. . . And the Last First

Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point, by James S. Robbins (Encounter, 500 pp., $26.95)

AS any regular reader of National Review Online can tell you, James S. Robbins is a very talented and prolific writer. His skill is very much in evidence in this fascinating new book-part thumbnail biography, part social history of the U.S. Army in the 19th century and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point during its formative years, and part treatise on the nature of military leadership.

About the Author

Mackubin Thomas Owens

Mackubin Thomas Owens is a senior national security fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute , editing its journal Orbis from 2008 to 2020. A Marine Corps infantry veteran of the Vietnam War, he was a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College from 1987 to 2015. He is the author of US Civil–Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain.

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Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point, by James S. Robbins (Encounter, 500 pp., $26.95)

AS any regular reader of National Review Online can tell you, James S. Robbins is a very talented and prolific writer. His skill is very much in evidence in this fascinating new book-part thumbnail biography, part social history of the U.S. Army in the 19th century and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point during its formative years, and part treatise on the nature of military leadership.

About the Author

Mackubin Thomas Owens

Mackubin Thomas Owens is a senior national security fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute , editing its journal Orbis from 2008 to 2020. A Marine Corps infantry veteran of the Vietnam War, he was a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College from 1987 to 2015. He is the author of US Civil–Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain.