From the first interactions between European and native peoples to the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, military issues have always played an important role in American history. Now in its updated second edition, Ways of War comprehensively explains the place of the military within the wider context of the history of the United States, showing its centrality to American culture, economics, and politics.

Early Colonization and conflict, 1607-1689 -- Wars imperial and regional, 1689-1763 -- The American Revolution, 1763-1783 -- Challenges in the early republic, 1783-1815 -- Expansion, 1815-1865 -- The American Civil War : confederate defiance, 1861-1863 -- The American Civil War : Union triumph, 1863-1865 -- Transitions force in domestic, frontier, and imperial contexts, 1865-1902 -- Early twentieth-century reforms and the Great War, 1902-1918 -- Transformation in the Interwar years, 1918-1941 -- Mobilizing for the Second World War, 1941-1943 -- Winning the Second World War, 1943-1945 -- American national security in the early Cold War, 1945-1960 -- Confrontations in the Cold War, 1960-1973 -- From the Cold War to Pax Americana to uncertainty, 1973-2017.