Military Review English Edition March-April 2016 | Page 135

BOOK REVIEWS

the Army applied new flash-freezing and freeze-drying methods, and it researched and implemented
new deboning methods. Also introduced was airtight
packaging, which was employed for bread, vegetables,
and snacks. With the end of World War II, food manufacturers focused their manufacturing and marketing
efforts on the consumer.
The author shows the significant impact of the
military on food science, the American diet, the military-culinary complex, the efficiency of American
agriculture, and new food-processing techniques. With
scratch cooking becoming a dying art, many of the
military techniques described in the book have been
adopted by commercial food service companies.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested
in the connections between the military and society.
My impression of this book is that is well researched
and written.
Lt. Col. David Campbell Jr., U.S. Army, Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas

AMERICA AND WORLD WAR I: A Traveler’s
Guide
Mark D. Van Ells, Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.,
Northampton, Massachusetts, 2015, 432 pages

M

ark Van Ells’s America and World War I:
A Traveler’s Guide is an excellent book that
skillfully executes the difficult task of combining the two genres of historical narrative and travel
guide. In setting out to mesh the two styles, the author
provides a great service to the reader without trying to
be definitive in either genre. Thus, Van Ells’s work is not
a traditional historical narrative with a thesis and supporting points, but it is scholarly and well researched,
and it reads well. In addition, it is not a traditional tour
book. Those looking for a guide to battlefield sites that
leads the tourist from historic location to location will
not find that here. However, Van Ells’s approach places
the locations into a more comprehensive context that
explains the importance of each site. Perhaps even
more important, his book explores scores of locations
beyond the well-known battlefields in France, locations
that provide fresh new looks at the entire American
war effort: an abundance of sites in the United States;
MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2016

airfields, training bases, and supply bases in France; and
even sites in Great Britain and Italy. As the author puts
it, “Great War history can turn up in the most unexpected places.”
The book is generally arranged chronologically,
but it includes topical chapters such as those on
Pershing, the American rear area, areas outside of
France, African-American troops, the war at sea,
and the air war.
The first four
chapters (almost
one-fifth of the
book) cover events
before American
units arrive in
France, which is
one of the great
strengths of the
book. These predeployment sections
examine ski