniques that appeared in it marked a revolution in warfare.

  • World War I

    In this terrible war leaders did not recognize the power of new weapons and new techniques and killed or maimed most of a generation of European youth in hopeless battles.

  • World War II

    The vicious aggression of Adolf Hitler and Japanese militarists caused this, the world’s most dreadful war, made worse by democratic leaders who appeased these killers while they were still weak and hesitant.

  • Korean War

    America stopped Communist North Korea from conquering South Korea, but China thwarted our effort to merge North and South Korea into a single state.

  • Cold War

    America’s policy of containing the Soviet Union forced the Communists to devote most of their strength in countering our power. The task was too great for the rigid Soviet economy, and it collapsed in 1991.

  • Terror & Future Wars

    Inerrant and extremely powerful modern weapons and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who are using guerrilla tactics to avoid these weapons delineate the wars we must fight in the future. These two factors have created a new revolution in warfare.

Commentary

Bevin Alexander examines major foreign affairs and military issues that are facing the United States today.

Q & A

An online forum to discuss military history and foreign policy. Submit your own questions or comments.

Korea

Shortly after the Korean War started, the U.S. Army developed and activated eight Historical Detachments to prepare and collect historical materials devoted to the operations during the war.

  • Historical Detachments Photos

    Pictures from the personal collection of Bevin Alexander, who commanded the 5th Historical Detachment in the Korean War.

  • Korean War Photos

    Pictures taken during the Korean War 1950-53 and reproduced in Bevin Alexander’s Korea: The First War We Lost.

College Course on the Rules of War

Advanced college course on the rules of war taught by Bevin Alexander at Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia.