Stephenson, Michael 1946-

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Stephenson, Michael 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born 1946.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Writer and editor. Military Book Club, Mechanicsburg, PA, editor, 1995-2000.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Roger Hearn) The Nuclear Case Book, F. Muller (London, England), 1983.

(With John Weal) Nuclear Dictionary, Longman (Harlow, Essex, England), 1985.

(Editor) Battlegrounds: Geography and the History of Warfare, with introduction by Robert Cowley, National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2003.

Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Michael Stephenson is the author of Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought, "a well-documented, entertaining and mildly revisionist military history," a critic for Publishers Weekly observed. In an essay on the Military Book Club Web site, Stephenson remarked that he had become increasingly dissatisfied "with what seemed to me to be a sort of mummification by veneration in many histories of the War of Independence. Assumptions and conclusions, it seemed to me, were too often passed on uncritically." In Patriot Battles, the author analyzes the "nuts-and-bolts" of the American Revolution, noting who the soldiers were, what weapons they used, and what food they ate. "This is a book of details," wrote Bruce Ramsey in the Seattle Times. "The chapter on artillery discusses injuries to men who tried to stop rolling cannonballs by blocking them with their feet. It was a way to lose your foot. The chapter on food discusses the effects of a shortage of salt on the spoilage of meat." "By taking us on a ground-up look at the opposing armies and choosing a generous and eye-opening assortment of anecdotes culled from letters, diaries and memoirs," noted Desmond Ryan in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Stephenson artfully raises the harsh realities that played such a pivotal role in the outcome of the lofty strategies of the commanders." Stephenson also examines the major battles of the conflict, including Bunker Hill and Yorktown. According to Ryan, "The intimate knowledge of day-to-day life in the ranks that Stephenson has given us in the earlier section refreshes our grasp of each battle."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, October 15, 2003, Edwin B. Burgess, review of Battlegrounds: Geography and the History of Warfare, p. 79.

Philadelphia Inquirer, July 4, 2007, Desmond Ryan, "Our Revolution, Seen Anew from Grunt Level," review of Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought.

Publishers Weekly, January 8, 2007, review of Patriot Battles, p. 40.

Seattle Times, April 20, 2007, Bruce Ramsey, "Taking Disney out of America's Home-Turf War," review of Patriot Battles.