I'm back, hopefully for good. I was never happy with giving up The Cannon's Mouth, but I didn't feel I had much of a choice. I've spent some time thinking about how I could resume posting in the limited time I have available. For now, the conclusion I've reached is that I'll try and post once a week or more if possible, on books or articles I've read, on material I've run across, work I'm doing or other projects I've heard of. Given my time restraints I won't be trying to present everything that's new out there, but will focus on what interests me most. After all, it's my blog.
Among the many items of interest in the July 2009 issue of The Journal of Military History, there is a very interesting article by Brian Holden Reid, titled "Michael Howard and the Evolution of Modern War Studies". I found this piece to be extremely interesting, helping me to place into a larger context the work of someone that I've always found to be extremely interesting, very well-written and thought provoking. I actually graduated with a PhD in German history and Howard's The Franco-Prussian War still appeals to me as a model of how to write about such a conflict. As a strong proponent of the war studies / war and society school of historical inquiry, as shown by the following excerpt where he writes about the French defeat resulting from problems with command and that nation's military system, his work continues to be of relevance for Canadian military historians: "...and the military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of it in its totality."
