Beating plowshares into swords
By: Paul A.C. Koistinen.
Series: Modern war studies
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Lawrence, Kan
Language: eng
Number of pages: 376
Subjects: War -- Economic aspects -- United States -- History; United States -- Defenses -- History
Other titles: Political economy of American warfare, 1606-1865
Description: Koistinen describes how an undeveloped "preindustrial" economy forced Americans to fight defensive wars of attrition like the Revolution and the War of 1812. By the time of the Mexican War, however, a gradually maturing economy allowed the United States to use a much more offensive-minded strategy to achieve its goals. The book concludes with an exhaustive examination of the Civil War, a conflict that both anticipated and differed from the total wars of the industrialized era.

Koistinen demonstrates that the North relied upon its enormous economic might to overwhelm the Confederacy through a strategy of annihilation while the South bungled its own strategy of attrition by failing to mobilize effectively a much less developed economy.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 285-356) and index.