Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army is a fairly recent addition to my collection. I picked it up after it was cited on my favorite blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog by Prof. Bret Devereaux. The book comes up fairly regularly in ACOUP (I love that initialism) when talking about how much armies eat, and how fast they can move. After seeing, it comes up a bunch (at least 5 times) I decided to pick it up, and I did not regret it.
Great color choice here, and very nice image selection.
I have to applaud Donald Engels for doing something I have never seen done before. Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army is a logistic narrative. It tells the history of Alexander's campaign in the Persian empire entirely based on how the army was supplied and moved. This approach is deeply fascinating because it covers the parts other narratives would brush over, and skips over what others would narrate. That means it deals with the day-to-day experience of the army much more than a focus on the battles would. It is important to remember that until the First World War battles would be a rare experience for the soldier. How they got their food, how they marched, and what effect this had on the local population, are the majority of soldiers' experiences. The battle is not going to be fought if the army cannot get there in order to fight it. 
I love the reversal of the colors on the back cover too. Great graphics design.
Indeed Engels makes a point that Macedonian logistics were at least as revolutionary as anything they did on the battlefield. No greek army could have done what Alexander did, and because its logistics could support the rapid conquest of a disintegrating Persian empire the Macedonian king created the Hellenistic world. The hidden secret of greatness, do the basics really well. It is important to be reminded of, even if Putin's war is also serving that point with comparisons of the Americans and the Russians. American technology is not so much different from Russian technology, but the American army has fought three successful lightning campaigns in thirty years halfway across the globe while the Russians failed to do one against their neighbor because the Americans can do the logistics, and the Russians can not.
While the book was an interesting read it also left me wanting more. There are so many histories that go over the fighting again and again. It would be a nice change of pace to read a history that covers the logistics of say, the allied advance across Europe after D-Day, or the epic campaign across the Pacific. The two-ton truck might not seem impressive compared to a Tiger tank, but it certainly got the job done. I think that is a good review to leave on a book that was written very academically. I found most of the books written like this to be much less inspiring.
So I would have to recommend Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. Not only is it a welcome difference from most military histories, but it also contains important information about how armies worked before the internal combustion engine. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to understand how armies of the past worked. It helps that it is on the short side, so it is not a big ask to read.
Now on to the next book. I didn't get any books for Christmas this year, same as most every year, but I am still working through a number of recent real-world book acquisitions. Of course, it goes without saying that my ebook collection cannot stop growing, especially with the large number of interesting books available on Kindle for quite cheap, but this section of the blog is focused on books I can smell. Maybe Ill cover ebooks on this blog as well in the future. 
That's a nice painting. The painting as cover is a bit lazy but effective.
I rolled up The American Indian Wars by John Tebbel & Keith Jennison. The subtitle on the front cover reads "The conquest of America by the white man revealed in all its drama, cruelty, and heroism." Oof. Copywrite MCMLX or 1960 in useful numbers. Hopefully, it is more even-handed than the year and that subtitle would lead me to expect. I am cautiously hopeful. Though I am an American I have not really engaged with much of my own country's history because I found it so boring. I blame the fact that between first and third grade we covered the period between 1776 and 1900 at least three times.
