R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd

Ever since early humanoids expanded their options from their bare hands to the use of rocks and clubs, the tools of war have been a part of human history.  The progress of the military arts has been enabled by technology change whether it be in terms of offensive weapons like siege guns, or defensive systems like fortifications and moats.  Over time, as technology improved, it has emerged as an important tool in military reconnaissance and general situational awareness.  Technology enabled expansion of the sphere of military operations, from the canning of foods to the establishment of rail transportation capable of moving masses of troops and equipment farther, faster, and in more quantity than by animal transports.  These same technological forces enabled mitigation of the human costs of war, through support to medical resources nearer the point of combat and quicker evacuation of casualties.  Technology has integrated geography more than might have been imagined at the dawn of the air age in the First World War.  Military strategists now address the AirLand Battle.  Joint staff plan military operations integrating naval assets (surface, subsurface, and air) with space-based assets, air forces, and ground forces.  Many would posit that technology, which created the potential for unprecedented mass casualties, like the firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg and the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has created conditions that constrain the extent of organized military violence; since the end of the Second World War, there have generally been shorter, less violent conflicts with fewer civilian casualties.  Others would say that the deterrence at the nuclear end of the range of violence merely redirected military operations from global to regional and local levels of conflict.

It is a matter of debate who, if anyone, is right about the costs and benefits of military technology or the consequences of specific developments from the machine gun to the medevac helicopter.  From a scholar’s, researcher’s, and book collector’s perspective, one can only jump up and exclaim “Yippie” or words to that effect.  There are few aspects of the broad fields of war, peace, and politics that have been written about more than technological change.  This discussion covers weapons, transportation, fighting vehicles, and intelligence systems.  It includes military medicine, remote sensing, and now unarmed and armed aerial vehicles.

What does this mean for you who are reading this column?  We can provide you with a reason to give thanks for tanks!  For orders through our website on items that address ANY ASPECT of military technology, you can claim a 10 per cent discount on each of these items or, for those who are not so technologically inclined, you can request a similar discount on orders of $100 or more.

Once again, many thanks for the past comments and suggestions.  Since there has been a groundswell of interest in the “peace” area of our “War, Peace, and Politics” specialties, we will devote our December column to the general theme of “Peace on Earth” (and in space, and undersea).  There are obvious elements that could be included—such as the famed Christmas truce on the Western Front in World War One, or the first Nobel Peace Prize.  All those who submit specific suggestions for this upcoming column will be given a coupon for a 5 per cent discount on a future order.

As we approach both Thanksgiving as well as Tanks-giving, the management and staff of Ground Zero Books, Ltd, again want to express our appreciation for your business and your suggestions.  While many believe that business on the internet is impersonal, or less personal than the face to face encounters at a brick and mortar location, that has not been our experience.  We are thankful for the opportunities you give us to help you solve problems or to bring joy to yourself or others.  We have express mailed books to college students when a report deadline loomed!  We have sent a book to India so that it could be signed by its author who would soon be visiting our customer.  We have been humbled by requests to expedite delivery of an item intended to bring cheer to a gravely ill friend of our customer.  We recognize that we touch people through our work in ways we know and in ways we may never know.  We pride ourselves on our customer service, and even more so on the opportunity to be of service to our customers. We hope, as we enter this holiday season, that you have much to be grateful for—more than the leaves on the trees (or on the ground, depending on your location) and the stars in the sky.

R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

Wow!  Many thanks for that fantastic response and creative trolling through our database.  For those of you who took advantage of our discount offer, we hope you enjoy the books, pamphlets, and the odd pieces of ephemera and memorabilia we have shipped to you.  As we did last month, we are continuing to offer the following inducements:  If you can suggest an equal or better sentence using the word “out” with a designated letter, we will grant you a 5% discount on an item of your choice.  If you use the word “out” in a sentence that references one of the items currently offered for sale through our website, we will give you 10% off an item of your choice or if you buy that particular item that you reference, 10% off your entire order.  In order to be fair to the numerically minded, we will also grant a 5% discount upon request and reference to this column for any book with a number in its title.

We covered the letters A-M in the last column, so this month we start with the letter N.  Like last month, when we discussed the blackout and the effect of war on the home front, it was difficult, more in Europe than in the U. S., to live normally in wartime.  Rationing, curfew, multiple war daylight savings time, and the industrial mobilization made an evening’s entertainment, a “night out,” something rarer and an experience to savor. Not everyone supported the war, and even some who did as a matter of conscience elected not to enlist or agree to fight; in terms of military service, they chose to “opt out.”  This has been true in many wars—Sergeant Alvin York started out as a conscientious objector, and folks fled to Canada during the Vietnam War.  There is a substantial body of both academic literature and political polemics on the nature of Just Wars, the duty of citizenship, and the duty of protest.

For those who have chosen to serve, the array of military technology available is impressive.  Over the centuries we have seen improvements in weapons, weapon systems, military logistics, military transportation, military medicine, etc.  As the new are developed, tested, and adopted, the older versions are “phased out.”  Military movements have evolved from walking and sailing on galley ships to the modern air transportation and armored vehicle and helicopter insertions of troops.  However, when modern technology is not available, service personnel will always be able to “quickstep out” to strengthen a position. While much of military history can be told in terms of standing armies, major battles and campaigns, there has always been guerrilla warfare–low intensity conflict, tribal conflicts, partisan warfare, underground movements, and insurgencies.  There are typically two contending forces—those who infiltrate and seek to defeat the stronger, more equipped, more disciplined foe, and the dominant political and military establishment that seeks to “root out” these insurgents.  Sometimes the State wins, sometimes the insurgents overthrow the existing regime.  In this regard, is Fidel Castro that different from George Washington?

A lot of what we have been discussing has been the war part of war, peace and politics.  Politics and political discourse have been equally significant over time.  There have been great speeches for and against war, soaring rhetoric on victories, and graciousness in defeat.  Leaders and citizens, soldiers and generals all have had opportunities to “speak out” and be heard throughout world history.  One of the results of political speech, of negotiations, of diplomacy can be the suspension of combat, rather than its conclusion.  We have armistices and truces, which provide a temporary respite whether for a day to treat the wounded left on the battlefield, or for decades as on the Korean peninsula.  These suspensions of combat are, of course, “time outs.”

Intelligence activities encompass not only military scouting and reconnaissance, but also secret agents, clandestine meetings, and covert signals, such as taking an “umbrella out” with you when going for a stroll.  How many times in the history of warfare did is seem like one side was sure to lose, and then, through a combination of effective leadership, favorable ground, luck, and other intervention by the gods of war, did one side pull “victory out” of the jaws of defeat!  While many military encounters lead to the victory of one side or the other, a few lead to catastrophic losses—like the 500 Spartans, or Custer at the Little Big Horn.  Massacres occurred in the Indian Wars of the American West, and in towns like Lidice under the Nazis—the common thread was that the defeated did more than lose the day, they were “wiped out.”  Going back to when the gods of war were part of the pantheon of deities of the Greeks and Romans, one of the ways military history was taught was by reviewing major battles.  It was common then for students to take their “Xenophon out” to review his descriptions of battles and campaigns.  Since the earliest times, prisoners of war have been interrogated.  Some of the ancient methods would now be considered torture, such as “yanking out” a toenail.   As we reach the end of the alphabet, I find this exercise has been mentally exhausting, so I am going to stop and “zonk out.”

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this second part as much as we have enjoyed thinking it up.  We like to think of these columns as a form of verbal Cracker Jacks, where you may not know what it is, but you always know that there is a surprise inside.  So, if you want to purchase something and it does not qualify for any of the other incentives, if you tell us you read this column and ask for the Cracker Jack discount, we will take 5% off the most expensive item in your order.  Thanks again for all the feedback and suggestions.

R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

This month’s column was suggested by a customer of long standing who has traveled widely, and whose collecting interests are matched by his linguistic prowess.  He suggested that we go “All Out” to craft a column that uses the word “out” with another word and to cover the entire alphabet.  Furthermore, he suggested that the sentence in which we use the “out” word should highlight something related to war, peace, and politics.  In order not to generate too long a missive, we will divide the alphabet in half, and do A-M this month and N-Z subsequently.  To make this even more interesting for you, our customers and fellow collectors, we are offering the following inducements:  If you can suggest an equal or better sentence using the word “out” with a designated letter, we will grant you a 5% discount on an item of your choice.  If you use the word “out” in a sentence that references one of the items currently offered for sale through our website, we will give you 10% off an item of your choice or if you buy that particular item that you reference, 10% off your entire order.  We hope that you will agree that this is both a hokey and clever way to encourage you to troll through our database.

Well, in terms of the first letter of the alphabet, it is clear that people are concerned when “All Out” war breaks out and there has been quite a large volume of professional literature written about global conflicts, limited wars, escalation, and containment to prevent the occurrence of war on unprecedented scale.  With respect to letter “B” we were frankly torn between “Black Out” and “Breakout”.  The term “black out” brings to mind the terror that seized great cities in the last century, a terror that was unique to the age of aviation warfare and electricity.  It brought the war home to every household.  In Europe, many things went bump in the night, followed by a flash, heat, and shockwave.  On the other hand “Breakout” has often been associated with the Allied Armies who landed at Normandy on D-Day and found themselves confined to the hedgerow country until they managed to breakout, after which the days of the Third Reich rapidly came to an end.  One of the things that helped enable the breakout was military intelligence, particularly reconnaissance—human intelligence where soldiers “Crept Out”‘ of their foxholes and did night patrols to locate and assess enemy positions and strength.  (We thought that was better than having a sentence about casualties and the damage of war and having the images creep out combatants and non-combatants alike).

Moving on to the letter “D,” C. E. Callwell’s classic “Experiences in a Dug-Out” brings the Western Front, the Dardanelles, and trench warfare to life as few if any other memoirs can.  It is not a great leap to the next term, “Eke Out.”  Victory in WWI was eked out at great cost in blood and treasure.  It was an unsatisfying and incomplete victory, essentially a conditional surrender, which planted the seeds for the Second World War and made essential the policy of unconditional surrender.  Proceeding through the alphabet, and considering the evolution of the psychological trauma soldiers experienced in the last century, from shell shock to combat fatigue to post-traumatic stress disorder, perhaps the phrase “Freak Out” is most fitting.  The field of military medicine has come a long way first in understanding and then in treatment.

Shifting gears, one of the hardest things for nations to do once in a war, is to find a way to “Get Out” of a conflict.  The entire fields of crisis management and conflict resolution are focused on avoiding military confrontation and then de-escalation and settlement.  The Vietnam War is often discussed as a quagmire that took years to get out of.  Juxtaposed to getting out is “Holding Out.”  Some of the most heroic episodes in humankind’s history have been when the few held out against the many—whether they were 500 Spartans or the soldiers, sailors, airmen, nurses, and auxiliaries who defended Bataan and Corregidor far longer than anyone had expected.  Who can forget the defenders at the Alamo who held out to buy time for Sam Houston to seize victory at San Jacinto?  Today more people remember the Alamo than remember the name of the battle that brought Texas its independence.  The Alamo was perhaps the most famous siege endured on the North American continent, but it was not the most famous siege in history.  Even after more than two thousand years, the siege of Troy remains an epic story, a legend retold originally in words, and now in works of print (and now film) in each succeeding generation.  The fall of Troy was not due to firepower breaching its fabled walls.  The ruse of the Trojan Horse led to its defeat from the “Inside Out” to the awaiting Greek hordes.  Or, for an alternate “I” usage, world history is replete with conflicts over religion, especially those that sought to stamp idolatry out! The letter “J” seems destined to be connected to Airborne Rangers, Paratroopers, and those other special forces who “Jump Out” of perfectly good airplanes.  Not all soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardsmen are perfect, or perfectly fit for the military life.  Whether for psychological reasons or as a result of formal military disciplinary action, servicemen and women are routinely “Kicked Out” and given general discharge or less than honorable discharges.  Some who did not like this “Lashed Out” at the system of military justice, the Judge Advocate General organization, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  But in the end, after appropriate appeals, higher authority typically determines that the punishment “Meted Out” was in fact warranted and appropriate.

And so, we have come to the midway point in this experiment.  We look forward to hearing from all of you and hope that you are enticed to spend many happy minutes doing key word searches and subject matter searches and will find items of interest.  At the end of the process, of course, we hope you are not “Worn Out.”

R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

From the time of Caesar Augustus, through the sounds of the guns of August, to the depredations of Augusto Pinochet, the month of August has been a time of portent, torment, moment, and for some happy book-buyers a time of “contentment.”

Whether the topic is war, peace, or politics, the dog days of summer evoke more than just the exploits of the K-9 Corps.  Robert Graves’ classic I, Claudius brought to generations a sense of the military prowess of the Roman Republic as its political intrigue during the reign of Augustus led to its descent into the Roman Empire.  Barbara Tuchman’s work, The Guns of August, has helped teach succeeding generations about the false assumptions and miscalculations that undid diplomatic initiatives and led to a war by timetable—perhaps the first time military logistics took substantial decision-making away from the political leadership.  This technological escalation and time compression for making choices still speaks volumes to the generation that lived through the cold war, the emergence of proxy wars and regional conflicts, and the brinkmanship of crises like the missiles of October.  (Unfortunately Khrushchev and Kennedy did not have the foresight to have this crisis also occur in the month of August.) 

What about peace?  Well, Japan was defeated in August 1945 and—coupled with the surrender of Germany, that defeat enabled the creation of the United Nations as a successor to the League of Nations, it ushered in expanded collective security agreements, and it led to the greatest humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts the world had even seen.  After a series of increasingly violent and global conflicts dating from before the Napoleonic Wars, the end of World War II two led to an unprecedented period of general global peace.  Containment, deterrence, détente, mutual assured destruction—characterized as the cold war—was also a period of general peace that enabled significant economic, technological and social change to occur.  Colonial war, wars of national liberation, and regional conflicts like the Korean War, Vietnam War, Falklands War, and minor military operations such as occurred in Grenada, Haiti, and Panama, and ethnic conflicts in Ireland, the Middle East, and the Balkans prevent anyone from claiming that we have lived in a period of complete peace—but given the millions of soldiers and civilians who died in the First and Second World Wars, we have lived in a sustained period of comparative peace.  And there are plenty of memoirs, unit histories, and analyses of these lesser conflicts and social science and sociological studies on the degree of peace, the degree of war, and the degree of risk the world has experienced since the atomic bombs put an end to World War II and ushered in the era of nuclear weapons as the greatest threat and the greatest protector in world history.

August is also the period of American major party political conventions.  The nomination process has evolved from candidates sitting at home rocking on their front porches through smoke-filled rooms and delegate battles, to the current era where conventions typically decide nothing but instead ratify the results of the primary and caucus process.  We are unlikely to see another convention go to 103 ballots!  The play “The Best Man” is now an anachronism, a civics lesson that is a snapshot of a time gone by, displaced by media buys, telegenic candidates, and unrelenting news coverage of campaign commercials which feature both Paris Hilton and policy addresses on economic stimulus (guess which got more air time and which images were used more!)  Political campaigns have often led to ‘campaign biographies’ and candidates publishing books laying out their vision, their plan, and if the sales are high enough, their big pay-out whether they win or lose.  In addition to the buttons and bumper stickers one can now buy playing cards or collector’s editions of bubble-gum cigars with the candidate’s image imprinted on them. 

Now, as some of you have noted in your comments on previous monthly columns, we take the opportunity in these missives to shameless flog the depth and breadth of our collection, and to highlight a range of specific items that can be found by trolling through our website.  We also provide, we hope, opportunities to smile at some things, to consider some things, and to become curious about other things.  Let me end by assuring you that next month’s column will be somewhat different, since the month does not lend itself to as wide a swath as August has taken above.  You might be somewhat terrorized by references to Black September, but in general we will till a different thematic field.  As we always do, we encourage you to submit ideas for this column or other suggestions.  To see if you have read this to the end, we will provide a coupon for a 10 per cent discount on your next purchase if you send in a suggestion for the September column.  If your suggestion is selected, you will get a coupon for a 20 per cent discount on your next purchase.  Now, aren’t you glad you got to the bottom line?

R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

We had a number of ideas for this month’s column—Fourth of July and the American Revolution, July for Julius Caesar, or other ideas that we could riff on–to highlight both the depth and the breadth of our holdings.  However, fundamentally the summer is a time to kick back, relax, and truly engage in the pursuit of happiness!

Often the pursuit of happiness involves spending not only time but money.  The price of gas requires no comment from us—it provides challenges for many and opportunities for some.  Rather than have travel make your hair curl, curl up with a book.  Rather than drive hours to visit a historic site or battlefield, delve into a personal memoir of the event and get a sense of place and time and context with the turn of a page and not after hours at the wheel!  Rather than working yourself into a sweat getting there, find an instant “sweet read.”

Reading, second hand is good for the environment—no additional trees gave their lives, or limbs, in the resale.  The recycling of books as reading material and collectibles prevents both the loss of knowledge and the overfilling of land fills!  Buying used books is GREEN, no matter what color the binding!  From a nutritional perspective, if only intellectual nutrition, books are intrinsically good as they are HIGH IN FIBER!  Reading books can be demonstrated as an extremely healthy past-time!  Except for those few drivers who operate a motor vehicle while reading, reading is not associated with traffic accidents!  While there are risks of overexposure to the sun (for those who read outside) and the occasional paper cut, reading can be shown to be safer than most other summer activities.  Reading is not with risks—such as over-stimulation when one reads about a climactic battle, or an advance in weapons technology, or the resolution of a crisis like the Missiles of October.

Portion control is another issue.  The news inundates us with concerns over obesity, over-eating, and super-sizing.  Other than books like The West Point Fitness and Diet Book, we really do not have much on the topic, but we do understand portion control.  Your choices range from large, multi-volume sets, to thick tomes, to standard size hardbacks, to paperbacks, to professional journals.  One can fit one’s time into what you choose to read or choose to read based upon the time you have!

Now, to be fair, we need to further address the environmental impact of reading books, journals, pamphlets, broadsides, and other printed matter.  If one is not careful the reader may find him or herself  a more engaging conversationalist, more fascinating at summer picnics or seasonal parties, able to make intriguing connections between current events and the historical fabric of our world, or capable of  amusing and amazing others with anecdotes and observations from Alexander the Great to ethnic issues in Zagreb.  It is possible that by “stepping it up a notch” others will follow suit, and the environmental impact of increased reading will have the magnitude of Global Climate Change while reducing global warming because those who read more spend less time driving and using gas.  It is our duty as world citizens to do what we can to save the planet.  We are here to help by providing you all with already produced books and materials that generate even more positive energy and value when consumed by voracious readers.  So, without consideration of radios, ipods, televisions, or other electronic devices, let’s start the summer festivities by “turning up the volumes”!

R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

Many of us remember, only four years ago, watching the networks switch from covering the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy to the final hours of former President Ronald Reagan and then the tributes, ceremonies, and state funeral that followed. This is just one example of the stark interweaving of the military and the political. Clausewitz wrote that “War is politics by other means.” For much of the 19th century, historians focused on the lives of Great Men, and biography was a dominant form of historical writing, whereas today historians delve into social as well as political history, and study mass movements as well as seminal figures.

In drafting these monthly messages, I have been gratified by the feedback from the earlier postings and have appreciated all the intriguing suggestions. Many of these suggestions reflect the particular interests of some of our customers—whether to suggest that in July we focus on Gettysburg or the American Civil War, or that this month we address the military planning, military training, logistics management, innovative technology, military deception schemes, etc. of Operation Overlord leading up to the Normandy invasion. I intend to resist these suggestions because the field of war, peace, and politics should not be so easily encapsulated and—frankly—we have thousands of titles in so many areas that I want to take the opportunity to expose you to other areas you may want to delve into. We celebrate diversity not only in terms of our world, our nation, and our culture—but in terms of what we seek to provide to you.

I have been spending a lot of time recently, reacquainting myself with our extensive holdings—we have over 40,000 titles on line, and perhaps another hundred thousand items waiting to be put into our database. Our construction project will significantly expand our warehouse area, and has been a wonderful supplement to my gym membership. I am enjoying the opportunity to reacquaint myself with some of our more unusual items in stock. We have an Alan Bean astronaut action figure (I have been told that these are not ‘dolls’!), a bumper sticker from Lanny Davis’ Congressional campaign, letters from a Nurse who served during the First World War, pamphlets from the period of the Centennial of the American Revolution, battle studies, combat memoirs, political treatises, Congressional hearings and reports, signed Presidential, Senatorial, Congressional items, anti-war ephemera to highlight just a few. We have variants of specific items, where the differences may be hard and soft cover (often with additional material), signed by the author, signed by a famous owner (such as Howard K. Smith, David Brinkley, or General William Odom), pirated editions, foreign editions, with or without dust jacket, or copies in substantially different condition. We have found that you, our customers, are as diverse in your interest in the form and condition of our items as in the subject matter. We seek to understand so we can continue to deliver outstanding customer service. As many of you know, we will e-mail a notification of items believed to be of specific interest a short time prior to our uploading process to the internet. We also seek to know your wants—and often we are able to survey the stock not yet in the database and find items in the words of one of our British customers that were “spot on.” We have developed, over the thirty years we have been serving our customers, an extensive set of relationships with other specialist book dealers from the Virginia Tidewater to Tokyo, from Annapolis to Australia. We are not always successful in tracking down requested items, but we have a good batting average. We are tenacious—one institutional client provided us a want list of 30 some items, and we were able to provide the last one in just a shade less than 5 years!

So, back to June, D-Day, Ronald Reagan, and you. As with every month, there are gobs (a technical term somewhat less specific than ‘mounds’) of material with a connection to June. The Arab-Israeli conflict called the Six Day War was fought in June. As those who have followed the current U. S. Presidential primary campaign are aware, the California Primary in 1968 was held in June, and after winning it Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated by the Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. Many battles were fought in June, as we recall that before the advent of modern technology armies did not fight ‘all-weather’ warfare. Winter Quarters were just that, where the army stayed for the winter. Battles such as Washington Crossing the Delaware to attack Trenton were an anomaly. Before the Germans attached the Allies at the Battle of the Bulge (trying to reverse the effect of the Normandy invasion) one had to go back to 18th Century Prussia to find a winter campaign waged by a German Army. Many of the “Great Lives” were born in June, and probably a similar proportion died in June, as did President Reagan. Diversity is not only in the mind of the beholder—it is in the heart of the requester. So, as you enjoy the delights of summer that June brings to us, we hope that you will continue to plumb the depths of our website, continue to e-mail us to the effect that “I see that you have item X, might you also have the other one that is on the same topic or by the same author.” We also solicit your general and specific want lists or requests for specific items, as well as your suggestions for future monthly musings!

R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

We appreciate all the suggestions we receive for these monthly website columns. The idea for this present column comes from a collector who started in 1959 with a grandparent’s gift of a book on Lincoln during the ‘run-up’ to the Civil War Centennial. Our friend suggested that the word “May” was inextricably woven throughout the literature of war, peace, and politics. After a little thought on the concept, we agreed and offer the following as evidence—and the hope that no one will be ‘dis-Mayed’ by this discourse!

In terms of war, perhaps there is no more chilling call from a stricken plane, vessel, or combatant than “May Day.” Those two short words, just those two short syllables with a pause in the middle, convey incredible tension, urgency, danger, and the risk or certainty of harm or death. “May Day” is at once a notification of peril and an appeal for aid. In many cases it is a call to action on those who hear it. Sadly, also in many cases it is the last words uttered by those in imminent danger. More by tone than by language, it is a call that is almost universally understood.

In terms of politics, May Day was the ultimate socialist and communist holiday of the twentieth century. It was symbolic of an aggressive, at times utopian, and ultimately unsuccessful political movement that mobilized millions across diverse countries and cultures and was remarkable as a transnational political movement. Its anthem, fittingly, was ‘The International.’ While envisioned as an alternative to nationalism, communism as practiced in the last century became defined largely in nationalistic and imperialistic terms—with the Soviet Union replacing the failed Russian Empire and China supplanting the Manchu with its own communist hegemony that sought to expand its borders. While ultimately failing to sustain its momentum in open democratic political processes, for a large part of the last century millions were mobilized in Western Europe, Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere and demonstrated their mass appeal in May Day rallies; at the same time the Soviet Union paraded its military process in an annual demonstration of weaponry and technology at the Kremlin’s Red Square.

In terms of peace, the word “May” has been pervasively used. Fundamentally, the arms control advocates were concerned about avoiding a nuclear holocaust that ‘may’ come about through escalation, miscalculation, or accident. In addition to some alignment with May Day observances (perhaps an indication of the influence of communist propaganda campaigns), the May Pole also figures prominently in some peace activities. Going back centuries as initially a pagan tradition, during the era of the English Civil War maypole dancing was turned into a symbol of resistance to the Long Parliament and to the republic. In the era of the ‘flower children’ and the Vietnam antiwar movement, maypole dancing and associated symbolism flourished and was captured by film and video unavailable to the protesters of the Roundheads and Cavaliers’ time.

May is also a central measure of time—the month of May. It is a period of the year when for centuries there were opportunities for intense military activity. May was a period when the time for winter quarters was long past. It reflects late spring, a period when land campaigns were conducted in earnest. Immersed in modern ‘all weather’ technology, we can forget that for most of mankind’s military history, the time of year was the enabler or the delayer of military operations. After geography—terrain—the season of the year was perhaps the dominant factor in planning and conducting military operations on land.

The word ‘May’ is not only a specific item, such as May Day, a distress call, a maypole, etc., it is also a conditional concept. Something ‘may’ occur. It thus embodies chance and uncertainty not found when one states that something ‘will’ occur. It can be conditional in terms of cause, effect, or both. If Hitler had executed Operation Sealion, he might have conquered England, then fought a single front war against Stalin, and ended up ruling more of the globe than Alexander the Great ever dreamed of. The word ‘may’ is the mother’s milk of war gamers, alternative historians, fiction writers, and futurists like the late Herman Kahn.

Additionally—I will not say lastly—May is a name. Whether it is Michael May, one of the giants of the nuclear weapons program who served in senior positions at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Department of Defense, or Ernest May who has co-edited the tapes of President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, or

Earl May who has co-authored one of the more intriguing works on human security, in the form of a study of the Prudential Insurance firm. The word May is not only a name complete in and of itself, but is also the root of many other names from Mayfield to Mayer, and I will not hold the “Mayo.”

And so, dear friends and colleagues, I offer the above thoughts for your reading enjoyment and cogitation. That is, of course, if I may….

By R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

There is something about completing the month of March that provides a sense of accomplishment and relief—at least to these booksellers.

As military and social historians, and purveyors of fine and collectible books for three decades, we recognize how central the word “March” is to our business, and how it reflects the diversity, intensity, and curiosity of you, our customers.

Clearly we have:  The March of Time.  Within our stock we have many historical surveys, country studies, and thematic epics whose subject matter spans decades, centuries and even millennia.  We also have technology items which capture the ingenuity and impact of improved measurement and precision, especially in the area of chronology.  We also have a few items in which the issue of time is of manifest or sublime importance—such as in Stewart’s work on Pickett’s Charge where his analysis indicated that the Union and Confederate armies set their watches about 20 minutes apart!

March is a distinguished name associated with war, politics, and popular culture.  Peyton C. March was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the First World War  period (Pershing got all the press and a missile named after him, too.)  Frederick March was a noted and notable actor who played Presidents.  Then again, there was the March Hare—but I won’t go there.

There are political marches, peace marches, protest marches, diplomatic demarches, Mao Tse-tung’s (Zedong) Long March and of course that medical condition  of temporary insanity and insatiable television watching afflicting sports fans called March Madness.

Then, of course, there is the military march—the advance of armies, the military music, the fleeing vanquished, the struggling refugees, the mass migrations of humanity and the supply, logistics, and transportation challenges intrinsic to both staff planned movements and exoduses of biblical proportions.  Within our holdings we can trace the evolution of military logistics from Roman soldiers building their roads, through eruptions of territorial expansion like the Huns and Mongols, through the advent of horse-drawn field artillery, through railroads and troop transport by ship, to the modern pre-positioning of supplies and airlifting of troops into combat regions.  And then there is the music—Sousa! Irving Berlin!  The patriotic legacy of George M. Cohan.  Music that provided cadence for marching soldiers and music that also energized the home front from factory to fireplace.  Music that started around Civil War campfires and has been reinvented and reinvigorated through Edison’s early music cylinders, through records, taps, disks and now CDs, videos, IPODs and perhaps someday direct telepathic transmission from the artists to the audience (shades of George Orwell rather that George Cohan on that one!)  While music is not our specialty, we have some records of military marches, books with fife and drum music, regimental tunes in unit histories, and music in drill and ceremony manuals.

March is, of course, a month as well and one noted for a variety of military and political events.  Originally, American Presidents were inaugurated in March (this changed due to improved transportation and communications when Franklin Roosevelt was guiding us through the New Deal).  Lincoln’s second inaugural inspirational masterpiece—with malice toward none, with charity for all—were first uttered in the middle of March before a crowd that was only just beginning to believe that peace was within reach.  A far less happy time, however, were the Ides of March, if you were Julius Caesar.  So, March has been a memorable month since time began to be reckoned, since Greece and Rome set the western world on the course of civilization as we think we know it, and since people have looked upon March as the gateway to Spring, a time of new beginnings, and the start of military campaign seasons for countless generations.  Studies of battles long ago through Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Falklands, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan populate our shelves until they march through the mails to new homes.

We have appreciated the feedback we have gotten from long-standing customers and new ones on our redesigned and revamped website.  The suggestions for themes for this and future columns have been much appreciated.  In future we may focus our comments on a specific period, topic, or genre but for now we seek to use this space not only to address the breadth and depth of our holdings, but to engage with you in a bit of wordplay and  hopefully to encourage the broadest possible application of terms.  Whether you think we succeed or not, please march right up to us and let us know.

By R. Alan Lewis
President, Ground Zero Books, Ltd.

In over fifty years of book collecting, and three decades as a professional bookseller, I have come to believe that the value of an item is, and ought to be, solely in the eye of the beholder, the searcher, the collector, the purchaser, or the next owner. That is what has made the past decades so much fun. As a collector, it is “the find.” As a book seller, it is being able to provide to you, our customers, that intangible surge of pleasure, satisfaction, or accomplishment through the transfer of something that is both tangible, and at the same time, depending on content, possibly quite transcendent.

It has been quite a challenge, over the past thirty years, to make and maintain connections. It is not always possible. Some transactions are a simple purchase, with no insight into the intentions or desires of our customer. In other cases, we have worked for decades with individuals and organizations, coming to recognize items of likely interest to specific customers and giving them “first crack” before the item was uploaded. Frankly, these transactions are more fun!

As we unveil the most recent redesign of our website, it seemed opportune to introduce ourselves to those who have not worked with us before, and to remind our friends of the breadth and depth of our holdings and of our commitment to customer service.

My wife and business partner, Lynne Haims, and I are trained historians. While we have spent most of our lives in the United States, we have lived abroad (and in fact met overseas). Over time we have developed an extensive network of colleagues among the bookseller community all over the world. This enables us, with a few e-mails, to survey the globe quickly to search for an elusive item someone desires. We do not always succeed, but our “batting average” would compare well with many of those in Cooperstown.

The focus of our business has been “War, Peace, and Politics.” This specialization has led us to have an incredibly diverse stock. We have over 40,000 items catalogued on line, and perhaps twice as many items waiting to be put into the database. We have large tomes, small pamphlets, technical manuals, historical non-fiction, and fiction. We have largely pictorial items and some works which, from my perspective, sorely needed some illustrations! We have found that our focus leads us to have a number of items that seemingly have no relation to war, peace, or politics. We have a lot on exploration, because many of the naval and land explorations were military expeditions. Medicine has always been advanced in terms of treatment and technology by war. Infectious disease was a specialty of Dr. Walter Reed. His work on typhus during the Spanish-American War changed both medical practice and military sanitation. Many novelists brought their war, or military, experience into their writing. Politics can lead to war; war has often enabled political careers. Peace can be seen as the absence of war, or it can be seen as a successor to war. Philosophy and religion struggle not only with war and peace but with the concepts of just and unjust wars. Does the technology of war save lives or massively increase the death toll? Probably both.

So, trolling through our holdings, I find an identification card for entry into the Peace Conference at Versailles from 1919, a plastic action figure (i.e., doll) of Astronaut Alan Bean, a pamphlet on a Revolutionary War topic from a Rhode Island bank, books signed by famous owners, by authors, or by the subject of the monograph. We have copies of a work in paperback, ex-library, first printings, later printings or later editions, and signed copies. We have often chosen to list simultaneously each of these, because they match different customer needs. Someone may only want content. Some find paperbacks easier to handle than hardbacks. Some later editions have added content (as do some paperbacks editions published after the hardback sales have slowed). Some people seek perfection in terms of condition. Some seek a clean signature on the title page, while others prefer the signature on the free end paper. We have had customers who seek inscribed copies where only the first name (matching theirs) is used. We also have some who collect publishers and have no real interest in the content of what was published.

Let me share with you a couple of matches that stand out from the rest. It turns out that we acquired two volumes of a three-volume set and wanted to see if we could find a copy of the last volume. We located it with a book dealer in Spain. The question arose as to whether he should buy our two volumes or we his. In order to make certain there were no unwelcome surprises, we mentioned that our volumes had very large bookplates inside the front covers. It turns out that his copy also had a large bookplate and it was a match —we were able to reunite the set separated for years and an ocean. Another time, we had a coloring book prepared by a high school in Pennsylvania (the town was near a military installation). Shortly after we listed it, the grandniece of the caption writer called with great excitement. The family had no copies of this coloring book and thought they would never find one. Their periodic book search yielded the “match” they had long sought.

As we turn the page into our 30^th year, and revitalize our website, we offer you the opportunity to explore with us our catalogue holdings and the thousands still “in the pipeline.” Ask us if we have that elusive odd volume of the George Washington Papers from the Government Printing Office published in the early part of the last century, or a NASA educational pamphlet from the Apollo Project era, or a letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover or Oscar W. Underwood, or whatever it is that has value to you and that you have or have long sought. We have succeeded over the past decades while many other booksellers have left the business. The keys to our success are an impressive and diverse stock and an unwavering commitment to outstanding customer service and follow-up. I hope you will give us a try.