The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military

By Oxford University Press

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425180697
• ISBN13: 9780425180693
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

A Useful Desk Reference

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military is a good first effort and both students and practitioners of the military arts will find it useful as a desk reference. There are some expected minor oversights and a little unexpected political bias. Oversights: There are a few oversights with regard to geopolitical terms applicable to military operations. The military is invariably used in a political context and therefore some geopolitical terms are appropriate for inclusion in the dictionary. For example, national power and center of gravity. There are four levers of national power: diplomacy, information, economics and, of course, the military and it's important to understand that "the military" is a "lever of national power." Center of gravity, the source of strength in an entity, is what the military attempts to attack. Tactical operations are aimed at operational centers of gravity and operational operations are aimed at strategic centers of gravity. There are a handful of other missing terms such as LRP (Long Range Patrol), LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol), M-2 Browning (.50 cal machine gun, or "Ma Deuce") that will ultimately find their way into print through readers' contributions and constructive feed back. Bias. As dry as any dictionary can be, there is still detectable bias. Take a look at how the authors define Democratic and Republican Party. The reader is given an apples and oranges comparison as show below: Democratic Party: One of the two main political parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party, which follows a broadly liberal program tending to support social reform and minority rights. Republican Party: One of the two main U.S. political parties (the other being the Democratic Party), favoring a rightwing stance, limited central government, and tough interventionist foreign policy. It was formed in 1854 in support of the anti-slavery movement preceding the Civil War. If one party is described as liberal, shouldn't the other party be described as conservative? If one party is described as right wing why not describe the other party as left wing? If one party favors limited central government, what does the other party favor? If one party favors a tough interventionist foreign policy, what does the other party favor? If one party was formed in a specific year in support of a specific movement, when was the other party formed and what was it standing for? The reader is best served with side by side, apples and apples comparison that, incidentally, indicates how both parties view and use the military. In the main, this is a useful book; it has an admirable collection of terms, names and nomenclatures and, as a first edition, is a fine addition to any library.