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George S. Patton, one of the United States’ greatest field commanders, played a vital role in American involvement in World War I and the creation of the United States Tank Corps. While most literature focuses solely on Patton’s life and performance in World War II, the Great War was a pivotal event in his life and military career. Patton gained his first command in World War I with the United States Tank Corps. As the first “tanker” in United States Army history, Patton set up the first American light tank school and later commanded the 1st Tank Brigade in two campaigns, St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne offensive. The study focuses on Patton’s personal life, his decision to push for an assignment with John J. Pershing, and his roles as a staff officer for the American Expeditionary Force and ultimately as a small unit commander pioneering a new weapons system..

A safety pin was all that kept Spectacular Bid from racing immortality. On the morning of the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel in horse racing’s prestigious Triple Crown, Spectacular Bid stepped on a safety pin in his stall, injuring his foot. He had won the first two races in impressive fashion but finished third that day, losing his chance for a Triple Crown. But that did not stop him from becoming one of horse racing’s greatest competitors—in fact, in the words of his trainer, Grover “Bud” Delp, he was “the greatest horse ever to look through a bridle.” The battleship-gray colt won twenty-six of thirty races during his career, with two second-place finishes and one third. He was voted the tenth greatest Thoroughbred of the twentieth century by Blood-Horse magazine, and the book A Century of Champions placed him ninth in the world and third among North American horses—ahead of the immortal Man o’ War. Spectacular Bid: The Last Superhorse of the Twentieth Century is the story of a horse that was owned, trained, and ridden by people who weren’t part of the Kentucky establishment. Harry Meyerhoff paid only $37,000 for Bid, but inspite of his less than stellar pedigree, he became one of racing’s immortals.

Before 1940, East Asia and the Pacific were contested regions. The United States vied with the Empire of Japan for the strategic domination of the Pacific Basin. To a lesser degree, the formerly hegemonic colonial powers of Britain, France, and the Netherlands still controlled portions of the region. At the same time, subjugated peoples in East Asia and Southeast Asia struggled to throw off colonialism. By the late 1930s, the competition exploded into armed conflict. Japan looked to be the early victor, but by 1945 the United States established itself as the hegemonic power in the Pacific Basin. New rivals, however, arose in the form of Communist and liberation movements on the Asian continent. In War in the American Pacific and East Asia, 1941–1972, editor Hal Friedman brings together nine essays that explore aspects of the Pacific War that remain understudied or, in some cases, entirely unexamined. Chapters present traditional subjects of the conflict in new ways, with essays on interservice rivalry and military advising, as well as unique topics new to military history, particularly the investigations of strategic communications, military public relations, institutional cultures of elite forces, foodways, and the military’s interaction with the press. Together, these essays firmly establish the Pacific War as the pivotal point in the twentieth century in the Pacific Basin.