Dr. Chambers was cited by the national organization of historians as the editor-in-chief of "The Oxford Companion to American Military History."
By:Al Wicklund
The work of a good part of the last 10 years a decade of many hours at the computer editing and rewriting parts of other historians’ contributions and writing 50 pieces himself has earned Cranbury’s John W. Chambers II the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for Military History.
Dr. Chambers was cited by the national organization of historians as the editor-in-chief of "The Oxford Companion to American Military History," a 916-page volume ranging alphabetically from Abrams (Gen. Creighton W.) to Zumwalt (Adm. Elmo R., Jr.).
He said the book contains more than 1,000 articles written by 500 authors. Because some authors didn’t deliver the expected articles, Dr. Chambers wrote more than he had planned.
He said, with the number of authors involved, a certain degree of slippage in meeting deadlines was to be expected.
Dr. Chambers said the major writers such as Stephen Ambrose who did a section on D-Day landings, John McPherson on the Civil War battle of Antietam, John Keegan on the changing experience of combat, Jean Bethke Elshtain on Jane Addams, Mark Noll on religion and war and Robert Utley on Sitting Bull delivered on time.
Profit was not a prime consideration for the authors.
"The writers were paid 8 cents a word; 25 cents per word is the usual commercial rate," he said.
"The book covers much more than generals, battles and campaigns. It’s a diverse approach to the military. I believe a title closer to what the book covers would have been ‘War, Peace and Society,’ " he said from his Cranbury home last week.
Dr. Chambers said many of today’s military historians, and "The Oxford Companion to American Military History," have expanded their view of the military, including studies of the armed forces as changing institutions opening their ranks more to groups such as women and blacks.
He said a study of military history also includes the opposing and modifying roles of dissenters, draft resisters and those with conscientious objections, as well as the weapons of war.
The book’s some 300 biographical entries embrace, in addition to generals, admirals and presidents, inventors and scientists and foreign leaders, friends and foes from George III to Saddam Hussein.
A college teacher since he was a doctoral student at Columbia University almost 30 years ago, Dr. Chambers had started his working life as reporter.
A graduate of Temple University, where he was a journalism major, he began as a newspaper reporter in California and then moved into television as a news writer-producer.
"California was active. Among the things we covered were anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. I started asking, ‘How did we get here? Where does this (particular news event) fit in the bigger picture? So, I started taking classes." Mr. Chambers said.
One degree led to another. He returned to the East Coast, earned his doctorate in history at Columbia and taught there for 10 years before joining the Rutgers faculty in 1982.
A former chairman of the Rutgers History Department, Dr. Chambers has written several books, including "To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America" and "The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920." His "To Raise an Army," published in 1987, won the Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award for that year.
Dr. Chambers is working on two books. He said one is on the ex-presidency, what happens to U.S. presidents when they leave the White House; the other is "All Quiet on the Western Front: The 1930 Motion Picture and the Image of World War I," about the landmark war movie and the representations of that war.