Steady the Buffs

Military History is a niche publication in the best sense: directed at the general but educated and interested reader, hewing to high standards, written by persons competent in the field, it will not only please generalist 'buffs' but has on more than one occasion illuminated matters even for specialists. (Whoever said that 'if you cannot clearly explain to an interested, intelligent layman any matter on which you profess to be a an expert, it means you do not in fact understand your own subject' was dead on.)

It covers, obviously, military history, and is pleasantly free of the vice of undue concentration on the well known and the Anglo-American-centric: it has given space to Narses, Akbar, and Cao Cao just as it has to Haig, Patton, Bonaparte, Grant, and Lee. Its departments also assist in covering the range of military endeavor. It serves as a vindication of James McPherson's warning that only good writing combined with solid scholarship will prevent a disengagement between academic history and the popular mind - a prospect that cannot be regarded with equanimity in a republic.

It is not, obviously, nor does it mean to be the magazine of first resort for serious students of military history; its sister publications, Columbiad (on the War Between the States) and MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, with such other resources as Naval History and the Naval Institute's Proceedings, are among the readily available publications that do that. But it does what it sets out to do. It has over the years enlightened and informed. In short, it has maintained its objective and accomplished its mission. That always merits a commendation.