My passion for Mexican and military history came from many sources. Wandering in my 20s in Europe and Asia honed my appreciation for the historical experience. Good friends in the Canadian military made me curious about the odd rituals and strange subcultures they inhabited. As I moved from Calgary to Vancouver to Tucson I devolved from degree to degree, studying deviance, military history, Mexican culture, and finally finishing a dissertation that combined these elements into one work. And now I happily get to inflict all of this history on my students in California.
This work combines excellent writing with impeccable research from a scholar I deeply respect. Guardino’s take on this war is persuasive and somewhat controversial, at least in Mexican circles, due to his analysis showing endemic supply issues at the heart of military failures in the face of a US invasion. He shows how the war goes horribly wrong for Mexico in a New Military History style approach that examines society using the army as a lens.
Winner of the Bolton-Johnson Prize Winner of the Utley Prize Winner of the Distinguished Book Award, Society for Military History
"The Dead March incorporates the work of Mexican historians...in a story that involves far more than military strategy, diplomatic maneuvering, and American political intrigue...Studded with arresting insights and convincing observations." -James Oakes, New York Review of Books
"Superb...A remarkable achievement, by far the best general account of the war now available. It is critical, insightful, and rooted in a wealth of archival sources; it brings far more of the Mexican experience than any other work...and it clearly demonstrates the social…
I am the author of 30 books. I live and teach in Mexico. I became interested in the St. Patrick's Battalion story when I moved here in 1990. The only book at the time was Shamrock and Sword, and while I enjoyed the book, I was dismayed that there were no Mexican or Irish sources. I did intensive research in the military archives of both countries and visited every battle site. Spurred on by the fact that one of my ancestors fought in the war, it became a passion. Later, I wrote my book and was a consultant for the film One Man's Hero. The rest, as they say, is history.
This is the story about the San Patricio Battalion, which fought for Mexico in the war of 1846-48 and were ultimately hanged as traitors. It is told primarily from the American standpoint using exclusively US documents. What makes it fascinating to me is that the author reveals why this history was hidden from researchers and scholars alike for so many years.
I had heard about this group in Mexico, but since I could find no information on it, I assumed it was mostly legend. What a revelation to discover that it was real and that the Irish actually did join up with the Mexicans to fight against the US invasion.
This fascinating true story about war, intrigue, defection to the enemy, and brutal military justice is a dramatic example of the conflicts that frequently arise between humanitarian values and inflexible military regulations.
Shamrock and Sword's setting is the U.S.-Mexican War, remembered by Americans as an illustration of Manifest Destiny, the inevitable extension of the American frontier. It is remembered differently by Mexicans, who lost a substantial portion of their territory to an invading army. Perceptions on both sides of the border will be reshaped by Robert Ryal Miller's account of American soldiers who deserted to fight in the Mexican army.…
I have loved history since I was a child, and very early on, I realized that history was not something that was made only by famous people. My own relatives had migrated, worked at different jobs, served in wars, etc., and ordinary people like them have been the most important drivers of events. I had a chance to study in Mexico in my early twenties and rapidly fell in love with its people and history. Yet, ever since I was a child, I have been interested in the history of wars. My work on the Mexican-American War combines all of these passions.
I hate books that make history bloodless and gloss over the often-ugly events that made the world what it is today. This is a short book with a lot of emotional energy, mostly in the form of burning outrage and irony.
I also really enjoyed how he made the voices of the American soldiers the central part of this book.
The dark side of Manifest Destiny; The Mexican-American War (1846-48) found Americans on new terrain. A republic founded on the principle of armed defense of freedom was now going to war on behalf of Manifest Destiny, seeking to conquer an unfamiliar nation and people. Through an examination of rank-and-file soldiers, Paul Foos sheds new light on the war and its effect on attitudes toward other races and nationalities that stood in the way of American expansionism. Drawing on wartime diaries and letters not previously examined by scholars, Foos shows that the experience of soldiers in the war differed radically from…
I love learning about history, and the more I learn, the more I appreciate my place in this world. While military history, particularly from pre-WW1 to the end of WW2, was what made me first plant my nose in a book, I can geek out on pretty much any historical period: the rise of human civilization, Rome, the conquest of the New World, the development of airplanes. But it’s the personal element that most draws me in, and the fact that we humans remain fundamentally the same in how we cope with another through the ages. It’s through fiction that we see the past in a way that makes sense.
If you’ve never heard of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion—the Irish soldiers who deserted the US Army to fight for Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1847—with this novel, Reyna Grande will fill in the blanks in grand style. She pulls you in using the trope of a romance between Ximena, a curandera, and John Riley, an Irish-American artilleryman, both pawns in a gigantic land grab now regarded as one of the US’s forgotten wars.
We listen to the big personalities—Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna and US General Zachary Taylor—give their version of events even as the book provides an unflinching eye at the plight of the common people caught in the chaos and bloodshed.
2023 International Latino Book Award Winner Finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters’s Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Fiction
A Long Petal of the Sea meets Cold Mountain in this “epic and exquisitely wrought” (Patricia Engel, New York Times bestselling author) saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, at first for their survival and then for their love, amidst the atrocity of the Mexican-American War—from the author of The Distance Between Us.
A forgotten war. An unforgettable romance.
The year is 1846. After the controversial annexation of Texas, the US Army marches south…
Jim Rasenberger is a writer and author of four books - Revolver, The Brilliant Disaster; America, 1908, and High Steel. He has contributed to the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, and other publications. A native of Washington, DC, he lives in New York City.
A thrilling if bumpy ride through 1846, as DeVoto tracks multiple stories of Americans who headed west at the start of the great migration. Like Webb’s Great Plains, this book — published in 1942 — is a little dated in places, but DeVoto’s vivid descriptions and strong opinions make it highly enjoyable. The general subject is the “period when the manifold possibilities of chance were shaped to converge into the inevitable,” writes DeVoto. More plainly, the book is about "some people who went west in 1846." Many of them died on the way. Some found fortune. Altogether, they left behind extraordinary history.
Year of Decision 1846 tells many fascinating stories of the U.S. explorers who began the western march from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from Canada to the annexation of Texas, California, and the southwest lands from Mexico. It is the penultimate book of a trilogy which includes Across the Wide Missouri (for which DeVoto won both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes) and The Course of Empire. DeVoto's narrative covers the expanding Western frontier, the Mormons, the Donner party, Fremont's exploration, the Army of the West, and takes readers into Native American tribal life.
Historian Doug Hocking grew up on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation of New Mexico. He knows her peoples, towns, and trails. He has completed advanced studies in history, his first love, anthropology, and historical archaeology. Since retiring as an armored cavalry officer, Doug has owned his own business. With this background he has insight into America’s great commercial road, the Santa Fe Trail, and into battles and soldiering. He understands Apache lives as few others do.
Teenaged and highly observant Susan spent her honeymoon on the Santa Fe Trail with her husband a Santa Fe trader as they accompanied the Army of the West on its invasion of Mexico. She provides a woman’s perspective and much more. At a time when very few women have trailed to New Mexico, Susan wrote of the amazing things she encountered giving us a woman’s perspective.
In June 1846 Susan Shelby Magoffin, eighteen years old and a bride of less than eight months, set out with her husband, a veteran Santa Fe trader, on a trek from Independence, Missouri, through New Mexico and south to Chihuahua. Her travel journal was written at a crucial time, when the Mexican War was beginning and New Mexico was occupied by Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West.
Her journal describes the excitement, routine, and dangers of a successful merchant's wife. On the trail for fifteen months, moving from house to house and town to town, she became…
I am the author of 30 books. I live and teach in Mexico. I became interested in the St. Patrick's Battalion story when I moved here in 1990. The only book at the time was Shamrock and Sword, and while I enjoyed the book, I was dismayed that there were no Mexican or Irish sources. I did intensive research in the military archives of both countries and visited every battle site. Spurred on by the fact that one of my ancestors fought in the war, it became a passion. Later, I wrote my book and was a consultant for the film One Man's Hero. The rest, as they say, is history.
This nonfiction history of Mexico was compelling because it details everyday life in the occupied country. It also provided details of the US and Mexico before and after the Mexican War.
We get a clearer sense of what motivated soldiers on both sides to join in the largest territorial battle in North America. For Americans it was a great adventure, for Mexicans, the defense of their homeland. I also like the author's use of irony and humor, which gives the book a balance that more academic history cannot risk.
A complete, accessible, and nonacademic history of Mexico for general readers, this volume is a solidly researched introduction to a surprisingly multicultural, multifaceted nation. Presenting Mexico as it is and often with a refreshing wit and humor, this history puts flesh and bones on the dusty figures of the past while shedding light on the common humanity of the uncommon humans who created this unique country and its culture. From Mayans and Spanish conquistadors to guerillas and tourist invasions, the full thread of Mexican history is told here in a fresh, lively, uncompromising narrative for scholars, general readers, and generations…
Craig Fehrman spent ten years writing Author in Chief, his book on presidents and the books they wrote. When readers would learn about his research, they'd always ask -- "Are any of them worth reading?" The answer turned out to be a definitive yes! Presidential books have won elections, redefined careers, and shaped America's place in the world. It's easy to eye-roll at modern political volumes, but for most of American history, books have been our popular culture -- and presidential books have changed our nation. Here are a few of the books that will reward readers today.
Grant’s book is deservingly celebrated as the best presidential book, even if it's mostly a work of military history. Still, my favorite parts are the character descriptions. They show a surprising side of Grant: as a reader, he was America’s first full-blown fiction-loving president, and his obsession with novels clearly influenced his own writing. If you have the Library of America edition, you can quickly turn to the book’s sketch of Lincoln (page 469), which captures that president’s graciousness, and the sketch of Robert E. Lee (page 732), which captures Grant’s.
"This fine volume leaps straight onto the roster of essential reading for anyone even vaguely interested in Grant and the Civil War. The book is deeply researched, but it introduces its scholarship with a light touch that never interferes with the reader's enjoyment of Grant's fluent narrative."-Ron Chernow, author of Grant
Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, sold door-to-door by former Union soldiers, were once as ubiquitous in American households as the Bible. Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, Henry James, and Edmund Wilson hailed them as great literature, and countless presidents, including Clinton and George W. Bush, credit Grant with influencing their own…
I have loved history since I was a child, and very early on, I realized that history was not something that was made only by famous people. My own relatives had migrated, worked at different jobs, served in wars, etc., and ordinary people like them have been the most important drivers of events. I had a chance to study in Mexico in my early twenties and rapidly fell in love with its people and history. Yet, ever since I was a child, I have been interested in the history of wars. My work on the Mexican-American War combines all of these passions.
I really enjoyed this terrific book about how the US political conflicts led to a foreign war against Mexico and how that war became increasingly unpopular.
Greenberg shows how characters like the charismatic Henry Clay, the young, almost unknown congressman Abraham Lincoln, and the dark horse president James Polk jousted on the national stage. This is a great read, especially for anyone with an interest in the intersection of biography and history.
Our 1846 war with Mexico was a blatant land grab provoked by President James Polk. And while it secured the entire Southwest and California for America, it also exacerbated regional tensions over slavery, created the first significant antiwar movement in America, and helped lead the nation into civil war. A Wicked War is the definitive history of this conflict that turned America into a continental power. Amy Greenberg describes the battles between American and Mexican armies, but also delineates the political battles between Democrats and Whigs—the former led by the ruthless Polk, the latter by the charismatic Henry Clay, and…
I am the author of 30 books. I live and teach in Mexico. I became interested in the St. Patrick's Battalion story when I moved here in 1990. The only book at the time was Shamrock and Sword, and while I enjoyed the book, I was dismayed that there were no Mexican or Irish sources. I did intensive research in the military archives of both countries and visited every battle site. Spurred on by the fact that one of my ancestors fought in the war, it became a passion. Later, I wrote my book and was a consultant for the film One Man's Hero. The rest, as they say, is history.
I like this version of the story because Stephens went to Ireland and researched the life and times of John Riley, the commander of the San Patrico Battalion. He shows his motivation for joining the Mexican Army, leadership skills, artillery knowledge, and more.
It is a bird’s eye view of the life of a soldier in the Irish diaspora and how he associated an Anglo-American army invading a Catholic neighbor with his own native land invaded by the English army 400 years before.
The controversial true story of the US Army deserters--the majority of them Irish immigrants--who fought valiantly as a Mexican Army unit during the Mexican War of 1846. It takes a close look at the organized prejudice against irish Catholic and German immigrants.
